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I was looking in my Chap. encaustus tank today and spotted a single baby swimming around. Now I know for sure that I do have a male, and I'm one fifth of the way to getting my BAP points. Denny

I know nothing of these fish, but can the females store sperm like the typical livebearers sold in stores? If so, it's possible that you still don't have a male, but that the female was previously impregnated. Or did you get them as immatures?

I'm pretty sure these fry are not the result of the females holding sperm for a period of time. It's been too long. However, today I did see additional young. I know for sure that I've got at least 3 fry and maybe 5. The tank isn't too bright, so it's a little hard to see the fry, but I've got my fingers crossed. Denny

BTW - the fry are huge. They are probably the size of adult Endlers Guppies. They sure do hide out well. They are in a 40 breeder, and I usually have to spend several minutes looking for them before I finally start seeing them. It's not a planted tank either, so not that many places to hide out and disappear. Denny

As I was looking at the fry today, I started wondering if they were getting enough to eat. They were big, but didn't seem to have really full bellies. I started to look for fry type foods I could put in the tank - the parents were active eaters of flake food, but I decided to put in some microworms and daphnia. The microworms were not a problem, but it was a little more of a test to get daphnia. I think most of my ponds have a least a few swimming around, but not too many ponds with a lot. I did manage to get enough to feed, but I suspect the parents are pretty active at finding the daphnia, too. The kiddie pool is really green with algae, but surprisingly I haven't seen any daphnia (even after restocking from some of the other ponds). I'm hoping it is just going to take awhile for the numbers to build up. I'll have to plan out which fish I should feed them to in hopes of triggering spawning activity. Denny

No, goodeids cannot store sperm. Depending on species they have a 30-60 day gestation so they would have bred in that time frame before birth. The largest goodeid fry I've ever seen were Ameca splendens, born at over 1/2 inch!

Michael - are these fish jumpers? I'm putting them out in the wading pool with lots of Daphnia, and was wondering if I had to cover them? Denny

Okay now I have a question for the native livebearer guys here, sorry for the butt in Denny, are Redtail Goodeid notorious baby eaters? Twice I have isolated a gravid female in a plant filled container and twice I have gotten no fry from the experience. Will I have to use a breeder device with the v-trap in order to actually get some fry from these darn fish? Thanks and again sorry for the minor twist in the topic I am excited you have gotten fry from the Chap. encaustus. I have never kept them either. Jack

Unfortunately, the encaustus fry died somewhere in the first week or 10 days. Seemed like they weren't eating. They were pretty big so not sure what that is all about. Then shortly after that the male died. I'm hoping he had impregnated the females before dying. It looked like they were filling up, so I put them out in my daphnia pond. Everyone should have plenty of live food to eat out there. We'll see what happens. Denny