Re: raising fry

[Pete Johnson <petej@wordsanddeeds.com>]

I generally leave fry with parents, at least for the first month, and 
have had great luck with a number of Apisto, Nannacara and Laeatacara 
species, with one notable exception: Apistogramma hippolytae. I've had a 
number of spawnings but the parents do not take care of the eggs, and I 
get no viable fry. This has happened with two different pairs. The next 
time I spot eggs, I'm going to try to raise them myself.

When I do separate the fry, I put them in a container with lots of 
floating plants -- duckweed, salvinia and frogbit -- along with java 
moss. I mostly use containers floating in larger tanks, with a small 
current of water added by a low-volume water pump or output from a Tetra 
sponge filter (perforated ends covered with fine fishnet keep the 
container from overflowing and styrofoam blocks keep the it afloat -- 
it's a design I borrowed from Justin Hau of San Francico's Ocean 
Aquarium). I feed a combination of LiquiFry, Tetra powdered fry food and 
baby brine shrimp. I think the smallest babies snack on the infusoria 
living in the floating plants.

I had problems raising L. dorsiger fry with their parents, but I think 
those fry starved to death because the tank lacked sufficient infusoria 
and they're *very* small. When I started raising them in containers with 
lots of floating plants they flourished.

Incidentally, I'm currently watching a female A. nijsseni shepherding 
about 20 fry around her tank -- I'm very pleased to see this fish 
spawning. I credit the Waters of the World Amazon formula for helping 
this to happen -- I've been working with nijsseni for months without much 
luck.


Pete Johnson     ||     Two approaches to the same problem:
San Jose, CA     ||     flying fish and penguins.



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