Pitch Black Rams

[LizStreithorst]

Thanks for the compliment, Tom.

[Iminit]

How you doing Tom? Still got your loaches and zebra plecos? Hope all is well.

[jwcarlson]

I'm honored to have the man himself comment on my thread, thanks for the info, Mr. Bandit! These are beautiful fish and I think Liz did a great job.

[coralbandit]

How you doing Tom? Still got your loaches and zebra plecos? Hope all is well.

Hey Tom~! All I got now is my 180 with the clown loaches, Denison's and super red BNPs.
And lots of empty tanks~!

I'm honored to have the man himself comment on my thread, thanks for the info, Mr. Bandit! These are beautiful fish and I think Liz did a great job.

I love seeing so many people with interest in these fish still.
You are in the right place to get the best advice for sure.

[fljones3]

As with others, good to see you comment Tom.

[Charlyc11]

I love seeing so many people with interest in these fish still.
You are in the right place to get the best advice for sure.

Good to see you here Tom it's been a while since you helped me out on the fishlore forum and people still looking for advise on your great looking line. I still have a few PBR's in my tanks but for now my discus pairs are occupying my time.

[jwcarlson]

Fry have been lifting off. Mom and dad are still trying to keep them contained, but they've got no shot. I'm hoping they're scattered mostly because they are terrible at swimming at the moment, they're only moving in twitchy bursts. I've been getting a kick out of watching the parents try hopelessly to keep them in one spot.

[LizStreithorst]

Congratulations. They're a hoot to watch when they first break free.

[brewmaster15]

Hey Tom~! All I got now is my 180 with the clown loaches, Denison's and super red BNPs.
And lots of empty tanks~!


I love seeing so many people with interest in these fish still.
You are in the right place to get the best advice for sure.

Tom, Its got to be a good feeling knowing that you reached so many hobbyists here. My Blacks and Golds came to me from Brian (Jeep) who got his from Liz, who got them from you... I've a couple of nice spawns growing now as well. So Thank you! If you hadn't decided to breed them I would not be enjoying them today,

al

[jwcarlson]

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The fry were lifting off a lot last night and today the parents had them pinned in a corner, but there are a few loose. Very defensive if I get close to the glass. I did a water change and it didn't seem to bother them. They seem to want to eat the baby brine, but I'm not sure they're chewing on them yet. I puffed a little bit of fry powder liquid mix into the cloud and they do seem interested in that. I'll continue offering a little powder until I start seeing orange bellies.

[jwcarlson]

Well, changing water might have been a bad idea. Live and learn, I suppose. They seemed fine after the water change, but there are like three fry left this morning. I'm sure it's something I screwed up. Fry powder maybe. I'm a big dummy, but that stuff feeds like poison to me and I have apparently not learned my lesson if that is the cause.
More wigglers back with their parents as of last night so we'll see what happens there.
Should I be feeding them as soon as they're free swimming?

[LizStreithorst]

I don't think you screwed up at all. Sometimes it just happens, especially when they're new parents. The parents ate the BBS, and I'm sure you didn't put enough powder in to foul the water.

I will often toss in live BBS before the pair spawns. It's a great conditioning food plus the fact that the parents will not think of it as a threat to the fry if they've been getting it beforehand.

[brewmaster15]

Jacob, sorry to hear it! I feed mine a 50-50 mix of spirulina powder and freeze dried rotifers the first day of free swimming.. you really don't need much. If you see a cloud of food..its way too much. After day 2 they get bbs and the spirulina/rotifer mix.by day 3 they just get bbs.

[jwcarlson]

It's not a cloud like it is filling up the tank. It's about one liquid drop of some Sera Micron mixed with tank water. That said, I vaguely recall someone saying they believe that fry powders can get stuck in or plug gills. So maybe that's a possibiity.

Strangely, there's about 20 or 30 fry left. But they're no longer swimming much, most are wiggling on the ground. A couple might be swimming.
Not sure what to make of that. Hopefully they eat them soon if they're not viable.

I did also remove the divider because some of the fry were slipping through and the male was kind of flipping out trying to get to them.

There's always next time!

[jwcarlson]

How soon after free swimming do they normally eat?

I just had another set that the parents ate roughly 24ish hours after they went free swimming and this time I didn't do anything squirrelly leading up to that. I think they might slowly be eating them because there's lots less free swimming than there are wigglers for sure. Maybe there's not a big enough clutch for them to want to raise them up? This batch are even smaller than the first set of free swimmers. I know it's common for new parents to take awhile before they're successful. I'll keep rolling with them. Perhaps if the other pair spawns I might try them artificially raised just for the heck of it.

Also, how long between wigglers and free swimming? Mine seem to be taking a long time, but there's plenty of fish that take way longer than I'd expect to go free swimming.

Chuck, if I can avoid fry powder I'm more than happy to. I dislike the stuff. I didn't use any on this last batch. The babies seemed interested in BBS, but I'm didn't see any orange bellies. But they could be getting little bits of swimmerets or something. I didn't spend an hour watching, either. And they gone pretty quickly too.