fry in the dark

[lisa wrischnik <wrisch@mendel.Berkeley.EDU>]

Hi all,
Things have been too quiet, so I thought I would ask some questions.
A pair of my dwarves were acting as if they had spawned, and I 
finally saw mom with the fry Sunday morning. I like to let the 
parents have a few tries at raising the fry because I like watching
their parenting behavior, so I left the fry with mom. That night, I
turned off the tank lights as usual.

The next morning I turned on the lights to feed the fry and I could
only see about 5 or so, and they were scattered around the tank.
In the meantime, mom was frantically racing around the tank in
circles (looking,in my highly anthropomorphic opinion, very agitated).
The fry were very much on their own. I assumed all was lost, so I
caught up the fry that I could and went off to work.

That night, I came home and found mom guarding her pile of fry (I
assume she rounded them up during the day). Anyway, the upshot
of all this is that for the last two nights I've left the tank
light on all night, and I have found mom diligently guarding the
fry each morning.  I have lost fry in the past and was wondering
if I could have saved them by simply leaving the lights on so
mom wouldn't lose them in the dark. (I've also raised fry 
successfully when I turned off the lights every night, too [shrug])

I always assumed that mom stayed pretty much in one place 
guarding the fry at night, and that the fry stayed put as
well.  Am I missing something? Has anyone else noticed this?
(I was told to keep the lights on for my Rams when they spawned,
but I thought it was to protect the fry from the not-so-good
parents).

Thanks,
Lisa
wrisch@mendel.berkeley.edu