Last weekend while catching up assorted Mbuna fry and making the wonderful discovery of some 1/4" S. Multi fry hiding in the tank, I caught a holding female Cherry Red strain P. zebra and she spit her eggs in the transfer cup. When she did not pick them up I used a turkey baster to transfer them into an air bubble style incubator. I was not wearing my glasses at the time.
When I checked on the eggs in the incubator (with my glasses on) I noticed a nearly clear little critter squirming among the eggs. It was not attached to an egg and I thought it was a fry my handling had broken free of the egg sac. Closer inspection showed it was a larval S. multipunctatus.
It only had a fraction of the mass of the P. zebra eggs. It was very tiny, thin in shape and of course it did not have an egg sac at this stage. You would really have to be looking for it to see it. The P. zebra eggs were just showing the very first sings of a fry appearing on them. I wonder how many more multipunctatus larva I may have dumped because I simply was not looking for something that small among the eggs.
In the 5 days since the little catfish's growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. It appears to be eating at least one P. zebra egg with attached fry a day. It attaches it's self like a leech to a cichlid egg and in a less than a day that egg is consumed. The length of the fry has more than doubled but, the width of the head has at least quadrupled. At this growth rate, by the time it gets to the last of the cichlid eggs in a few more day it would not surprise me if it could just swallow them. It is still nearly clear in color. When I watched it attach to a new fry/egg sac a little while ago it seemed very mobile and made short work of locating it's next egg dinner in the much larger confines of the incubator as compared to a cichlid's mouth.
The incubator's chamber is only about 1 1/4" in diameter and is a fairly thick clear plastic. Between the distortion from the curvature of the plastic and the nearly clear color of the multi baby my limited photographic skills have been frustrated. I wish I was a better photographer so I could capture this process. Really cool to watch!!!! Like looking into the host fish's mouth.
I may need to find a couple of more cichlid eggs if the little multi does not look ready forage out of the incubator by the time he finishes up the 3 remaining cichlid fry / egg sacs. Has anyone heard of anyone else incubator raising a S. multipunctatus? If so who? I'd love to hear their experiences and maybe have a better chance to raise this little cat to adulthood. A test tube baby catfish! What is next? This IS a great hobby we all share.
