Unknown Baby Fish

jerwin · Feb 3, 2012

About 1 1/2 months ago the pump on my 75 gal tank went out so I moved all my fish from the 75gal to my 40gal frag tank. After getting a new pump and replacing it I moved all the fish back to the 75gal. About 2 weeks later I was feeding my the frags I notice a different something that was moving weird in the tank. I have a lot of anthopods in the tank moving around, but this was more swimming not crawling. So as of last night the babies are still swimming around in the tank. Since they are all swimming around the frags it is hard to get an exact number and they are still small. I am guessing there is 20+ babbies. So the only fish that it could be because they are the only pairs I have.

5 green chromis (no visible activity in acting like breeding)
2 percula clowns ( very young and not activity in acting like breeding)
3 Bartlett Anthias (2 males and 1 female) ( Males are always fighting over the female and showing out for her) This is my bet on the parents

The babies swim very fast and really stay moving. Not sure if clown babies are very active when small but Has any one had anthias spawning?

Here a video of the babies the night I found it. The video is on its side not sure how to flip it.
Strange baby fish in frag tank - YouTube

I will try to get an updated video. I need to get a better camera other then my droid phone.

twinspots_goby · Feb 3, 2012

I can't really tell if they are fish from your video. But big congrats if they are baby fish.

SDguy · Feb 3, 2012

Look like live mysis type of shrimp to me. They swim around, don't crawl.

twinspots_goby · Feb 3, 2012

I can't really tell if they are fish from your video. But big congrats if they are baby fish.

H2O · Feb 3, 2012

It's hard to see I also got them in my tank 2 dif kinds they don't grow have them long time and the way they swim its got to be fish they have gold eyes and nothing in my tank has eyes like that also have some kind of shrimps that swim like fish verry cool only come out at night

setsmard · Feb 3, 2012

It swims like and looks like a Epitoke, which is a reproductive phase in polychaete marine worms, where the worm undergoes a transformation ( like metamorphism in insects) to an Epitoke.

jerwin · Feb 3, 2012

Thanks I had not thought they could be shrimp but that is a total possiblity. I will try to get a better video this weekend and post up. They look like baby guppies. you can clearly see the eyes and stomachs on the bigger ones. Even the longer define body. Remember that video is when I first saw them. It has been like 2 or 3 weeks since then. The Frag tank has been up for 6 months or more. They were not there before the fish spent 1 week in the frag tank and then they showed up like 2 weeks later.

I think I did here some Barry White (Lets get it on) music playing one night while the fish were on vacation in the 40 gal.

cdness · Feb 3, 2012

Barry White does it every time...lol.

Hopefully you can get some better pictures of the babies so people can ID them better. Typically I'd say if they were baby fish and you were not prepared they would be fish or coral food, but yours seem to be still alive so they are eating something...

jerwin · Feb 17, 2012

Well some of the babies are bigger now. SDguy was right they are baby shrimp. I could tell that because the tails are horizontal instead of vertical. So know what kind of baby shrimp. Mysis, blood or cleaner. Blood and cleaner were in the tank. Blood shrimped died in the tank and body was never found to remove. Not sure if it is mysis shrimp how they got into the tank. I will try to get a pic of one of the bigger ones.