A. Trifasciata fry

[S.T.]

So without even realising I woke up to 30 odd trifasciata fry swimming round a heavily planted communal tank, it has a pleco, guppies and the apistos. I also noticed the male apisto looking seriously beaten up, he had what looks like a bite on his flank and is generally hiding, as are the guppies. I was debating removing the fry to a small tank and leaving the adults to go back to normal. what do you guys think about this? I've moved the male and guppies into another tank.

But I was wondering if I remove the fry to another tank, filled with water from the main tank would that be ok? I figure it would also be easier feeding them in their own tank, at the moment I make a grindal/micro/bbs concoction and syringe it as close to the cloud of fry as I can get, in their own tank I could do it without freaking out the female. Any and all thoughts welcome.

Also anyone had any experience of post breeding beat up care of male apistos ;-)

 

[Mike Wise]

Most people find that raising the fry with their mother results in more and faster growing fry. Fry without their mother tend to stay motionless near the bottom of the tank instead of out actively feeding. I would remove the pleco and leave the tank to mom and the kids.

 

[hapaluku]

Hello, and congrats with the fry.
I can only agree with Mike wise, keep the fry and female apisto in the tank.

 

[S.T.]

Thanks for the info,
yes I didn't realise the pleco could be destructive with the fry till last night! Here I was thinking he was ok, and he went and munched on some of the poor buggers! But There's still 2 dozen or more alive.

Now I'm using a syringe attached to a piece of tubing to get the food as close to the female and fry as possible, any advice on feeding?

 

[Mike Wise]

Live foods are best. The fry are attracted to moving food much more than sinking, non-moving foods.

 

[S.T.]

yeah wouldn't use anything else except live food... I only give my adults good quality flake every third day.

But despite that I've had a whole glut of accidents so far:frown: We had a power out at 6am didn't come back on till 8, which dropped the water temp, and I lost about 8 fry!

Then the male, who was separated into his own tank, being fed live food and generally happy being boss of his own kingdom again up and died this morning and I can't figure out why. I think I did all the right things, his tank was filled using water from the main tank, same temp, loads of moss and hidey holes... I just think maybe he was beaten up more than I thought!

But on the plus side the female still has a cloud of fry.:biggrin:

 

[Bilbo]

Very sorry to hear of your loss especially of such a lovely fish.

I have started calling it the "one spawn per pair" rule. It just seems to be fate that we can only ever get one successful spawn per pair before one of the adults dies.

I am growing up some cockatoo's and separated them after 7 weeks so I could spawn the parents again, lost 2 females in a week. Both happy and showing off and then blew up like balloons with either constipation or bloat.

Best of luck growing the young ones out.