Woke up today to find some dead fry (about five) and some uneaten food. Siphoned the bottom and managed not to suck up any live ones. This is getting easier as they grow.
However, there's a noticeable size difference in the spawn, with basically two classes of fry: big chonkers (who are clearly eating BBS, based on the red bellies) and little bitty babies (some of whom don't seem to be taking to BBS). All of the dead ones were very small for their age so I suspect malnutrition. I'm adding a few MWs back into the meal plan for the tiny ones but only a
tiny amount, and only for the next 36 hours. If they still fail to thrive after that, I'll have to just let natural selection take its course, as microworms aren't the best thing for the biggies.
The biggies prefer hanging out at the back of the container so are very hard to photograph without zooming in a lot:
Update on the spawning pair: the female's fins are growing back very quickly and she seems happier than ever. She's overdue for a water change though so that's on the agenda for today.
I gave the male some flaring time and he decided to be absolutely beautiful:
He could probably use a small water change too (and a glass cleaning, jeez), but I assure you that brown-ness is all tannins, it's not poopy yuck water. 🥰
Not sure if I've ever posted a photo of his heavily-planted, oak-leaf-littered terror cube, but here it is. He loves his plants and little hiding places:
Anyway, I'm planning to move the fry tonight before their evening feeding. We'll see how that goes. I would have liked to wait until they were bigger, but with so many fry (and snails) a shoebox is just no longer viable.
