vllx
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
this is a little out of order with my other posting but..yea.. ..i thought it was kind of odd so im asking..I bought 2 bosemani rainbow from Petco...
the male was obviously colorful, half yellow and half dark blue/ purple. the female was slimmer and looks pretty plain unless the light hits her, then she has a lightish blue tint on her upper body. i kept them in a 16 gallon tank n didn't notice them spawning so i went back to the store and grabbed another one, which i thought was a female. this one was much better than both, but the coloring was pale like the female i had already. a week past by and still no babies (i was obviously wrong, which i will get to in a minute). i decided to take out the male and seperate him from the two ladies for a few days while i keep feeding them frozen blood worm and frozen brine shrimp. at this time i did notice some eggs on the heater and some of the plants, but i thought it was just air bubbles. ive seens cichlid eggs before, but never a rainbow fish, so...my mistake there. then 2 mornings after, i was sitting on the side of my bed and i happened to look at the 2 "females". the bigger one swam up to the smaller one and started shaking really fast, and BAM he or she or whatever it was slammed its rear end into the the smaller one and i saw eggs flying all over the place. i was shocked, i thought to myself "omg ive got a trans-gender fish here"! ive been waiting for so long for them to breed, that i didn't care if they were going to spawn anymore or not , i immediately took out both the fish and placed them into the community tank. i cranked up the temperature and later that day i saw 1 little fry swimming in the tank. it was the smallest thing ever! i didn't even notice it, but a little black dot moving around in the tank caught my eyes. then later on that night i noticed 2, and the nex morning there was 10, and 20, and 3 days later, ..today, there is over 50 of them. they must have been from previous spawns when the obvious male was there, because the new eggs haven't hatched yet. i can see little black eyes on the eggs, but they sure as heck haven't moved yet. im still shock that i didn't even noticed, and that so many of the eggs survived.
i then tried putting the male and the smaller one that looked like a female together in a bare 10 gallon and they made some eggs, so im assuming she's the real female, but i haven't place the male with the bigger "female" look-a-like and see what happens.
i also read somewhere on the net that some rainbows may have both reproductive organs....any truth in that? or just any thoughts on the fish looking like a female....but mating with ..another female?
i then tried putting the male and the smaller one that looked like a female together in a bare 10 gallon and they made some eggs, so im assuming she's the real female, but i haven't place the male with the bigger "female" look-a-like and see what happens.
i also read somewhere on the net that some rainbows may have both reproductive organs....any truth in that? or just any thoughts on the fish looking like a female....but mating with ..another female?