Hi all,
I have a 240L community tank with groups of a few different types of tetras, with the main fish being a wild male Apistogramma Agasizii (beautiful fish that I got from Ste12000...) and 4 female agasizii.
About 10 days ago I spotted some eggs and one of the females guarding them. After recent unsuccesful spawns, when I noticed the eggs had gone one morning I guessed they had been eaten. The next day I saw about 35 fry being guarded by one of the females. I kept an eye on them for 24 hours and asked for some advice. It was suggest that I sit this one out and set up another tank (which at the time I was using to allow a pair of Apistogramma recover from being bullied by the wild male) for breeding.
The next day the female seemed stressed defending her fry and I decided to rehome the recovering pair and syphon the fry into the other tank and put mum in with them. At first I thought this was a BIG mistake as a lot of mulm and rubbish was thrown up when I put them in the new tank. After about 4 hours mum had gathered all the fry and I reckon only a couple were lost in this process.
So I now have fry free swimming at about 7 days old. In total I reckon there are 28 fry left. They seem to have been enjoying eating algae and other particles off the moss balls and spawning cave in the grow out tank. 2 days ago I tried hatching some baby brine shrimp but the fry didn't seem interested.
I have a few questions if anyone minds taking the time to answer:
Apologies for the list of questions, I've done many searches but would appreciate an opportunity to group some questions together... Perhaps others can also benefit from the answers, I know I certainly will!
Thanks for your patience,
Drammy
I have a 240L community tank with groups of a few different types of tetras, with the main fish being a wild male Apistogramma Agasizii (beautiful fish that I got from Ste12000...) and 4 female agasizii.
About 10 days ago I spotted some eggs and one of the females guarding them. After recent unsuccesful spawns, when I noticed the eggs had gone one morning I guessed they had been eaten. The next day I saw about 35 fry being guarded by one of the females. I kept an eye on them for 24 hours and asked for some advice. It was suggest that I sit this one out and set up another tank (which at the time I was using to allow a pair of Apistogramma recover from being bullied by the wild male) for breeding.
The next day the female seemed stressed defending her fry and I decided to rehome the recovering pair and syphon the fry into the other tank and put mum in with them. At first I thought this was a BIG mistake as a lot of mulm and rubbish was thrown up when I put them in the new tank. After about 4 hours mum had gathered all the fry and I reckon only a couple were lost in this process.
So I now have fry free swimming at about 7 days old. In total I reckon there are 28 fry left. They seem to have been enjoying eating algae and other particles off the moss balls and spawning cave in the grow out tank. 2 days ago I tried hatching some baby brine shrimp but the fry didn't seem interested.
I have a few questions if anyone minds taking the time to answer:
- At what age are the fry correctly termed "free-swimming"?
- At what age should I start feeding them baby brine shrimp?
- Will the fry continue to enjoy the algae, if so for how long?
- When should I remove Mum?
- Is there any advantage of having lights on the tank other than to regenerate the algae?
- I have some grade 0 red crumb, when and for how long should I feed the fry this food?
- What other foods should I feed and at what stages?
Apologies for the list of questions, I've done many searches but would appreciate an opportunity to group some questions together... Perhaps others can also benefit from the answers, I know I certainly will!
Thanks for your patience,
Drammy