If there's a next time.

I just spent the last four hours moving 70+ baby fish from a 5 gallon tank into a 12 gallon tank. Using the bottle method.

Next time, if there's a next time, I think I'll just take the ornaments out and DUMP the babies into the bigger tank. For God's sake, it was just ridiculous. And the last five refused to go in the bottle, refused to be netted. I ended up disassembling the tank, anyway, to get those last five babies out. (frustrated sigh) But, they're all in the grow out tank and, so far, they look healthy. Swimming, exploring and searching for food.

Then, I decided to "strip" Momma #4. That poor fish is gonna have some mental problems, if she doesn't already. She always seems to have the toughest holdings. The last time she was holding, she got moved from my office to my home. Rocks banging around, gravel swishing her away. Poor thing. This time she gets moved from the main tank to the baby tank, from the baby tank to the grow out tank, she gets stripped of her babies and then moved back to the main tank, only to discover she had kept four babies in her mouth, sooooo back to the grow out tank where I stripped her again and THEN back to the main tank. Quite frankly, I will be surprised if she lives through the night. I'm feeling so guilty about this.

I don't think I'll strip a fish again. It was far too traumatic for me and for her.

Her babies are mostly free swimming. Their little egg sacs are streamlined into being their tummies, but they're still spurtlike. If she had wanted to hold them a little longer, it would have been fine. I should have just let her do her thing.

She is the largest female, so I wondered how many she would have. At best count, there are 35 new babies.

I'm thinking I may just move the male fish into the five gallon tank and be done with all this baby fish business. Then again, maybe not. I don't know. The babies are so cute.