Absolutely will report back Ron. This spawn happened within a couple days of the spawn last year so it seems the beginning of Oct may be a trigger for me. Could also be coincidence as I did just have another spawn a few months ago.
Seems like there was not nearly as much sperm released last night and the spawn from a couple months ago as compared to the spawn from last year. This could also just be the timing of my viewing as I did just catch the last 5-10 minutes. Of course I'm also not sure how long a spawn lasts either.
For the last 9 months I have had a copper banded butterfly which seemed to be hovering around the group and more aggressively picking at things around/under the adults so I suppose its not impossible he got most of the babies before I could notice them. Although that scenario doesn't seem logical as there are clearly 3 babies that he shows no interest in. I'm considering moving him back to the sump for a couple months regardless though.
My wife caught what we think was the beginning of a spawn. It's a small 16g tank and it gets cloudy pretty quick. In total, it lasted about 30 minutes of on and off spawn.
For me, the funny thing is, when I had all my RFA in a 120g DT I had 2 rounds of babies. I never saw the spawn or the delivery, but found 12 to 20 babies each time. They were about a year apart. They got moved to never my 40g tank and for 2 years, never spawned. Or at least I never saw it or any new babies.
For the last 10 months they've been in the 16g tank mostly on their own. I've had multiple spawns. One time I had 3 spawns separated by 9 days each time! And only 2 babies 30+ days after the first spawn. This last time I had 2 spawns, again separated by 9 days (coincidence???) and again just 2 babies after 32 days from the first spawn. I would have thought that with the smaller tank and having 30+ RFA close together I would have the perfect situation for lots of fertilization and lots of babies. But so far I've had just the opposite!
The only 2 things I'm starting to feel comfortable about is that RFAs, in captivity, can spawn at almost any time of the year, but always in the evening. And that the gestation period is roughly 4 to 5 weeks (and I consider that time frame as still open to the need for further proof).