Re: Fry Survival

[Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise@bewellnet.com>]

Gareth,

After reading your letter, I can only scratch my head and wonder. I commonly
breed and raise fry in tanks as small as 10 gallons. I recently raised a 75 fry
of A. sp. Red-tail Rio Xingu in a 12 gallon (14 X 18") tank to 3/8" TL size
without any problem. They got a 25% water change once a week, if they were lucky.
I fed them 1 or 2X each day with live baby brine and powdered flakes. I kept the
female with the fry but removed the male after he got tired of playing second
fiddle to the fry by the female. In the past I had as much success with using
commercial & frozen fry foods as I do with live foods - well, maybe they did grow
slower. I rarely changed more than 25%, 1 each week. Obviously, you do something
different or your water is really strange.

My suggestions are not to over feed the fry. Cut your feedings to only 1/3 of
what you feed now and feed them twice as often. Also check your tapwater for
excess nitrates. Although nitrates don't usually bother adult fish, fry are much
more sensitive to it. Many localities have a high level of nitrates in their tap
water - not high enough to be dangerous to humans, but tough on fry. Changing
water frequently with this kind of water won't help lower the polutants. You
might also check your water for copper. It's best, if you have copper plumbing,
to run the tap for a couple of minutes to flush the lines of any copper leached
from them. Also check the pH of you tap water. If it's 1 pH unit higher than the
tank's pH, and especially if the pH values straddle the neutral line (e.g. 6.5
vs. 7.5), you might be getting rapid pH changes and accompanying ammonia spikes
that are rough on fry. Just some thoughts. I guess not everyone is blest with
water from reservoirs derived from snow melt from the Rocky Mountains like me.
The water department actually raises the pH to prevent acid leaching of the water
pipes. Still my water comes out of the tap at pH 7.5, < 2ºdGH, & <1ºdKH.

Mike Wise

Gareth Casey wrote:

> This subject has most likely been beaten to death but I am having
> problems raising my fry. At present I have 5 schools of fry.
> 1  A. Resticulso-free swimming today
> 1 A. Caucatoides-free swimming today
> 3 A. Borelli- free swimming 3 days
> I have killed off numerous batches of fry and I try something a little
> different each time. This time I have gotten that egg-layer food mush
> that you add to the tank. I mix into a small cup of water and then aim
> it at the fry with an eyedropper. I also have used frozen BBS. I keep
> well-aged sponges in the tanks and even use java moss and java ferns to
> give them something to nibble on. So far all I have managed to raise are
>
> 2 A. Cauc. out of 6 -8 spawns of these fish. I normally do 10-15% water
> changes daily altho I have tried 10% twice daily and also none at all.
> When I feed them the food seems to go to the bottom, usually 2-3 drops
> per school, unless it's a really big school. I leave mom and pop in the
> tank and that doesn't seem to be a problem altho with the Borelli I have
>
> 3 females that all spawned at the same time in a 15G tank. The Cauc. are
>
> in a 20L and the Resticulosa are in a15G also. They are all in species
> tanks with no dithers. will I be better off tryong to separate the fry
> from the parents as I am tired of killing off the little guys. Should I
> switch to microworms or some other type of FW live food that I can
> maintain in the tank ?? I feed the adults heavily on black worms and
> they all are doing great but Iam really disgusted with myself for not
> getting right yet even tho I read all I can and try to apply as much as
> possible. I haven't hatched my own BS yet and that is next on my list of
>
> things to do. I read about feeding them de-encapsulated eggs also,
> opinions on that ?? Will someone plz help.
> Sorry for the long post but I am really getting fustrated as the same is
>
> happening to my Angels and my Cory Cats that I manage to spawn. :(
>
> TIA
> Gareth Casey
>
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