Re: small fish

[Frauley/Elson <fraulels@minet.ca>]

Randy or Deb Carey wrote:

> As for hormones, this is just a wild guess.  I think fry tend to grow faster if I
> leave them with their mom.  Does she provide some hormone of other benefit to her
> fry?  

Hi all,
I've had the weird experience of artifically raising about half the fry
from several West African dwarf spawnings as an attempted insurance
policy, while the mother raised the other half. I've always given up
when I saw the growth of the fish with their mother - they've sometimes
been double the size of the ones I raise. When put back with the mother
at a month, they've always caught up in a week or so.
Hormones? Maybe. But I do question if it's diet. After all, we feed the
mothers too. I usually give bbs to my fry, fairly exclusively. Mom gets
flake, bloodworm, whiteworms - all but the flake apparently too large
for the young.
I've never tried to put two and two together, as I always assumed it was
hormonal. The answer may have been too obvious.
-Gary

PS - Randy, congrats on the TFH column.


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