Unexpected fry, need advice

[Parzival]

I have a somewhat densely planted 10g community tank and I noticed one fry this morning when I was feeding my NLS small fish pellets, which is all I've fed in months. Not sure how long he'll last, but I'm guessing he's survived for several weeks already, so maybe he will. He's a couple mm long. At first I thought it was a piece of plant debris.

I'm thinking it's a Pseudomugil Gertrudae, as it was right under the bright lights and my other fish seem to avoid the lights. I also hear they are pretty easy to breed.

The tank also has CPD's, Boraras Merah, tons of Sulawesi blueberry shrimp, a couple Amanos, and about a million snails. What are the odds?

There's also a bunch of green hair algae, which I periodically scoop out, but I guess I'll leave it alone for a while. (On the bright side, that's the only algae I ever see; The glass stays spotless.)

I may start feeding some Hikari dried brine shrimp again.

Filtration is an Eheim canister dialed down to pretty low flow rates, with a reticulated sponge on the intake. The sponge is getting pretty gross (clogged with debris) and I was thinking about replacing it, but I'll leave it for now, I guess.

Any advice to help the new guy(s) make it? I don't have any other tanks and I'm not willing to set one up, as I'm about to move.

Thanks!

[troy tucker]

Sounds like your doing ok. Have you seen it eat? If its eating and the other fish are not bothering it. It should be ok.

[morpheus]

Sounds like your doing ok. Have you seen it eat? If its eating and the other fish are not bothering it. It should be ok.

This ^^^. If you have no other tank options and dont want to set anything else up, then just leave it alone. If the fry is eating and free swimming, with no other fish showing any interest, then it will probably be ok. Sounds like you have a lot of cover for him anyway.

[Parzival]

I haven't seen it eat. I'm not sure it would have anything to eat other than free floating biofilm. It's certainly not big enough to eat NLS.

I think I need to pick up some spirulina or something? Do the box stores carry any appropriate foods?

[morpheus]

If your suspicion based on his size and development is a few weeks old, then the fry has a food source. if there was nothing for it to eat, the fry would have starved long ago. it could be eating anything in a planted tank. algae, bio film, micro organisms, loose food on the ground just breaking off pieces like the shrimp do. Who knows, but the fry has lasted this long. Many pet stores do sell fry food (liquid or powder), brine shrimp eggs to hatch, or some members on here sell microworm cultures for fry.

[Parzival]

I haven't been keeping fish for long, so my suspicion could be off base. My understanding is that rainbowfish eggs develop until their yolks run out, and then they head to the surface looking for food. That could be what I saw this morning. It was barely identifiable as a fish, other than it definitely had a tail that was moving and seemed to have some impossibly small eyes.