Cacatuoides Babies

[mead1986]

Hello, this is my 1st post so would just like to say hi to eveyone.

The reason for this post is that recently i had a pair of Cacatuoides who sucesfully bread. but now all i have is 5 babies left and was wondering why most of the babies have died?

a few days after the eggs hatched i removed the male into a larger tank therefor leaving the female to look after the young stress free. 10 days after the babies were free swimming i removed the female as they seemed capable to find food for themselves. Since then the numbers have seemed to drop!

i feed them white micro worm 3 times a day and they are in a tank of fine black gravel with a plant and a small cave. i am also using a bubble filter. the tank is 22x12x12.

if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bigbird]

Morning,

welcome to the forum

My experience is as follows
- leave the male for 7days with the female and fry
- leave the mum with the fry for 20days
- make sure your tank is mature and running for a while, this gives the opportunity for the fry to find micro foods etc.
- make sure you remove any other dithers, as most tetras are good fry hunters and eaters.
- I would not feed micro worms as uneated worms will foul the water, i use very fine flake food and as stated before, if the tank is well established, then there is plenty of foods available.
- from you post, I would add more plants and change the black gravel to white fine sand. add a piece of driftwood for tannins.
It in in detail hard to find out why the fry died, if it was the first batch, this also tends to be the norm.

I have in my 20G now 20 Hongsloi at 1cm in length and I just feed them dried crushed food since the beginning.

Anyway hope this helps you. cheers jk:biggrin:

 

[Mike Wise]

Don't feel too bad. Raising fry is a learning experience for you & your fish. I try to keep my fry with their mother until the female is no longer willing to guard them. This can range from 2 weeks to the time that the fry become sexually mature. Fry will feed better if their mother is there to lead them to food and safety. Without their mother to tell them when it is safe to be out and feeding, the fry tend to stay close to the bottom & don't move as much. If you remove the mother too soon, the fry become very shy, sit on the bottom more, and don't eat as much.

 

[mead1986]

Thanks for the repies Big Bird and Mike you have given some good advice i will use next time. I did think i removed the female to early, i just didnt want her to eat them i guess.

 

[Apistomaster]

You did not remove the female too early. The fry may be artificially hatched and nearly all will survive. I would make the suggested changes to the breeding set up and use newly hatched brine shrimp(bbs). A. cacatuoides fry can handle bbs from the beginning and the fry will grow much faster. Microworms are not as nutritious as bbs and are most useful as a transitional food for smaller fry unable to accept bbs at first or as a supplemental food in case a batch of brine shrimp don't hatch at a critical point in the fry development.
Many fry seem to get lost among coarse gravel and fine sand eliminates this problem.