Snail Spirals

Panda cory fry, seven days old.

I couldn't decide which picture to put in, so you get both. As always, click to get the full effect. The first one shows the shape of the tail end of the finfold really well. The oldest four are starting to get some pigment in the tail region, and what looks like the beginnings of rays.



And the second shows his cute little forked barbels really well.



We went camping this weekend, and were gone two nights. I thought about these little guys the whole time, though I tried not to worry about it too much. I did a water change before we left, and gave them a good feeding of microworms (though not too much, so the water wouldn't foul).

I was also worried they would get too hot or cold, because the weather has been so changeable this week. I've been leaving the light on during the day, then turning it out at 9:00 or so at night and covering the tank with a blanket for insulation. This has been keeping it right around 68-70F, but I didn't want to leave the blanket on all the time, in case it got up in the 80's again during the day. But it's also been getting down into the 50's at night, so they probably needed some sort of insulation. I compromised by leaving the light off while we were gone, putting the blanket just around the back of the tank, and leaving a back bedroom window slightly open (the tank is in the dining room) and all the shades closed.

As it turned out, we had a cold night last night, down to 38F (31 where we were camping in the mountains) . The indoor temp of our house went down to 55F! And the tank was at 56F when we got home at noon today! Yikes! Luckily, these guys seem to be fairly tolerant of low temperatures, and they were all still swimming. I immediately did a 30% water change with ~62F water (so as not to shock them too much), and turned the light on. Now, six hours later, they're back up to 68F, and still swimming, and don't seem any worse for the wear. All in all, I'm glad the temp went too low, rather than too high.

All the eggs in this batch have now hatched, six in total. (The sixth hatched sometime this weekend.) I'm not sure what happened to the seventh egg- it disappeared during the transfer from the little tub to the new tank.