how do i keep fry alive for more than 3minutes??

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  • #10317
    plymbloke
    Participant

    Hello! I seem to find one new fry each day and I used to add them to a small 1 litre container, but for the last week or so I have put them all into the breeding net in the main tank. Whether they are in the container or the net, I have yet to have a fry survive for longer than 24hours. I feed liquifry twice a day, (nothing has lasted long enough to try anything else)

    any suggestions?!

    thanks

    #11679
    chr15_8
    Participant

    i find it easy to keep them alive and they seem hardy.

    how are you feeding your liquifry?

    chris

    #11680
    plymbloke
    Participant

    by squeezing it out of the bottle into the flow of the water. it spreads out in to the water where the fry are.

    #11682
    chr15_8
    Participant

    i would try and get hold of a syringe put a few drops into it. suck water into it so it goes cloudy then squirt it into the breeder next (some might get out but there nothing you can do.

    the drops might be to big for them

    chris

    #11687
    ste12000
    Participant

    Idealy you should not move such small fry..the slightest shock can be enough to finish them off. Are you feeding before they use up the yolk sac? If you give me some background about your breeding history i can help you out. Are you new to breeding? or have you been doing it for years? Let me know and ill get back to you.

    #11693
    plymbloke
    Participant

    i only put free swimming fry, that have been hatched for days into the breeding trap – so the egg yolk has been used up. ive bred my fish for the last 5 years or so, and so far i have managed to successfully breed all that i have tried (and raised fry to adult hood i might add lol :D ) but i have to admit these little beauties are giving me some problems! Im doing the same with them as i did with pencilfish and danios – both egglayers and have very small fry..

    – species so far:

    guppy
    swordtail
    cory
    golden pencilfish
    danio
    Ram
    keyhole cichlid
    platy

    #11706
    ste12000
    Participant

    Well you are certainly not a beginner. You are breeding similar fish to me, check out my videos on youtube.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYxFcoSjkXI
    I have yet to spawn the CPD’s iv tryed twice and not got them to lay, mine are too shy in the bare tank i usually use. I have bred and raised loads of small/tiny fry though. If you can succeed with the tiny pencilfish you can breed and raise nearly anything(bit off track but roughly how many pencilfish fry do you get from a pair, i use two females to 1 male and get roughly 60-80).
    With my fry i use a tiny bit of liquifry, 2-4 drops in a 16litre tank for the first couple of days. I then swap to a tiny powdered food which is infusior sized until they can take newly hatched brine shrimp. Once on this your problems are over and they should grow rapidly.
    Over the years i have obviously lost fry and encountered problems, this is a natural learning curve. I will list a few mistakes/problems i have had.
    1-Overfeeding (fry can only eat a minute amount at a time. less than the smallest amount we can measure)
    2- Underfeeding (tiny regular feeds are required) 10-20 feeds a day are ideal but no one i know has this much time hense if you work all day a fry can easily go 8-10 hours without food which is bad. Try liquifry mixed with water to slightly cloud the water while you are away.
    3- Water changes.. When i first started i changed anything upto 50% daily as soon as the fry were freeswimming.I would lose 4-5 fish after every waterchange I now only start water changes after i start feeding baby brine shrimp, usually 1 week after freeswimming.And never a huge amount 10% daily is better than 50% in one go.
    4- Moving/tiny changes in water. I never move fry. I use a bare tank for the parents to spawn then remove the adults. The fry are amazingly delicate and even the most careful people can damage/shock them. I also match the water temp to the nearest degree when changing water as i have lost fry due to inaccuracy in temp. Even 2-3o can be dangerous

    Right im knackered now so im going..Goodluck :D :wink: [/list]

    #11713
    plymbloke
    Participant

    yeh those problems seem to be all the ones ive encountered too. although i must say that the water change problem has never affected my fish before – usually i change at least 50%-70% a day, but now i have just pput the fry into breeding net (although on that note intrrestingly – i have lost a LOT more fry doing this way, than my normal method of keeping fry in a 1 litre container and then putting them into the net at about 4 weeks old)

    As for the pencilfish, they were a bonus – i had 3 males and 6 females in a setup much like my celestial one actually – plenty of plants etc. One day i noticed a handful of fry swimming around so i saved 10 and raised them to adulthood just as a small scale project. there were probably lots more fry aroudn though, as the females were nice and plump, full of eggs allmost all the time. My best success of a single brood was easily with the zebra danios though – one female and male in a net in a tank(eggs fall through) gave me well over 400 fry! (disaster with a faulty heater did for those alas:() but i raised quite a few of those quite happily.

    With your CPDs, it took mine about 2months to get it together, but it did coincide with a week of feeding a mix of flake, live and frozen food and two waters changes of approx 20%. since then im finding fry on the sand almost daily. I am using a heavily planted tank though which is half java moss and half ‘grass’ – ill get a pic up here when i work out how too lol.

    #11714
    katkin
    Participant

    Just out of curiosity, to those of you that breed other fish….do any of you use microworms? I was feeding my cpd fry on them from a few days, (maybe a week free swimming) and they seemed to do well on them.
    Just wondered if that’s okay for them or should I try mixing their foods, ie alternate with a small flake/powdered food?

    Sorry to highjack your thread plymbloke
    K

    #11715
    plymbloke
    Participant

    lol thats ok – i think my question is answered now :D i must admit ive never used other foods (microworms) for my fry – i normally start off with liquidfry, then after about 2 weeks i have a ‘special fry formula’ lol that i use. at about 4 weeks old i use crushed flake along with my formula and then at about 6 weeks plus its live food all the way :D if you want to condition your fish then live food is always the best, with frozen coming a close second – get them well fed for about 1-2 weeks – some say seperate the sexes whilst you do this so they are more than ‘up for it’ when you put them back – also it allows the females to build up a nice batch of eggs – more eggs = more fry (in theory lol) – this is the method im going to be using to attempt to breed my cardinals in a few weeks time :D

    #11716
    ste12000
    Participant

    I have never used Microworms but they are a excellent food for fry.
    I use baby brineshrimp from roughly 1-2weeks freeswimming and some of the dwarf cichlids can eat bbs from freeswimming. I get good growth rates on this and ZM fry foods.

    #11718
    plymbloke
    Participant

    @ste12000 wrote:

    ..some of the dwarf cichlids can eat bbs from freeswimming..

    thats true – my keyhole cichlid fry were attacking the brineshrimp meant for their parents all the time

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