Mystery Fry

["Leo Reinhard" <lreinhard@sprint.ca>]

In a 20g planted tank I have about 30 Borelli fry which became
free-swimming on Mar. 11th. I removed the female after three weeks and the
fry have been on their own since then. I have been feeding them micro worms
until 3 days ago, when I decided to try my hand at hatching baby brine
shrimp to see if the frys growth rate would improve. So much for the
background.....now the mystery..

This morning I noticed something very tiny swiming in the fry tank at the
surface. Fearing something bad I had a closer look with a magnifying glass
( these old eyes you know ). What I saw was several tiny fish -about 8--
that looked even smaller then the borelli fry were when they became free
swimming. I immediately called my wife to look and she said that they
looked like the borelli did when they were " new ". They don't have a yolk
sack and are very active but stay near the surface.Since the small borelli
stay near the lower half of the tank they have not eaten these mystery fry
yet. I put in some liquid fry food to give them a chance to grow.

Has anyone on the list any ideas where these could have come from?
Could some of the eggs from the original spawning have remained dormant for
11 weeks ?
Could some other dormant fish eggs been mixed in with the brine shrimp
eggs?
And most ridiculous of all, could 11 or 12 week old borelli lay eggs?

Please don't refer me to your shrink.
Thanks
Leo