Peculiar Mystery Critter Spotting

[SaneRedFox 0]

..Just only now am I realizing [[the idiot I am]] that I may have had fry and never known it until now, because of the peculiar way it looked [[and I had just put in some tadpoles...]].

Some weeks ago, I noticed a tiny...thing, spritzing in the water. This would be, jumping up to catch little white water mites that hop over the pond [[there's really nothing you can do to stop oddbug invasions in a pond...they aren't so harmful, they're just tiny jumping white bugs..]] surface. It was perhaps 1.5mm long, and it had eyes like a fish so I don't know why I didn't think about it..but I just didn't.

I just sat there, watching it just below the surface, jumping up really hyperly to catch little bugs. It was hanging out around the 'biomass', which is what I call the large mass of watervine and hyacinth roots, that has collected algae, and is a home for many of those tadpoles, newts, snails, etc. Well, anyhow, I was watching it. It was perhaps as "thick" as double the : space between the colon dots. It was cute, but appeared to have feet instead of fins so I sort of dismissed it as a tadpole...no tadpole that small could have feet. What was I thinking!

..weeks previous to that, there had been fish eggs that I left undisturbed [[i'm assuming the goldfish got most, because I only saw about..5]] because I wasn't yet educated enough to handle fry, and I still am barely qualified for the job. I'm thinking next spring perhaps I'll ..try. ..haha.

But anyway, to get to the point, as it was hanging out there, eating little mites, I was like, "it's sooo cute! *melt*".

It was greyish-black, and very small.. with sort of buldging eyes for something so teeny. it looked kind of streamlined, though, and I only saw one, so I'm guessing I caught it just a day or so after it started eating...it was the cutest thing I've ever seen, fry or not...and I have no idea if I should've tried to raise it or left it like I did, because now those tadpoles are starting to eat meat -- as polywogs.. and if it did survive the past few weeks, it may not now.

The good news is in two months if I see a baby fish I'll know why.

[blinky000 32]

if you see it again, i would see if you could take it out and put it in a tank. ill post a pic of my fry and see if it looks familiar. bare with me while i make the pic smaller.

[blinky000 32]

heres my latest pic of the fry. bare in mind these are only a couple of weeks old. yours would probably be over a month

[Lachfa 0]

legs and jumping.....strange. Anyway I am sure if you had eggs and they hatched some of the babies will live. I brought 17 in this spring and have 7 still live - they are from different "litters" and parents - LOL. One is still tiny _____ while another is growing like mad _______________________ Anyway I have seen babies in the pond so they did fine on their own - and it sounds like you have plenty of cover for them. Good luck and keep us posted.

[blinky000 32]

woah, sorry, i thought you meant 1.5cm!! i really need to stop having these blonde moments. yeah, its probably just started eating.

[SaneRedFox 0]

irk, it did look EXACTLY like that, but darker! I have only seen it once, and it's a 55 gallon pond with about 2/3 covered [[durn stupid hyacinths, I end up taking out three a day and it's still fine]]... it was soo teensy, itty bitty! I'm afraid if I took it out in anything other than a styrofoam cup, it'd break..

[SaneRedFox 0]

Almost like the net would injure it...

[SaneRedFox 0]

I'm afraid if the little "fry" started trying to find food [[there's lots, from worms in the plant roots to those mites to algae, to mushed up remains of the parent's food]] the parents would take notice of the movement and eat them [[or the shubunkins would, because these "fry" are most likely from the breeding pair of fantails.. , and the shubunkins are much more accurate, and have better eyesight]]. I wish I could remove them safely, so they'd be all right from the frogs AND the fish, and I knew how to take care of them. Unfortunately it would be quite hard for me to feed them, unless I could somehow sneak in the baby fry supplies..

[[sponge filter, fry food..]] because my family thinks I don't know what I'm doing [[aka, completely lost in the dark]] about the fish [[technically it's my grandmother's pond, and my fish are the shubunkins -- the ones that are healthy, while her fish have issues because she doesn't trust my word and isn't eager to spend any money on the fish at all.]] Right now I'm trying to quarantine the male, because he's missing scales and got some sort of injury, but she won't even let me get a rubbermaid and a simple filter. It's ridiculous.

[blinky000 32]

either way i think it would be much safer to take him out. there are too many hazards in there like the parents, tadpoles etc. id try to get him out asap before he gets eaten. keep us posted

[SaneRedFox 0]

Um, well, the thing is, I don't even know if he's there anymore. I can't see him.. I haven't seen him since that day, I just saw him that one time -- and I don't have an extra tank to set up, or any filter, or aeration system..