And while we were on vacation

Big Bertha, our female corydoras, was busy.
The day after we got home, she spawned. And spawned, and spawned. And spawned. I lost track at 200 eggs!

Not sure if any are fertile yet, but we watched her carefully carrying them in her fins and sticking them onto the glass yesterday, for quite some time.

Ok, I don't think any of that brood hatched. If they did, they were lunch for the others.

Last week Big Bertha spawned again. This time I saved some of her eggs and have had them in a fishnet in the water. Today we found that most of the eggs had fungused, but there were four little (and I do mean little!) albino cory babies in the net!

Am hard-boiling an egg to put the yolk through a seive to feed them, and trying to find (quickly) a brood net for the tank, as they will outgrow the one they are in pretty quickly.  I added a little of the algae that grows on the thermometer probe, and a floating plant, to the net to both give them some hiding places and provide a nosh, if they can nosh on them. They are really, really small! Teeeeeeeeny little corys! Wow. Now to keep them alive....   

Good luck little fishes

Seriously. I've managed to get them hatched, and kept from being snarfed by the other fish. But they are soooo tiny, feeding is going to be tough. I've ordered liquid "fry" food and a bigger net from the interwebs, but it'll take time to get here. I hope they'll survive on the egg yolk.

Good luck little fishes

Yes! Good luck little fishies! 

The nursery netting cage arrived on Tuesday. I counted four viable babies when I transferred the little net to the big net cage. They are so tiny it's hard to spot them in the big net, but I'm sure there are at least two still alive, and the Daughter says she's thinking three. The fourth could have gone to fish heaven or be in there hiding under some of the moss (which would make it a smart baby).  Tried feeding them the boiled egg yolk but think it's kind of pointless as I can't get it mashed down small enough. Put some corydoras sinking algae wafers in there and am hoping they can feed on those, or on things living in/on the moss.

I wasn't able to see them when we got in late last night from Edinburgh, but the Daughter shined a small flashlight we have on them and said she could see the glint of their little pink eyes reflected, and it moved. So that's good!

At least two are still alive, and they are now large enough  to actually see with the magnifying glass. They are starting to look like tiny little albino corys! Not big enough to show up in a photograph, although I may try to take one and then enlarge it....

Baby cory at about three o'clock in the frame. It looks a bit like a blurry triangle with a tail. Big Bertha is at seven o'clock (and below the nursery net). Sinking pellet food is at about noon. Not the clearest of photos, but I had to enlarge it and then cut the file size to post it.

Teeny tiny! 

Definitely looking like little Corys now. The little pink eyes are really showing up. There are definitely two of them in there still. 
Just below the air bubble, and a little to the left.

Like a little pink tadpole! 

Oh, gosh, we just spotted a baby in the big tank, hiding under the moss ball. If we don't catch him he's going to get eaten - although he's done a good job of staying alive so far, so maybe not. He's devilishly hard to spot amongst the different colored pebbles in there.

Aaannnndddddd, Big Bertha is laying more eggs again today!         JeezusHKeyrist, all I did was change the water filter from one we had in the States to one that runs on local current. (So no need to route it through the transformer in the living room.)

Of course I've gotten a few of the eggs off the glass and added them to the nursery tank. I can't do them all, though - there are dozens.  I foresee the purchase of a proper tank later in the year. This little five gallon one isn't going to hold 8 (or more?) coreys and five neons. (The sixth neon is on his way to that big aquarium in the sky - he's been holding on for weeks but is now losing the battle, sadly.)

Sixth neon is still alive, barely. It moves its eyes to watch me, so I cannot flush it or put it in the freezer to assist it in its passing. But it is growing weaker by the day.    

The babies are still growing - the photo is still blurry because of the netting, but they are now about half the size of a neon tetra, and getting close to the size where they can join their parents (and still, amazingly, alive sibling) in the big tank. Maybe another week or so.

Most of the eggs in the tank that are glued to the glass are fungused, so the tank is about to have a serious cleaning. Which will probably cause Big Bertha to spawn again.    Obviously we are doing something right - I've never had corys spawning so often or so vigorously in all the years I've kept fish! Maybe it's the water here?

Ooh! Proper little fishy now!

Very sorry about sick fish. 

Ooh! Proper little fishy now!

Very sorry about sick fish. 

Yeah, s/he looks like a fish now, instead of a tadpole.   

The poor neon - it was the runt of those we initially got, and everytime an illness or disease ran through that tank, it hit him worst. He's not a particularly old neon - maybe a year and a half to two years old - too, so it's sad. But I've dosed him with every remedy I could get (or import from the USA since you can't get fish antibiotics here) and it has made no difference to him at all this time. Under good circumstances they can live to be ten.   

EDIT: Hah. I caught the baby that was loose in the tank. S/he is now in the nursery with the other two.