[jeffegg2]

My Halfmoon male and female have eggs!!! I just removed the female. Sneaky devils had them this morning when I was not watching...

I should see tails hanging tomorrow!!

Well, off to church!
:-D

 

[littlegreen]

OH my gosh! 8D That's SO exciting!!! Do you have pictures of the parents?

 

[jeffegg2]

 

[jeffegg2]

 

[jeffegg2]

Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm lens with 12mm extention ring. Vivitar 285HV fired remote via Cactus triggers through umbrella.

 

[littlegreen]

Oh WOW! They're GORGEOUS! You're sure to have some beautiful babies! : )

 

[Junglist]

Wow! the picture says it all! Kudos

 

[jeffegg2]

The female is huge. I was a bit worried. Also the male didn't make a nest until yesterday evening. I had released the female from her jar I had in the tank the day before. She is a little tattered, but fine. The Male loves to bang them around a bit...

;-) If they were people, he would be in jail.

 

[jeffegg2]

24 hours and no tails yet. He is still tending the eggs....

I have a fresh batch of micro worms ready, and I'll start the bbs soon.

 

[Junglist]

It'll come through soon

 

[jeffegg2]

A few tails last night, now it looks like the bubble nest has fur! I may have removed the female early as there are only around 100 eggs and fry, but perhaps that is for the best...

Jeff.

 

[jeffegg2]

Update: Fry are free swimming, male is out. Check carefully when removing male, I found two fry in with him after pulling him out.:shock:

Microworms and some bbs yesterday, some microworms today. (I saw no pink bellies from the bbs so I'll slow that down until next week. I did see them chase the mw.

Jeff.

 

[jeffegg2]

My HM fry are one week old now. Swimming all over the place. Still feeding microworms and some bbs. I have been adding water the last few days, started the sponge filter up today on slow. The fry actually seem to be having fun on the current from the filter side! There is still plenty of still water for the others...

 

[Fabian]

Good luck raising them.

 

[littlegreen]

How many are there? : D PICTURES!

 

[lvandert]

**stalks**

 

[jeffegg2]

Day 8.

Still feeding a combo of micro worms and baby brine shrimp. There appears to be many that cannot eat the bbs as evident by their white tummys. I suspect it is due to the female that is from Thailand where they feed fry with infusoria. If I had fed only bbs, I think some would have been gone now.

There are two camps here. One if the fry are too small to eat bbs, then they should be culled anyway. Two, you never know what you are really culling at such an early stage. Could small mouth fry be attached to a superior gene? Unknown......:shock:

 

[jeffegg2]

Day 11, Getting bigger!

Most of the fry are getting larger and eating the bbs as shown by their swollen pink bellies. But some are still so tiny, so I continue adding some MW.

 

[jeffegg2]

Something not expected is not only some fry getting bigger, and some look like 1 day old, but while most are pink like the above, a few are dark. Perhaps I'll have some blues mixed in??

Can't wait until they grow up!!

 

[tpocicat]

Differences in size is normal. That's why spawns need a lot of water changes. The fry secrete a growth stunting hormone and water changes keep that down as far as possible.