Babies! Already!!!

So, guess what? Remember how I mentioned that they had the male and female guppies segregated at the aquarium shop? Well, it seems that they were a bit late... Sunday afternoon, I noticed that Gertie wasn't looking too well, and hanging around at the bottom of the tank at the back, behind a plant. Of course, I was expecting the worst, but the other fish seemed fine, so I went for a closer look.

Gertie seemed to be breathing and swimming ok, just laying low, resting, so I relaxed a bit. (I had earlier noticed Gav chasing her and hassling her out in an even more amorous fashion than usual, so I assumed she was just trying to stay away from him for a while.) It was then I noticed a strange motion in the plant, and then, a tiny little tail appeared quickly before ducking back into the safety of the plant. And then another. Pretty soon, I'd found four little baby guppies hiding themselves in various nooks and crannies around the tank.

Having had livebearers give birth before, I sprung into action and tried to catch what I thought must be the few surviving babies and separate them from their cannibalistic mother and tank-mates. I created a makeshift segregation tank for the babies out of a big fish scoop net that we have, with some rocks in the bottom to keep it below water and with plenty of room for them while I tried to work out what to do next.

It was too late to get to the aquarium shop for a proper fry tank, so I had to just turn off the light to calm the other fish down and give them plenty of extra food in the hope that they'd ignore any babies that I'd missed. It was then a matter of waiting out the night. Gertie seemed well, but tired, and quite small, so I assumed that she'd finished giving birth.

Morning came, and a quick check of the tank let me know something wasn't right. Entire sections of it seemed to be alive. There were literally dozens of baby guppies swimming around. I still don't know how she did it, I mean, she was quite small to begin with - When I brought her back from the shop, I didn't suspect for a second that she was pregnant - but now there were at least 30 baby guppies, literally infesting the tank.

What surprised me most was that Gav, Polly and Pat seemed to be pretty much oblivious to their new tankmates, although the babies were mostly smart enough to stay close to the plants and duck for cover when they came close.

Gertie was now looking well beyond tired. She was wrecked - pretty much just lying there on the bottom of the tank, gasping. She had obviously been picked on a lot by the other fish as she had a fairly serious-looking gash in her side where they must have been biting her. She didn't look well, and the other fish were still picking on her, so I decided that it was best to let the few babies I'd "rescued" last night free to swim with their brethren, and put Gertie in the isolation tank instead, to give her every chance possible of recovering, but I didn't hold out much hope...


The little babies seemed to be having a grand old time in the tank, and in their "grow to survive" mode, were ravenously attacking the algae on the plants, and any food I was able to crumble enough for them to get in their mouths in less than 5 bites. Apologies again for the photo - if you click on it you'll get a slightly larger version - the little brown-grey-silver specs/flashes are babies - there are about a dozen in that photo, which is just one little corner of the tank, but it really doesn't do them justice I'm afraid. They are very cute little things - fully functional, self-sufficient, zippy little mini fish from the second they are born... If only all children were so easy to look after!

The other fish still seemed largely oblivious, I guess that the cannibalism instinct only kicks in, when the system can't support the young - our tank, although relatively small (80L) still only had five inhabitants (plus several quite small snails) so I guess mother nature is letting us know that the tank's ecosystem is healthy, and there's room for a few more.

So, it is now 4 days on, and although I'm sad to say that Gertie didn't survive the night, the tank is now home to the remaining four original inhabitants (plus a still unknown, but not too large, number of snails) and Gertie's legacy of approximately 2 dozen rapidly growing babies. I say "approximately", because there is absolutely no way to count them reliably at this stage - they all look pretty much the same, are still quite well camouflaged, and those that you do spot definitely do not stop their zipping around for long enough to count. They are mostly approaching 1.5 cm long at the moment (up from less than 1cm when they were born) and some do seem to be gradually getting some markings and patterns, so maybe in another few days I'll be able to give you a slightly more reliable count.

So, that's enough rambling from the proud grandfather. I guess the trip to the shop to get some more exciting, exotic fish is just going to have to wait until we see how many of these guys survive to adulthood, and much room is left in the tank when they do. This is far more exciting and rewarding really - who wants pretty, exotic, tropical fish when you can have a tank full of guppies that you've watched grow from tiny fry (I guess the aquarium shop dude did himself out of some money there ;-) I shouldn't get ahead of myself either though, of course. It is still a young, unstable tank, and babies are notoriously susceptable to instability, so keep your fingers crossed please, and watch this space for more updates.

BTW - I realise that the last blog left a few open questions. Such as:

• Why was I subconsciously harbouring a desire to have an aquarium? Well, that's a long story I guess, but I had a very cool aquarium when I was growing up. (Well, "had" part time, I guess - every second weekend down at Mum and Mr Hassell's place in Shoalwater - but that is an entirely different story that I won't go into here :-) In fact, I realise that I was very attached to that aquarium and my fish, and for quite a while I was lucky enough to even have it set up at the head of my bed... I remember vividly spending hours just lying in bed watching the beautiful fish. The gentle motion, sound of the filter and running water, the play of the light, and just the general other-worldliness of an aquarium is one of the most relaxing and therapeutic experiences I know of - Scuba diving is probably slightly more wonderful, but a hell of a lot more like hard work (thanks to Jim for getting me off my arse to do my first real scuba dive all those years ago BTW - can't wait to go with you again sometime mate.)
• Did the cleaner shrimp survive? YES!!!
• What is it's name then? Well, thanks to the drunks at Rotto, who insisted that we go with the Eastern European stereotype, her name is Olga (Apologies to any Eastern Europeans who read our blog and don't like stereotypes - I assure you that I don't either, and Olga is a fantastic addition to our family :-)