On Saturday, against my better judgement, based on two previous experiences both ending in tragedy, I picked up a black molly at the pet store while I was out buying cat litter and Prime.

An hour after acclimating her and netting her into the tank, I noticed she’d gotten a fair bit thinner. And that there were a bunch of little black things hiding in my plants. I was reasonably sure she was pregnant, but I didn’t think she was that pregnant!

Normally, baby fish don’t last more than a few hours in my tank, as they quickly become snacks for everyone else. However, as I write this, I have at least five, possibly six little (maybe two rice grains long right now) black baby fish swimming warily around the tank, eating, pooping, being generally cute and not being particularly bothered by the other fish, and they’ve been doing so for a couple of days now.

I’m not sure what the difference is this time. I did recently lose my two female platies, the biggest baby-eaters, to age. The remaining male seems to be taking his cues from the biggest female that looks sorta like him, in this case, the molly, who actually (and surprisingly) seemed to be almost protective of the babies for at least a few hours after delivering them.

I also recently did a big tank cleaning and plant re-arranging (the catfish tend to uproot everything while digging around), so it’s possible that the babies are taking advantage of the territorial confusion, and by the time it sorts itself out, they’ll have an accepted position in the community.

In any case, watching these little guys do so well so far has been a nice bright spot in what’s otherwise been a reasonably crappy week or so. I’m really looking forward to watching them grow up.