Keeping fry alive

Hi,

I had about 15 aulonocara fry that I stripped from the mother and
placed in a 21L tank. (I kept the mother in the main tank not the fry
tank)

The fry tank has a heater and a filter on it.
the water levels are all fine 26-27deg celcius 8.0pH nitrates and
ammonium is fine.

However my fry are dropping dead daily!

They seem to be eating ok.

One thing that may be of a concern to me is the flow rate of the filter
may be too strong and might be causing the fish to swim too much
against the force of the filter????? i dont know if i can slow the rate
down???? it doesnt seem to have any knobs or anything on it.

I am feeding the fry crushed veggie/spirulina flakes.

Any help would be appreciated.

Andre

"xqizit" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I had about 15 aulonocara fry that I stripped from the mother and
placed in a 21L tank. (I kept the mother in the main tank not the fry
tank)

The fry tank has a heater and a filter on it.
the water levels are all fine 26-27deg celcius 8.0pH nitrates and
ammonium is fine.

However my fry are dropping dead daily!

They seem to be eating ok.

One thing that may be of a concern to me is the flow rate of the filter
may be too strong and might be causing the fish to swim too much
against the force of the filter????? i dont know if i can slow the rate
down???? it doesnt seem to have any knobs or anything on it.

I am feeding the fry crushed veggie/spirulina flakes.

Any help would be appreciated.

Andre


Andre,
Fry can be sensitive to water conditions. Make sure you're doing small
water changes every other day or so. I typically use a sponge filter in my
fry tanks. Usually with such small fish, a sponge filter is more than
sufficient. Cut back on the amount you're feeding. It's possible you're
feeding too much in that small tanks, small ammonia spikes and nitrite
spikes could be occuring from over feeding. When you set up the tank was it
cycled? Did you use water from the main tank? Did you keep momma in that
tank till you stripped her?
Tim

www.fishaholics.org

Hi,

Itook 50% water and gravel from my main tank to start up the fry tank
so there should be no problem with it not being cycled.

The ammonia as checked was fine. I have been doing water swapping from
the main tank every few days. My main tank is fine and my fish are all
breeding happily. (hence the reason for the fry tank)

The only thing I didnt do was keep "momma" in the tank with them. I
stripped the fry and placed momma back in the main tank and the fry in
the fry tank. I understand this is probably not the best thing to do
because in the first few days of them swimming they still need to be
led to food etc. But right now they are free swimming about 1cm long
and actively searching for food. However is there any othner
reasons?????

Personally I think it is possibly because the filter suction was too
strong for the size of the tank and the fish were getting tired of
swimming against the current non-stop. (Correct me if im wrong)

I have placed a plastic washer in the pipe and this has dropped the
suction considerably so it is more of a slower suction rate now and
there isnt as much current.

Also another question????

My Electric blue mom is about to spit out her fry in the next day or
so. Should I now place her in the same fry tank even though I have
about 6 fry from the peacock left in there? or will she after apitting
out her own fry eat these other ones up?

thanks again for your help... lookinfg forward to the answers to these
Q's.

Andre

"xqizit" wrote in message
oups.com...
snip
Also another question????

My Electric blue mom is about to spit out her fry in the next day or
so. Should I now place her in the same fry tank even though I have
about 6 fry from the peacock left in there? or will she after apitting
out her own fry eat these other ones up?

thanks again for your help... lookinfg forward to the answers to these
Q's.

Andre


There's a good chance that once she spits she'll eat the other fry.
(Depending on what you mean by electric blue, lower chance if it's M.
johanni). I've attempted to use a tank divider for this purpose, but the fry
usually swim right through it.
Tim

so the tank wasn't up and cycled before you moved the fry into it? If that
is the case, it is not cycled. You cannot cycle a tank just by moving water
from one cycled tank to an uncycled tank. Your fry need to be in a
completely cycled tank. Especially with the large amounts of food you have
to put in a fry tank to get them to grow and be healthy.

Whatever you do, do not put anything else in that fry tank for another month
or two until it is completely cycled unless you want to lose more fry.

