New MacMasteri Fry

[snowb]

I'm just curious about fry color. I have some macmasteri fry that are around 4 weeks old and there is one that is a real dark gray and another that is a medium colored gray. The others are light grey. Why the color difference so early?

 

[MacZ]

Fry colouration is camouflage colouration by default. Why the nuances: Frankly, nobody knows.
Wild guesses:
- If they all had the exact same colour they might stand out more from the background and so the whole group would be in danger of being spotted.
- Maybe the two are sick?
- Maybe it's genetic.
- Maybe...

You get the gist. Nobody will really know and to my knowledge nobody has put research into this.

 

[snowb]

Fry colouration is camouflage colouration by default. Why the nuances: Frankly, nobody knows.
Wild guesses:
- If they all had the exact same colour they might stand out more from the background and so the whole group would be in danger of being spotted.
- Maybe the two are sick?
- Maybe it's genetic.
- Maybe...

You get the gist. Nobody will really know and to my knowledge nobody has put research into this.

Appreciate your thoughts. This is the best place i know with extensive apisto knowledge. Other than the coloration , their behavior seems normal. Time will tell. I'd thought about isolating them just to see.

 

[MacZ]

Isolating before the mother stops caring reduces survival rates drastically.

 

[snowb]

Isolating before the mother stops caring reduces survival rates drastically.

All of the fry have been moved to another tank. They were being cared for by both parents for 3 weeks and then she started to show less interest and i removed them after that. She showed behavior as if she was wanting to lay another batch of eggs. I didnt want to chance her eating them. The parents started to show aggression to one another. Once the fry was removed. The parents went back to normal behavior.

 

[Apistonaut]

All of the fry have been moved to another tank. They were being cared for by both parents for 3 weeks and then she started to show less interest and i removed them after that. She showed behavior as if she was wanting to lay another batch of eggs. I didnt want to chance her eating them. The parents started to show aggression to one another. Once the fry was removed. The parents went back to normal behavior.

I had great success at this stage removing the mother as well. When the mother's behavior shows a disinterest in the school is a good queue. I think I had 2 losses out of ~50, raised until maturity. One spontaneous, one leapt.

 

[snowb]

I had great success at this stage removing the mother as well. When the mother's behavior shows a disinterest in the school is a good queue. I think I had 2 losses out of ~50, raised until maturity. One spontaneous, one leapt.

Awesome! So far i havent lost any that was moved. I have seen 2 left behind in the main tank and i'm just going to leave them in there. Looks like my female is on another batch already. I'm guessing from her behavior about 2 days in. She selected a different cave this time and its in one that i can see easily. Its closer to the sponge filter as a food source. I'm wondering if she moved the site for this reason or something else.

Feeding the fry with frozen baby brine shrimp using a pipette around every 2 hours during the day. Water parameters stay solid 0 ammonia , 0 nitrites , 10 - 20 nitrates. Probably out of the norm but i squeezed out the mulm from 2 filters into the tank and that is the substrate lol. The fry dig through that contantly. I also have a resurrection jar with micofauna culturing. I periodically pour that into the fry tank. Using water lettuce and anacharis plants for stability.

 

[Apistonaut]

Awesome! So far i havent lost any that was moved. I have seen 2 left behind in the main tank and i'm just going to leave them in there. Looks like my female is on another batch already. I'm guessing from her behavior about 2 days in. She selected a different cave this time and its in one that i can see easily. Its closer to the sponge filter as a food source. I'm wondering if she moved the site for this reason or something else.

Feeding the fry with frozen baby brine shrimp using a pipette around every 2 hours during the day. Water parameters stay solid 0 ammonia , 0 nitrites , 10 - 20 nitrates. Probably out of the norm but i squeezed out the mulm from 2 filters into the tank and that is the substrate lol. The fry dig through that contantly. I also have a resurrection jar with micofauna culturing. I periodically pour that into the fry tank. Using water lettuce and anacharis plants for stability.

Keep an eye on salinity. In a 20 gallon, I was doing daily water changes to keep the TDS down, almost all of which was from the salinity of frozen brine and hatched brine. I rinsed the lived baby brine well and that worked.

 

[snowb]

Keep an eye on salinity. In a 20 gallon, I was doing daily water changes to keep the TDS down, almost all of which was from the salinity of frozen brine and hatched brine. I rinsed the lived baby brine well and that worked.

Appreciate the information. I hadnt thought about that. The water hasn't been changed in 2 days and the TDS is 27 ppm. Doing a change today tho. Trying to introduce them to some dry food. They dont seem to be liking it to much so far LOL.

 

[anewbie]

To be honest even wild macs arent' that sensitive and domestic less so with regards to hardness. Of course if you said 127 it might be another matter

ammonia is another matter and nothing produce ammonia faster than decaying food... though i guess at least in theory low ph helps there.

