Re: ram fry, sigh

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

I am glad this is becoming more apparent to everyone.
As I have been preaching for years it?s all about the
DOC?s whether we are talking about eggs, fry, or even
adults we just have to keep in mind the natural
biotopes of our little fish. If we were to do a
conductivity reading of the water of a Rams natural
biotope you would get water with a Conductivity of
almost 0. Come back the next day, the next and the
next same reading. My point is the water is extremely
pure and immaculately clean. We don?t always think of
such water as clean but if we look at this way we see
that it is. If we compare this to a tank full of fry
we are growing out we will be amazed. Take a reading
of say a 10 or 20 gallon of some ram fry being fed
heavily with bbs, microworms, infusoria etc and you
will be amazed at how the conductivity goes up sharply
just from morning to night much less the next day. I
always laugh when people say there are secrets or
tricks to breeding or raising certain fish. It?s all
about understanding the environment our fish come from
and replicating that at home. In this case we simply
need to maintain a very low level of DOC?s and this is
accomplished by doing water changes. If we look at
many professional breeders especially those of Discus
they clearly have already seen this and have their
systems on a daily continual water change cycle. Take
heart though Apistos are very forgiving and inspite of
all this they will still breed, eggs hatch, and fry
survive if we just maintain this at a tolerable level.
My advice to all of you get a conductivity meter. In
my opinion it is the most important tool a breeder
should have. They have come down in price a ton and
you can get a fair one these days for around $35-$50.
The funny thing is once you have used your
conductivity meter for a while and begin to see the
cycle and patterns that develop you get an eye for it
and no longer even need to check unless you want to
confirm what you already know. To me the greatest
value in conductivity meter is not in telling me how
hard my water is but rather in telling me the water
quality that I am maintaining for my fish.

Dave Sanchez






--- mjacobs2@tampabay.rr.com wrote:
> What Neil is saying folks brings up the real problem
> with rams and ram fry and 
> why, I think, so many people have trouble at first
> with ram fry and rams in 
> general.
> 
> Rams, fry or adult, need good clean water.....to be
> really successful and to 
> try and put a lot of artifical dry food (and some of
> them are getting very 
> good) in with the ram fry is a double edged sword. 
> If you are not careful with 
> non-live food for ram fry you might just start
> loosing them for no apparent 
> reason.  That's why I always cringe a bit when
> people want to raise ram fry on 
> powdered food.  If that's all you have then fine,
> but keep it clean.  Certainly 
> it can and has been done with dry foods but it needs
> to be clean.....what ever 
> that means to you double it...the clean.....;-)
> 
> Also I've seen folks adding enough live bbshrimp to
> choke a horse......once the 
> rams are free swimming add some snails to keep the
> bottom of the tank 
> clean....and like Neil said also........a fully
> matured sponge filter can 
> sometimes save the day for some small crittes for
> the fry to chew on while you 
> are not there.............change the water!!!!!
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> > I am new to the list, but not too long ago I saw a
> presentation by Al Casrto, 
> > who broke down bbs. Apparently, there are 3 types
> of bbs eggs. The largest is 
> > Utah, which is 3 times larger than San Francisco,
> which is 3 times larger 
> > than Southern Hemisphere eggs (the smallest). He
> was using these for tetra 
> > fry, which are, in general, pretty darn
> small-mouthed. I don't have any 
> > suggestions where to come across them, but I
> believe that they are pretty 
> > hard to find and expensive.
> > I have found that Rams can usually take bbs of the
> SF type right away, if you 
> > take care to harvest them in about 18 hours. In
> addition to (the other 
> > suggestion) Java Moss and general infusoria from a
> sponge filter that is 
> > already in the tank at mediocre levels, this can
> usually support the food 
> > requirements of Ram fry during the crucial first
> few days.    Neil
> > 
> > 
> >
>
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