--
Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/200302152...qs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

Sure I probably cant agree with you more. Water quality and having the
tank completely cycled are very important. However I believe if this
was the problem then ammonia levels would have spiked. The ammonia
level has not even reached 0.1 whenever I have tested it and always
almost stayed at zero.

If a tank has 50% water from a cycled tank, plus all its gravel has
been taken from a cycled tank then I do not see why it isnt able to
cope since it is almost like it is after a fortnightly water change
except a new medium has been introduced (filter) which has no bacteria
on it. However temporarily the bacteria in the gravel should be able to
cope initially until the filter reaches this cycled stage.

Either way, if the cycling of the tank (or lack of) was the problem
then we would see an ammoia spike. Yet we do not see it move from 0.0.

Can you also answer my question regarding placing the Sciaenochromis
ahli mom in this new tank? (lets assume this new tank is completely
cycled) What are the benefits of doing this and will she eat my peacock
fry that are in there now?

Andre

fry are very sensitive. any ammonia at all could be detrimental to them.
It takes time for ammonia to build up to measurable levels and even longer
to get to a "spike". You are doing large water changes which keeps diluting
what small amounts of ammonia the fry are producing so you are not seeing
the ammonia at high levels. All of the nitrifying bacteria live in the
filter and the gravel and other surfaces in the tank. It is not free
floating, that is why I say using cycled water doesn't do any good. You
can take some cycled filter material and put in the new filter to speed up
the cycle though.

as to your fish question, the mother would most likely eat the other fry in
the tank if you were to put her in there. But there is no telling. But if
you put her in the fry tank you probably will see that it is not cycled
because of the extreme load a fish of that size will put on such a small
tank, if you could even fit her in ;op
--

Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/200302152...qs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

I use 100% water from the main tank when I fill a fry tank, when I do water
changes I just take about half the fry tank water and tip it back to the
main tank then refill the fry tank with water from the main tank. I dont
filter my fry tanks for fry that small at all, just an airstone to keep the
water moving, once they are bigger they get put into a growout tank that is
cycled. I dont lose any fry doing it this way.

xqizit wrote:
Hi,

Itook 50% water and gravel from my main tank to start up the fry tank
so there should be no problem with it not being cycled.

Moving water and gravel does not create a sufficient bacterial colony to
prevent cycling. These days, unless you're still using undergravel
filters, the amount of bacteria in the gravel is minimal and there's
actually more of a chance of hitting an anaerobic pocket than transferring
good bacteria. Plus I prefer my small fry tanks to be bare-bottomed so
that waste can be more easily spotted and syphoned away. But back to the
point at hand, the only way to prevent cycling in a fry tank is to use
established FILTER media. For this purpose, I keep a hydro-sponge in the
main tank to transfer over to fry tanks as needed.

The ammonia as checked was fine. I have been doing water swapping from
the main tank every few days. My main tank is fine and my fish are all
breeding happily. (hence the reason for the fry tank)

What about the nitrites? I find this to be an even bigger killer than
ammonia in fry. To understand this, you need to understand what nitrite
poisoning does. When nitrite is absorbed into the blood stream, it
converts hemoglobin into a form that no longer transports oxygen. Fry have
a smaller volume of blood than adults, so they can more quickly reach that
critical point where they no longer have enough active hemoglobin. They
will essentially suffocate from the inside. This will manifest as being
sluggish or with respiratory distress, so your theory of tiring from the
filter flow might have more to do with nitrite poisoning than just simply
tiring out.

And while speaking of filters, I'd like to second Amatuer Cichlid's
suggestion of losing the HOB filter and using a sponge filter instead. I
particularly prefer the wider hydrosponges (4" diameter and higher). They
seem to be really good at providing surface area for bacterial colonies
and fry like to graze on them as well, so they don't create too much
suction. When they get larger, you can switch them to a grow-out tank with
HOB filters or larger sponge filters. If you feel you must stick to a HOB
filter, get a package of AquaClear mini sponges, cut a slit in one and
stick it over the intake pipe. This will prevent the fry from getting
sucked in.

that sucks about the fry dieing .



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