Fry Feeding time ****UPDATED****

[brewmaster15]

Spent some time this am taking pics of one of my pairs with Fry. I never get tired of watching fry on their parents, it really never gets old. Heres a few of them eating baby brine shrimp.

Comments welcome...

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al

[thomaswal]

Nice!
They'd make great posters :)
The first picture of the couple where they look away from each other is really family-like. If there was slightly more room under the fish, it would have been my favorite!
The composition of the 3rd is my favorite with the fry going towards their... Father?

I guess that the only lighting you used was a flash, which was put on top of the water, pointing downwards. The white bottom of the tank also gives a nice diffuse illumination to the fish!
How did you manage to get a black background? Do you paint your tanks in black?
And finally... You don't see any reflection of the fish in the background glass?

All this being said, thanks a lot for sharing these beautiful photos!

PS: next time, could you try to show us the overall setup? (a simple picture of the tank from far away with the camera, flash etc)

Thanks again! ;)

[brewmaster15]

Thanks Thomas,

I used the same set up I describe here...
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?127543-Fish-Photo-Guide
The only difference is I used a different camera body. This set was a pentax K3.

The black background is a pieces of black acrylic I slide into the tank.I dull the shine on the acrylic with sandpaper.

The male has the bright red eyes.

I did have a small strip led light on it to aid in focus and overall lighting... then used the flash.

I have many more shots that I need to process before the addition of the baby brine shrimp.

thanks again.
Al

[0Dgreen]

Al, that is a stunning pair, wow!
German or Asian fish?

[brewmaster15]

Thanks Mike...Second Generation Asian. I got those as fry from my friend Steve Aka Rogue Discus. He got the parent stock from Kennys Discus.
al

[0Dgreen]

Thanks Mike...Second Generation Asian. I got those as fry from my friend Steve Aka Rogue Discus. He got the parent stock from Kennys Discus.
al

They look great, great shape and patterns I especially like the facial markings on the male.

[brady]

Hi Al
Got to ask the question. Are you going to be selling them
and if so when?
As an added incentive I will bring down a bottle of my wine.LOL
Jay

[brewmaster15]

Lol..Jay . Not sure what will happen with these guys.Summers are my worst time for raising fry. Im not home all the time to raise them. This group I am trying hard though.They are really perfect little guys and mom and dad have been awesome.Let you know.

al

[sanjay21]

What stunning pictures Al ! you have some skills with the camera. Beautiful pair !

[danotaylor]

Wow Al those pics are amazing and the pair are exceptional. Beautiful shape and color. TFS!!

[zhuls1]

Brilliant pic Al, my first thought when I saw the pic was that you photo shopped them onto a background of a starry night sky LOL, took a second to realise that those "stars" were actually BBS.

[danotaylor]

What strain are the adult pair Al?

[brewmaster15]

Thank you guys. :)

Danny,
These are fine line blue snakeskins.

al

[brewmaster15]

Well fry so far are doing great. Mom and Dad had to.be separated as the fry were eating a bit too much of their slime coat. Dad was ok but mom was definitely getting the raw end of the deal. I moved the fry to a 55 gal for now.


116485

Its going to get challenging now to raise this batch. I have a real busy schedule this month.. but I will try a few things to keep them going well. They are really doing seriously well at this point.

al

[Adam S]

The "bbs stage" is my favorite part of raising fish. Nothing like watching them turn into little orange balloons. :D

How much bbs does a spawn like that go through in a day?

[brewmaster15]

I feed mine 4x day with bbs and other. By this time I am also incorporating finely ground fdbw and my DiskusGold. I cant tell exactly how much though.I dont overfeed them and try to just try multiple small feedings that they clean up quick. You can get a pretty good idea on the amount by the pictures .I literally took those images of the fry with parents moments after feeding bbs.

al

[Second Hand Pat]

Those images are totally gorgeous Al. I do hope you are successful with these little guys.
Pat

[LizStreithorst]

They are a beautiful pair and the photos are excellent. The parent in the second pic the parent does not look like a fine line snake.

My favorite thing, other that seeing the fry attach and feed from the parents, is when the fry leave their parents to chow down in the BBS. You have no idea of how much I yearn to see that in my tanks.

[brewmaster15]

Liz I hope your beauties get to that point in your tanks!

heres the pair a few days before the photo shoot..


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al

[Pices]

That is so cool!
Patty

[LizStreithorst]

Liz I hope your beauties get to that point in your tanks!

heres the pair a few days before the photo shoot..


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al

I hope so too, Al. I'm starting to fear that I am cursed.

[brewmaster15]

I thought I would update on these batch of fry. Mom and Dad by the way are sitting on another batch about to go free swimming. This group of fry came for me at the worst time. Its summer, and we do things as a family, camping,trips etc. I was adamant I was going to raise this group though and set about it. I knew I would be gone at times up to 5 days so I froze a whole bunch of Baby Brine shrimp so I could have our vet tech feed them 2X a day while I was gone. I separated the fry so they didn't over graze on my pair and put the in a 55 gal tank. It was a risk but I loaded the tank with sponges and crossed my fingers. I was away 5 days and came back to a tank of fry that was doing really well. Hurray! I am still not over the hump and have a few camping trips and College sightseeing trips coming up ( daughters off to college next year).

