A bit of a surprise!

The following started about 3 months ago. It is a bit of a story, so please bear with me.

Surprise 1:

At the end of October, when I came home from a 3 days trip, I noticed that my "asian river" had sprung a leak, right back corner, from the top edge about  about 7 cm down. I drained the water to below the leak, went and bought a standard 160 l tank (100 x 40 x 40), threw in some sand, rocks and pebbles, added some plants and went about cycling the lot.

A couple of days later, I woke late at night to the sound of dripping water. Needless to say, the leak had "grown" and by the time I had again drained the water to below the leak, there was about 7 cm of water left in the tank. No question, the inhabitants had to be moved to the new tank immediately, cycled or not .

Armed with two nets, I tried to catch the lot without causing too much of a panic. With every sweep of the net I called out to my wife what I had netted while she noted the numbers on the species list for that tank. after about 4 hrs, I thought I had dug out the last Pangios and even the Erethistes pusillus and Akysis maculipinnis, which I hadn't seen for a good 6 months, were safe and sound. Entirely exhausted we went to bed to catch a bit of shut eye.

When I checked the tank a few hours later one D. pathirana looked a bit worse for wear but otherwise all seemed fine. I went back to the remnants of the "asian river" when I saw some movement in there. Indeed, there were another 3 Pangios (1 oblonga, 2 semicincta) enjoying what was left of the water. That's when my brain started working and wondering. A look at the species list confirmed that, including the three of this morning, I had removed 21 Pangios from the tank. But I had only introduced 12, six each P. oblonga and P. semicincta of wich one turned out to be a P. malayana and another (a heavily gravid female) expired a few weeks after introduction. That makes, according to my humble maths, a plus of 10 specimens. Since the whole transfer action happened in a state of near trance, I cannot say if both species have reproduced or only one and if both, how many each. In my tanks, they live in "mountains" of pebbles (40 – 60mm ᴓ) and I am lucky to spot a single specimen every now and again.

Surprise 2:

So, what was left of the tank stood for about 3 months due to lack of time. Yesterday, I eventually wanted to drain the puddle, clear it out and dismantle it for repair. First I set out to remove and save the larger specimens of Radix labiata still in there. Whilest hunting for them, I discovered something different altogether.

I have counted 4 fry so far (not easy in a 160 cm tank) sized between 6 and 8 mm SL. Of course I have no clue as to what species they are and given the fact that there is no fishes in the tank for 3 months now, I am surprised to find fry that small!?