I woke up this morning and went downstairs to feed my fish. My main display tank has two perculas which are the most mature of my breeding pairs. Next to the display tank (75gl standard) is my refugium in a 20L tank on a metal stand. My sump is underneath the 75 and acts as the sump for both the refugium and the DT, if that makes sense. For lack of a better place, I placed a mocha and regular ocellaris in the refugium. I have eight tanks in the basement with potentially breeding pairs and just needed a temporary tank so I put them in there.
Anyway, this morning I was stunned to find THREE clowns in the refugium! My momma perc had jumped from the DT to the fuge somehow. The chances of making this jump successfully are astronomical. I scooped her out and put her back with her mate and all seems ok. She immediately went to their ritteri home. Didn't even fight being netted - I think she was as stunned as I was.
I've had fish take carpet dives before and luckily I was there to scoop them up - each time they were taking a run at my hand. Never this, though. Has anyone ever seen this type of behavior?
Incidentally, while I was watching her in the DT after putting her back I noticed that next to the ritteri on the overflow wall there were about a dozen eggs. At first I thought it was just algae or something, but the male kept on checking it out so I looked a little closer and each of what looked like just stray strands had two tiny silver dots on them. This is the first clutch as far as I know by sight and based on the low quantity, so I'll probably just let them hatch and become fish food. They should have another clutch in a few days going by the standard 8 days to hatch and laying eggs every 11 days. Hopefully I'll have time to get some rotifers ready to go for the next batch.
Anyway, this morning I was stunned to find THREE clowns in the refugium! My momma perc had jumped from the DT to the fuge somehow. The chances of making this jump successfully are astronomical. I scooped her out and put her back with her mate and all seems ok. She immediately went to their ritteri home. Didn't even fight being netted - I think she was as stunned as I was.
I've had fish take carpet dives before and luckily I was there to scoop them up - each time they were taking a run at my hand. Never this, though. Has anyone ever seen this type of behavior?
Incidentally, while I was watching her in the DT after putting her back I noticed that next to the ritteri on the overflow wall there were about a dozen eggs. At first I thought it was just algae or something, but the male kept on checking it out so I looked a little closer and each of what looked like just stray strands had two tiny silver dots on them. This is the first clutch as far as I know by sight and based on the low quantity, so I'll probably just let them hatch and become fish food. They should have another clutch in a few days going by the standard 8 days to hatch and laying eggs every 11 days. Hopefully I'll have time to get some rotifers ready to go for the next batch.
