apisto cacatuodies fry

[planta]

Hi all, it's my first time raising apisto fry and I'm wondering how to take care of them. I have a triple red cacatuodies pair and this is also the first time they've spawned - only two fry were left out of the batch and so I decided to take them out and raise them myself. I have them in a one liter container heated to around 78.5 degrees F. They are a little bit smaller than 0.5cm and are maybe around a week old. They are currently free-swimming and I am feeding freshly hatched BBS around three times a day with daily water changes.

My question is that I don't know how much to feed and I don't know if they are actually eating the BBS. I am cycling a five gallon tank for the two of them and am wondering how big they should be before I move them over. Thank you so much in advance!

 

[IndianaSam]

You can tell if they’re eating BBS because their little stomachs will look orange.

BBS will live for a little while in fresh water. I’m talking an hour or two. If there are still BBS swimming in the container after an hour then you might be over feeding them.

In my opinion, they should be older before moving them to a 5 gallon tank. It’ll be hard to feed them otherwise.

 

[anewbie]

Given the orange belly they are probably eating. I use a loop when i fed my angel frys bbs to make sure they ate. As to how much - that is tough because they are so few frys - it will be incredibly easy to over feed and the bbs dies fairly quickly and then rot which can kill the frys. I would say feed as little as possible (using a magnifying glass of some sort to see if they eat )- and then a bit later use a turkey blaster to suck out the ones on the bottom that begin to rot. It really is easier to raise a pile of frys than one or two.
--
Frequent small feedings is far better than a few large feedings. After about 10 to 15 days you can try feeding them dry food (gold pearl or hiraki first bite) and after about 20 days things should become really easy. However the biggest concern is that rotting food will kill the frys - and it is very important to suck out any uneaten food or change the water.

 

[planta]

Thank you! I’m probably overfeeding then; I still see shrimp after around 2 hours.

You can tell if they’re eating BBS because their little stomachs will look orange.

BBS will live for a little while in fresh water. I’m talking an hour or two. If there are still BBS swimming in the container after an hour then you might be over feeding them.

In my opinion, they should be older before moving them to a 5 gallon tank. It’ll be hard to feed them otherwise.

 

[planta]

Given the orange belly they are probably eating. I use a loop when i fed my angel frys bbs to make sure they ate. As to how much - that is tough because they are so few frys - it will be incredibly easy to over feed and the bbs dies fairly quickly and then rot which can kill the frys. I would say feed as little as possible (using a magnifying glass of some sort to see if they eat )- and then a bit later use a turkey blaster to suck out the ones on the bottom that begin to rot. It really is easier to raise a pile of frys than one or two.
--
Frequent small feedings is far better than a few large feedings. After about 10 to 15 days you can try feeding them dry food (gold pearl or hiraki first bite) and after about 20 days things should become really easy. However the biggest concern is that rotting food will kill the frys - and it is very important to suck out any uneaten food or change the water.

Alrighty, I do daily 10% water changes and suck out any uneaten BBS after around 2-3 hours. Do you think that would be okay? Thank you!

 

[anewbie]

Alrighty, I do daily 10% water changes and suck out any uneaten BBS after around 2-3 hours. Do you think that would be okay? Thank you!

I can't answer this - all i can say is rotting food produce ammonia which the frys have a low tolerance. There are a lot of factors such as amount of food decaying, volume of water and so forth - but look on the bright side it is a learning experience and if it doesn't work out well you will have more frys in 3 or 4 weeks.

 

[planta]

I can't answer this - all i can say is rotting food produce ammonia which the frys have a low tolerance. There are a lot of factors such as amount of food decaying, volume of water and so forth - but look on the bright side it is a learning experience and if it doesn't work out well you will have more frys in 3 or 4 weeks.

Sounds good, the apistos just spawned again yesterday morning so I’ll see how this batch goes. Thank you!