We have a surprise fish!

[WhenMarnieWasThere]

DD has a tank in her room and in it were 2 platy and 2 dannio. The platy seemed v calm and happy, but the dannios just didn't seem to have the room they needed to zip about, so were relocated downstairs into the 4 foot tank in the dining room. She replace the 2 dannio with another (donated) platy boy.

They seemed to stress out my calm and placid tank by zipping about and I hadn't actually wanted dannios, so I donated them to someone else.

Back to my DD's room.... I was helping her with a water change today. There, swimming among the platys and the plants was a tiny fry. It can only be a dannio fry as the platys are both female and the male hasn't been in the tank long enough to do the deed. It doesn't look like platy fry either.

So we can only assume that, unnoticed, the dannios must have been a male and female pair and they had spawned and this fab little fry is the result.

Awww......

DD is very proud of her 'baby' and is planning to keep it. :)

Danios can definitely breed in the home aquarium, and the platys definitely will (have you got a plan what to do with all the fry?). The females can store sperm for a while- how long have you had them?

If the fry is very tiny and you want to keep it then I'd get a breeding net so that he doesn't get eaten. And congrats to your DD on becoming a fish mum

I'm guessing it's a platy fry, females can store sperm for months so they don't need a male to make them pregnant.

Beware, fish will often eat their own babies

So if it goes missing suddenly, you'll know where it's got to...

We have had the female platys for months now and have only just, in the last couple of weeks, added the male. So that's too soon for platy fry. I know they can arrive pregnant, but this isn't the case or they'd have popped months ago.

The fry is too big to be eaten now but how it's survived long enough to get to that stage I don't know as there are a few plants in the tank, but not lots of places to hide. I'm pretty sure it's safe from being eaten at the size it is now though.

We do have a plan for the fry. DD2 has a tank ready and waiting and is impatient for them to do the deed and provide her with babies. We also have a large tank downstairs that will take extra fish. And our friendly fish shop owner will take donated fry. Or DD may sell them on the fb fish site.

Danios are egg layers so would seem a bit odd as you would have spotted the eggs.

I sell my fry on fb for sale pages though I had to give my guppies away last week as I was so over run and could not sell them.

They can store the sperm and get pregnant up to 6 months after being with a male. So if you've only had them a few months then it could definitely be them.

You may not have seen any danio eggs if the fish got to them first, so it could be a danio. Is there any chance of a photo? Then we'll know for sure. Also I like baby fish photos

Since having the male around, I've looked frequently at the platies to spot any sign of them being gravid and didn't see any. But I didn't pay any attention to the gravel area as I didn't think I needed to be looking out for eggs.

The only photo I have at the moment is a bit tricky to see. It doesn't look like platy fry to me. Time will tell, but it is silvery grey and does dart around a bit so I think it will grow up to be a dannio.

I'd be happy to be proved wrong and for it to be a platy though as we got rid of the dannios as they were stressing my community tank members out and we donated them to the fish shop. We don't want dannios, but DD2 wants to keep 'her baby'.

:) :)

Sounds cute

It's bigger and bolder now and freely swimming around the tank happily safe from all the inhabitants.

It's definitely a danio. Cute little thing.

It still won't be still enough for a decent photo. :)