Oops! Ember Tetras Breeding Unexpectedly.

I never thought my ember tetras would be able to successfully breed in my tank. The water is pretty hard, it's a pretty new tank, with lights on in the room for probably 18 hours per day, and I only feed flake food. I've tried other foods, but they won't eat anything but flakes. Also, the plants are still young and not that dense. On top of all of that, I'd heard that tetras in general were hard to breed. I figured any and all spawning attempts would fail in this setup. I was wrong!

I've only had these fish for about 7 weeks, and already have one little ember fry who is (I think) big enough to swim around without fear of being eaten. He still hides mostly and doesn't school with the others yet, but I'm pretty sure he's big enough to be safe from predation.

I'm amazed! Is this normal? I'm also a little concerned because I have not been checking my waste water for fry when doing water changes. I guess I'll need to start! Anyway, no question here other than wondering if this is quite normal and I should prepare myself for a constantly growing school of embers in this tank, or if this is pretty rare, and no real concern of overpopulation. Also, just wanted to share my excitement at my first baby fish ever.

Feel free to throw your unexpected fry stories in here as well, I'd love to hear them!

 

Congrats on the fry, don't forget pics if you can get any, we like pics

 

How exciting. Congrats!

 

I have a really nice 25 gallon planted tank with 7 embers in it and some very active amano shrimp. This tank is so stable and calm. It really is nice. Parameters very stable. I expected the embers to breed but after a year, nothing. I am starting to think that the amanos are the problem. They are VERY active much of the time, especially when breeding. Perhaps they are ruining the romance for the tetras or perhaps they are eating the eggs? THoughts?

 

Shrimp will eat the eggs.

 

Shrimp will eat the eggs.

Thanks. I believe what you say. I read that shrimp leave viable eggs alone, but I don't believe it. My Amanos eat EVERYTHING and are voracious. Does it really make sense that they would ignore a delicious and nutritious egg? I highly doubt it. I'm going to relocate mine in the morning.

 

Oops! I didn't realize I had replies on this.
I find it very difficult to get pictures of these guys. Pretty much everything is blurry. I'll try to upload a couple. The baby is so cute, he's started swimming and eating with the adults now. But he's still the only one in that tank.

Meanwhile, my somphong's rasboras are breeding like crazy in the QT. I started with 8 fish 6 weeks ago and already have 5 fry of various sizes. I swear they spawn every day, I may need to get another tank if they keep this up! Definitely no pictures of these babies, they're nearly invisible, like little transparent eyelashes with eyeballs. LOL
My sister came over to see the fish yesterday, and she couldn't even see the adults until I pointed them out. These fish are really small!

The rasboras were intended for my fluval flex, but I didn't realize they wouldn't get any bigger. So now I'm thinking of putting them in the 10 gallon with the sponge filter instead, and moving the embers into the 15 with the pump filter. Not sure how the embers will be with the increased water movement, but at least the rasbora babies won't be getting sucked into the filter intakes.

Here is the baby in August when I first found him (just below center), and then the second picture is from this month now that he's swimming with the others (top of frame). He's still transparent, tiny, and moves fast, so it's tough to get any better pictures than this. Don't mind the one fat fish who looks ready to explode. I'll be starting a new thread on her.

 

Wow, I just found another baby ember. I've been looking really carefully for any further babies, haven't seen anything at all, and suddenly today I'm feeding and this baby swims across the bottom that's actually already pretty big. Not a whole lot smaller than the other one. I can't believe I've never spotted him before! He looks almost ready to start swimming with the big kids. This is crazy! If I'd known these guys would be having babies this fast I would have only gotten 6 instead of 10 right off the bat. I figured I'd only see one or two babies per year, not one every other month.

 

That's the beauty of babies
some of them really come unexpected