April 7, 2009
Baby Leopard Geckos & the Angelfish Curse
We had an exciting morning around here yesterday for more than one reason. The first reason is this little critter right here. Our first leopard gecko hatchling. He/she is a mack snow poss het albino. What I really love about this guy, besides how stinking cute he is, is that he broke the Angelfish Curse!
Baby Mack Snow Leopard Gecko
How can an angelfish curse a perfectly rational human being? I’ll tell you. About two years ago I acquired a 55 gallon fish tank and added a nice looking pair of angelfish. I did not intend to breed the fish (you can’t pick a male and female even if you wanted to). I just picked a pair that I liked and added them to the mix of popular freshwater fish in my tank.
A couple months go by and the angelfish are getting pretty big and beautiful. One day I see them hovering over a particular spot of the aquarium and making strange passes at a leaf. That’s when I noticed the eggs! I was totally pumped. I studied up on the best way to hatch and raise the babies. I planned out a separate 10 gallon aquarium for them. I talked to my local fish store and they wanted to buy the offspring.
Things were going great. Until the parents ate the eggs. This did not deter me. I put in a screen next time to block the fish from the eggs. A small fish dug around the rocks and ate them.
Baby eating angelfish
So I sealed it up tight next time and the eggs hatched! And the little tiny fry died as they broke free from the leaf. Argh, water problems? Alkaline? PH balance? I’ll setup a new tank with fresh reverse osmosis water from the fish store. Again, they lived until they broke free and died.
We must have went through 10,000 angelfish eggs. I’m not kidding. If the parents didn’t eat them first, then they molded and or died sooner or later. I tried everything and spent a chunk of change doing it.
Eventually the 55 gallon tank started to bow out at the front. It was an old tank anyway and it had seen it’s day of holding fish. I had been contemplating leopard geckos anyway and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I sold the fish to my local pet store and picked up some leopard geckos from the only reptile show in town.
I told my wife about the pairings, the eggs, the incubators I would make, and how I would market and sell the offspring. Then she looked at me like a mother looks at a child that she knows will be disappointed, but doesn’t want to discourage him. She reminded me of the 10,000 eggs that had passed through that very tank and asked me if I was sure I wanted to go down this road.
Fast forward to 20 gecko eggs in the incubator and a gravid boa. My leo eggs are due to hatch any day and my first boa breeding is due in 2 weeks. I walked into my boa room to find 21 slugs. I immediately felt the sinking feeling, and thought of the angelfish curse. She probably wasn’t thinking it, but I imagined my wife saying “I tried to tell you”.
The next morning I check my leopard gecko eggs to find one of them collapsed. This was one of the eggs due to hatch at any time and now it was collapsed in half. I was so discouraged I thought of giving up. I was obviously not cutout for this kind of thing and should probably fold it up. As I was thinking this I looked around the incubator to see if any other eggs had caved in.
Imagine how surprised I was to see that first leo staring up at me. The egg was collapsed because there was no gecko inside! Not only was I excited to see that little guy, but he represented a breeding success and the breaking of the angelfish curse.
SuperiorMorphs 