My first fry!!!
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Baby brine shrimp are a classic staple and pretty simple to hatch (so long as you don’t let the bubbles stop for more than several minutes — they’re nasty stinkers when they run out of oxygen!), especially when augmented with variety.
Once you get the BBS going, they may get your CPDs in the mood, too! :wink:
Not sure they’re quite ready for BBS yet. I have eggs though, when I occasionally give them to my galaxies, though I dodn’t know if they eat them or not. They seem really tiny to me. Family doesn’t like the smell of the water though, so I’ve have to do it in the basement with a light over them to warm them from now on. :roll:
Finally figured out how to do it right using a homemade container.
I just wish I could see these little guys eat. I mean, they must me eating the baby food because they aren’t dieing, but still.
I’ll start adding fine granules. :wink: I have about 7 or 8 different kinds of fish food. Plus whatever it is in the freezer that I used to feed the galaxies with…
What exactly do fry need most at the stage of life in terms of food?
– Atlantis
Update: One of the fry has mysteriously disappeared from the fry net. The others are doing well and growing fast.
The normal girl, Amber will give birth any day now hopefully. Looks like she’s going to burst, and spends her time resting on the floating plants. See some dark behind her bulging white-ish main body now.
I’ve been keeping her swperate since she got big so the others don’t harass her.
– Atlantis
Before my fry were able to eat BBS (almost a week for the CPDs it seemed like), they ate loads of micro-organisms I couldn’t see in the water because they are too small. These populations of “infusoria” are kept high in the presence of live plants (shameless plug for the live plant cult).
I also fed them a powdered food made for raising fry. I used “OSI micro food” http://www.petsolutions.com/Micro-Food+I92700105+C100045.aspx although I think a bunch of companies make fine powders and granules — check the fish food shelves where you work. If you can find it, Liquifry #1 is a liquid suspension of super-tiny food bits for the fry.
I highly recommend micro-worms too. Culturing them is even easier than brine shrimp. Also less smelly if you are trying to keep the BBS bubbler going more than a few days on a single batch. Way less smelly if you make the mistake of letting the air stop in the BBS bubbler!!!!
I posted a link earlier to a great step-by-step recipe webpage about culturing micro-worms. $10 worth of supplies (plastic dish and lid, flaked dry baby cereal, brewer’s yeast, and active yeast) will keep you in wiggly live fish food for months — and get the adults fattened up for breeding. Once you have the supplies, all you need is a couple of bucks for a little dish of someone else’s culture, but these are easy to find at your local fish club, or at places like aquabid.com. Are there any other fish breeders at the place you work? They might have some live food cultures to get you started. I promise the micro-worms won’t stink up the folks’ house. There is a bit of a yeasty smell — like baking bread — but unless you keep the lid on tight for a couple of days without letting it breathe, you won’t get the foul smell that a bubbler full of BBS can bomb you with if it goes anaerobic.
As we say here in Minnesota, you betcha!
Here’s the earlier CPD forum link, with other links and info:
http://www.celestialpearldanio.com/viewtopic.php?p=1905#1905Next time I set up a new batch, I’ll get some photos of the plastic ring I mentioned — px are worth a bunch of words…
Walter worms — my CPDs swear by ’em!
L777 the words of a true fish fanaticLive foods are the most important item a fish breeder needs and are one of the main causes of failiures in beginners(No live foods = No baby fish).
Live foods are without a doupt the best start for any fry, i feed all my fry on everything you mention.
I usually start with Liquifry when the eggs hatch this promotes infusiorans and microscopic foods,
Baby brine shrimp and microworms are the real growth food and the speed of growth when fed these can be tremendous. I cannot agree with you on the smell of “worm porridge”(my daughters expression) Mine stink after two weeks and keep the kids out of the shed at feeding time :wink: :roll:Well, yes, I have to concede my daughters also grab their noses and complain when I open a lid of worm soup, but no general complaints from daughters or wife about odor in the room except at feeding time. I rotate a few trays of them around and try to start a new batch before they get more than a couple weeks old — once the colo(u)r of the culture starts to turn darker it does go sour and get noticeably rank (worm production slows considerably then also). But for the first few weeks, as long as I open the lids for feedings a couple times a day and swirl the culture around to let it breathe before setting the lid back on, the smell is more yeasty than nasty. BBS on the other hand can get downright evil smelling after more than a couple days — septic if the airflow stops! Plus the bubbler is constantly pushing the BBS air/smell into the room whereas the worm smell stays contained to brief moments when the container is open. (Sorry if this is digressing; hopefully still related to Atlantis’ fry feeding question…
)Well…since I last wrote on this thread Amber still hasn’t given birth. :roll: Gotten bigger though.
Fry looking like fish now, not just fry. Well you know, the big head and little tail. 2/3 the size of one of my pygmy catfish now I think.
– Atlantis
My two ‘babies’ are a decent size now. The size of a pygmy catfish nwn. Turns out I have two little girls. :wink:
Any ideas on how to help coax those mamas to give birth? It’s been a long time now. Starting to think they just have big round tumors. :roll: Silly fisk!
– Atlantis
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