12/08/2007 - Day 29
OK, everybody out of the pool...NOW!
My patience was beginning to wear thin by now. We had 2 healthy baby Banggais out and about, I could see little heads poppping in and out of the male's mouth... but they wouldn't come out. I had read a few accounts of people "stripping" the babies from the adult or scaring him into spitting them out. I was also a little concerned for the male himself. Everything I had read said this was going longer than average. He had not eaten anything now in almost a month and was looking a bit thinner for sure.
So, with that in mind, and thinking about the idea of "assisting" the male by netting him and holding him up by the tail, I figured it was high time to try.
Obviously the fry were all full-term now; the male has been holding for 29 days now - enough is enough.
Netting him in an otherwise barren 10g tank was easy enough; he didn't even flinch when I guided the net over him. When I grabbed his tail, however, the male (instinctively?) snapped his jaws shut - right on the seam of the net
I actually had to place the net back in the tank, him hanging from it - and wait about 3 minutes for him to relax his grip... when he did poof! out shot the rest of the brood
We ended up counting a total of 12 fry, all swimming about and checking out their new home. I also noticed 1 more fry that apparently may have been partially sticking out of the males mouth the moment that the male snapped his jaws shut, and was partially crushed... it was still breathing, but may have been injured too severly to survive (it was just sitting on its side on the bottom and did not appear able to swim - maybe it will recover but I have my doubts)...
So it appears that in total I have 12 healthy fry, plus the 1 questionable one, and there were those 5 'preemies' from last week that didn't survive... a total brood of 18 fry. About average, according to Dr. Marini.
I placed the male back into the main display. He had done a good job and now he could go back to eating and whatever else fish do...
And don't you know the minute he hits the display water, the female "hoochie mama" comes zooming over to him, wagging her tail like an overexcited puppy dog and doing that "sexy shimmy dance" all over again !!!
Slow dowwwwnnnn, honey... he just got off a month of hard work...give the poor guy a friggin' break
(Just like a woman, I guess )