Finaly got fry

[troy]

Hi all

My Pair have got fry at last :), not many of them though , started with 45 wrigglers . They are now in to their 3rd day of free swimming, the only problem they are dying i see a few dying each day on the bottom of the tank, i am now down to about 20 fry . :(

I do not have any idea on what is the cause to this problem, could some please tell me what might be going wrong.

I have keeped the water fairly clean with about two 20 % water changes done slowly a day.
I have add formalin twice, once with the eggs and once more a day ago, only used about 70% of the recomended dosage.
ph 7.6, hardness of 108 ppm, temp 29

Troy

[Gnome]

Hi all

My Pair have got fry at last :), not many of them though , started with 45 wrigglers . They are now in to their 3rd day of free swimming, the only problem they are dying i see a few dying each day on the bottom of the tank, i am now down to about 20 fry . :(

I do not have any idea on what is the cause to this problem, could some please tell me what might be going wrong.



I have keeped the water fairly clean with about two 20 % water changes done slowly a day.
I have add formalin twice, once with the eggs and once more a day ago, only used about 70% of the recomended dosage.
ph 7.6, hardness of 108 ppm, temp 29

Troy



Troy, did you make sure that the ph and the temp is the same when you do WC, also probably doing 20% wc daily is not enough, may be you need at least twice, how big is the tank? and did the fry attached to the parents yet? anyways I'm a novice, just want to know what might cause the problem...

[chuck]

Check The Nitrates, even slight nitrates can cause the fry to die, one of the symptoms is the fry stay on top of the water instead of attaching to the parents. You also have to make sure the ph and temp are the same going in as they are coming out and make sure you declor the water before putting it back in. a good thing to do is fill up say a 10 gal tank put a heater in it then declor and aerate it over night use this water the next day to replace the water removed then refill the 10 gal.
If the fry do not attach another trick is to turn off any filters for about 1 hr so the water becomes still this way the fry can find the parents, sometime fry have a hard time finding the parents sides if the water is turbulent.
hth
chuck

[troy]

Hi guys
Thanks for your replies

Yes i am doing the water changes twice a day total of about 40% per day.
I am also using aged water from a barrel it has filter , airation and heater. The temp is not exact , 25 from the barrel and 29 in my tank , the water changes are added slowly past the heater in the tank.

The ph maybe out 7.6 in barrel and 7.7- 7.8 in the tank.
The fry have been with the parents for the last 3 days , some fry go wondering off but dad will go and get them bringing them back to mum. They are not attatched for long but they hang arround mum.

Have any of you got any more ideas on what could be going on with the fry?

Troy

[larry lob]

Hi Troy,

I have no idea how fomalin affects the slime coat on the parents but sometimes the parents need to mature more in order to produce enough QUALITY slime coat to feed the fry right. If your sure your water is correct ans the tank mature enough it may be as simple as the mum's coat is not enough for them to feed well.

At this stage my best advice would be to try and get them taking bbs or some kind of other food(assuming conditions are not the problem)

HTH

Larry

[troy]

Hi all

Well ,so far so good with the fry. Have not lost any more fry at this stage , they are now 8 day old free swimmers and seem to be growing at a fast rate.
I have 25 fry left , ok its not huge number but i am happy to get this far, i do not think i would have had these fry if it wasn't for the learning and help from simply discus.

It has been very interesting watching the parents and kids , the parents have had alot more new and interesting behaviours along with ways of communicating together.

When would be a good time to split the parents from the fry?
Do the parents begin eating the fry once they reach a certain age or is it the parents that get eaten?

Troy

[Wolf]

If you haven't already , pull the spawning cone. I let mine stay with the parents for 3 weeks. If they start showing signs of wanting to spawn again, separate the male and the female with an eggcrate divider. The babies will swim between the two and feed. Get the baby brine shrimp ready. It's time to try to get the fry eating other food than the parents slime coat.