How did this fish even survive?

[daniellelaj]

A friend of mine was keeping oscars in a far too small 29gal tank, Surprisingly enough the oscars all seemed relatively healthy until one day when the heater broke. Needless to say all of them were cooked.

So a couple of weeks after the disaster my friend was about to dismantle his tank when. . . Lo and behold! a little fry was swimmin around.
He has the tank running still but the filter is off because it will suck the little guys in.(I am in the process of making a DIY sponge filter for him but ammonia still remains at zero) He knows how much of a fish nerd I am so he asked me over.
The fish is definitely a cat fish but it is spotted. It has whiskers, not a sucker and there are at least 4 of them in the tank right now.

Any ideas what kind of catfish it is? I have searched online but nothing looks identical. Maybe they go through a color change upon maturity?

How could the eggs have survived the heater malfunction?

Can eggs lie dormant? He had no catfish in this tank EVER!

I am stumped and I thought maybe you all could throw some ideas my way.

Thanks
There was one live plant in the tank, I think. . . no other decorations. Coulda been it I suppose. . .

 

[Dark Ryok]

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=pictus+catfish&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

Pictus catfish? Thats the only one that comes to mind. As to how the eggs got there... I really couldnt tell you. The live plant couldve transferred it, but most places keep there plants either by themselves, with snails, or with small community fish... I really dont know.