So heres some pics as of today.. I am pretty pleased at this point.

al


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[brewmaster15]

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al

[sanjay21]

Wow ! they look beautiful Al :)
Very nice shapes on them. What varieties of food are you feeding them now ?

[brewmaster15]

Wow ! they look beautiful Al :)
Very nice shapes on them. What varieties of food are you feeding them now ?

Thanks Sanjay. I moved them from baby brine shrimp to ground up Freeze Dried Blackworms and DiskusGold Pellets. Thats all thats on the menu right now. I alternate between the two.

al

[sanjay21]

Thanks Sanjay. I moved them from baby brine shrimp to ground up Freeze Dried Blackworms and DiskusGold Pellets. Thats all thats on the menu right now. I alternate between the two.

al

I'm yet to try the DiskusGold Pellets. Thank you for sharing :)

[brewmaster15]

I'm yet to try the DiskusGold Pellets. Thank you for sharing :)

You're Welcome!

al

[Second Hand Pat]

Your fry images are gorgeous Al and the fry look fantastic :D How old are they? You working with any other pairs/fry?
Pat

[Mr.BigBlock]

Nice!

[brewmaster15]

Your fry images are gorgeous Al and the fry look fantastic :D How old are they? You working with any other pairs/fry?
Pat

Thanks Pat ...I think they are alittle over 6 weeks from freeswimming... give or take. I don't pay as much attention to it as I used to.As long they are growing well I am happy .

I am working on a few other snakeskin crosses to wilds right now as well. I really like this pair alot but its one of the other pairs that I am really stoked over. Its a wild greenx Blue snake skin That should be very interesting .

Al

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks Pat ...I think they are alittle over 6 weeks from freeswimming... give or take. I don't pay as much attention to it as I used to.As long they are growing well I am happy .

I am working on a few other snakeskin crosses to wilds right now as well. I really like this pair alot but its one of the other pairs that I am really stoked over. Its a wild greenx Blue snake skin That should be very interesting .

Al

I think you have posted pics of that pair Al. The fry could be very interesting I think.
Pat

[rickztahone]

I'm yet to try the DiskusGold Pellets. Thank you for sharing :)

These were my favorite to feed to my discus. Best pellets for discus IMHO

[Dave Cal]

Great pictures Al, there's nothing like putting a bunch of baby Brine Shrimp in and then seeing all of the fry with swollen pink bellies.

[LizStreithorst]

You couldn't ask for a group of better looking fry.

[Adam S]

The stubby ventrals on discus fry always make me smile. Nice group, Al.

[danotaylor]

Really nice looking fry Al. Some appear to have more of a red base and others blue. In the creation of the fine line BS's do you know what strains were involved?

[Filip]

Great looking pair and fry Al.
I got 2 questions , what does "fine line " stands for in this particular discus pair and any other discus in general , and do you crush the Diskus biogold pellets in smaller particles or are they big enough at 6 week to eat them uncrushed ?

[brewmaster15]

Really nice looking fry Al. Some appear to have more of a red base and others blue. In the creation of the fine line BS's do you know what strains were involved?

These are all from the same pair of Blue snakeskins and will give a combination of snakeskin and blue based turqs. For the most part they will all change color by adults to the same blue base. Many discus strains start out as brownish as fry and "color up" as their patterns fill in.
There is also the change given the plasticity of discus genetics that you will get oddballs and throwbacks from breeding 2 fish. If you are trying to maintain a strain you want to remove these fish from the population. Personally I like to get some of these oddball fish in a spawn. They can be quite interesting and they can potentially lead to new strains.

[brewmaster15]

Great looking pair and fry Al.
I got 2 questions , what does "fine line " stands for in this particular discus pair and any other discus in general , and do you crush the Diskus biogold pellets in smaller particles or are they big enough at 6 week to eat them uncrushed ?
Thanks Filip,
The "Fine Line" refers to the pattern of the parents being just that.. composed of very fine lines as opposed to something like a scorpion snakeskin which has less pattern. Many would just call them all snakeskins which is fine but having bred scorpions and fine line snakes I try and keep them separate in my notes.

I dont feed "biogold" Filip. Thats a different product. I feed Diskus Gold Planktoplus (http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?120054-DiskusGold-Planktoplus-Daily-Discus-Pellets-now-available-here!) which is a product I sell.The Diskus Gold pellets I feed are fed whole by 5-6 weeks age. The fry do the work of picking on them. prior to that I finger crumble them. Their first feeding of these are usually at s few weeks and for that one I use a coffee grinder to make a fry size food.

You can see the whole pellets of Diskus Gold here..

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hth,
Al

[danotaylor]

These are all from the same pair of Blue snakeskins and will give a combination of snakeskin and blue based turqs. For the most part they will all change color by adults to the same blue base. Many discus strains start out as brownish as fry and "color up" as their patterns fill in.
There is also the change given the plasticity of discus genetics that you will get oddballs and throwbacks from breeding 2 fish. If you are trying to maintain a strain you want to remove these fish from the population. Personally I like to get some of these oddball fish in a spawn. They can be quite interesting and they can potentially lead to new strains.

Thanks So. I would kinda like to pot-luck of some groovy odd ball patterns as well. Guess I'll have to breed me some domestics one day hey?!

[brewmaster15]

Flickr links removed ... info here. (http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?134194-All-Good-things-come-to-an-end-Flickr-changes-coming-and-they-are-not-good)

[dmun24]

looking good