 

[Apistonaut]

Appreciate the information. I hadnt thought about that. The water hasn't been changed in 2 days and the TDS is 27 ppm. Doing a change today tho. Trying to introduce them to some dry food. They dont seem to be liking it to much so far LOL.

No big deal at all. I had 50 fry that had stubborn growth. They required almost a tablespoon of hatched brine shrimp. Even after rinsing, it was a lot of salt. In between hatching brine shrimp, I used frozen, which is difficult to rinse. That was about 10-15 TDS in salinity alone a day for me.

When I said I was doing daily water changes, I meant after a few months of growth where all fry were around 1/2-3/4". This was about 2-5ppm nitrate a day.

 

[snowb]

No big deal at all. I had 50 fry that had stubborn growth. They required almost a tablespoon of hatched brine shrimp. Even after rinsing, it was a lot of salt. In between hatching brine shrimp, I used frozen, which is difficult to rinse. That was about 10-15 TDS in salinity alone a day for me.

When I said I was doing daily water changes, I meant after a few months of growth where all fry were around 1/2-3/4". This was about 2-5ppm nitrate a day.

I'm assuming this is per day of brine shrimp?Any cause for concern with nitrate levels on fry. I try to keep it under 20ppm.

 

[Apistonaut]

I'm assuming this is per day of brine shrimp?Any cause for concern with nitrate levels on fry. I try to keep it under 20ppm.

Some may disagree, but I’ve had long periods of 30-40ppm nitrate. Aim for <10-20.

My guess is it may stunt their growth or development to some degree. Doesn’t hurt to change water.

I believe nitrate can mimic ions that fish use, and it can damage the gill oxygen exchange, leading to stunted development.

In fry, this is especially sensitive.

 

[snowb]

Some may disagree, but I’ve had long periods of 30-40ppm nitrate. Aim for <10-20.

My guess is it may stunt their growth or development to some degree. Doesn’t hurt to change water.

Thank you , ill keep it in check.

 

[anewbie]

Really - i aim for sub 3 nitrate; basically unmeasurable with api test kit but not actually zero.

 

[snowb]

Really - i aim for sub 3 nitrate; basically unmeasurable with api test kit but not actually zero.

Appreciate your input. I'll work on getting the nitrates lowered over the next few days.

 

[anewbie]

Appreciate your input. I'll work on getting the nitrates lowered over the next few days.

I'm confused why the nitrate is so high to begin with if you are using ro water. I haven't paid attention to the thread and i know some folks in uk have high nitrate in their tap.

Also i don't feed my fry quite that often - i guess the first couple of weeks i feed them three time and presume some live bbs are in the water column for an hour or two before they die (though mom usually spends a lot of time hunting them down). There are also a lot of micro organism in the aquarium as it is rather 'dirty' and been setup for along time. Anyway i would be careful about changing too much too fast.

 

[snowb]

I'm confused why the nitrate is so high to begin with if you are using ro water. I haven't paid attention to the thread and i know some folks in uk have high nitrate in their tap.

Also i don't feed my fry quite that often - i guess the first couple of weeks i feed them three time and presume some live bbs are in the water column for an hour or two before they die (though mom usually spends a lot of time hunting them down). There are also a lot of micro organism in the aquarium as it is rather 'dirty' and been setup for along time. Anyway i would be careful about changing too much too fast.

I dont use any RO water , it is straight from my well with ph at 6.5. The tank is rarely over 20ppm. I was wanting to make sure it wouldnt have a negative impact on the fry. The fry are around 6 weeks old now and are in their own tank. The tank was setup and seeded with old filters squeezed into the tank to add the micro organism to the tank for them to scavenge for.

 

[anewbie]

I dont use any RO water , it is straight from my well with ph at 6.5. The tank is rarely over 20ppm. I was wanting to make sure it wouldnt have a negative impact on the fry. The fry are around 6 weeks old now and are in their own tank. The tank was setup and seeded with old filters squeezed into the tank to add the micro organism to the tank for them to scavenge for.

Nitrate is like smoking (though perhaps not as bad as smoking); it has an impact statisically but the exact impact on an individual can be hard to determine. There been a lot of research on the matter though more with game fish that are consumed since. I forget exactly which fish but i think oddly it was trout. Anyway i'm too lazy to try to find the paper and the results nor would it actually answer your question as the focus of the research was elsewhere and the level of nitrate quite extreme.

 

[Apistonaut]

Nitrate is like smoking (though perhaps not as bad as smoking); it has an impact statisically but the exact impact on an individual can be hard to determine. There been a lot of research on the matter though more with game fish that are consumed since. I forget exactly which fish but i think oddly it was trout. Anyway i'm too lazy to try to find the paper and the results nor would it actually answer your question as the focus of the research was elsewhere and the level of nitrate quite extreme.

Ultra sensitive suspects are trout and salmon, water migrating spawners with more specialized gills. Conservationists make a living by testing nitrates in remote streams.