Apistofry sick of brineshrimps?

[johnsson_82]

There's something wrong with my tank with A. hongsloi fry. I've had my fry for about 2,5 months now. Most of them dissapeared during the first two weeks but the 10 i have left is growing quite big and everything seemed to be working well so far.

However, today I found 3 dead fries. They seemed to be intact, good colour, not bloated but dead. Can't see why this is happening now since the most critical period for this fry should be over.

The only thing I made different was that they got more baby brineshrimps yeasterday than usal. Can fry eat TOO much bbs? Or can they die from eating unhatched eggs?

All of the fry looked good and ate happily yeasterday. Can't see what can kill a healthy fish over a night?

My tank has been rymning for six month and I'm making 30% waterchange every once a week. There's only the hongsloifry in the tank. Don't think it's nitrite since the tank always has been i balance. Some of the fry are showing a dominance, could they have killed the orter fry?

Please help me out what might be the problem here, I don't want to loose the last once now that they're getting close to the adultstadium.

 

[merlin]

Unhatched brine shrimp cysts are reported as being a problem if eaten by fry.

Derek

 

[johnsson_82]

Unhatched brine shrimp cysts are reported as being a problem if eaten by fry.

Derek

Yes I've heard that to. Read that the fry could suffer from opstipation when eating bbs eggshells. However, should their stomachs look like a small ballooon then?

 

[merlin]

I think i read that the cysts can burst in the stomach causing the death of the fry

Derek

 

[johnsson_82]

I think i read that the cysts can burst in the stomach causing the death of the fry

Derek

Really?! Poor fries. Maybe that's what happened. I accidently had som cysts in the tank and I saw some of the fry eating them. However, after what I've read it's very unusal that fry die of this cause.

 

[gerald]

Unhatched Artemia cysts can be a problem causing intestinal blockage in very young fry, but these fish were 2.5 months old, so I'm guessing maybe 2 cm long? By that size the gut diameter should be big enough to pass Artemia cysts. I never heard of the "bursting" phenomenon until merlin's post above. Were the shrimp freshly hatched and swimming vigorously? If there were many dead or dying shrimp, then bacteria in the food might have killed the fish. Ive seen this happen when dying blackworms are fed to fish, and I'm guessing bacteria in the worms are the cause of fish death. If the shrimp were fresh and healthy, and all eaten before they could die and start decaying, then I'm out of ideas.

 

[limchongyu]

Hi, I lost quite a few Apisto elizabethae fry roughly the same way too and I feel that in my case I probably overfed them.

 

[Mike Wise]

A. elizabethae have a reputation for being easy to breed, but their fry are extremely sensitive to excess organics caused by overfeeding.

 

[limchongyu]

I've actually raised quite a few generations of elizabethae. The batch that had this occuring was raised on mainly decap brineshrimp eggs and was doing rather well. This happened after I got my brineshrimp hatchery dish to start working. No cysts or egg shells were fed to the fry at all.