Fry and artemia

[Dzo]

My Nannacara Anomala spawned on early Sunday morning or Saturday evening... I was out that night so I am not sure
I didnt seee the eggs but based on the behaviour of the male and absence of female I knew it was there, so imediately I put easylife multicura around one drop per two liters just in case not to have fungus infested eggs.
It is the first spawn of the ones I got ... For long I tried to induce by raise or lower temp and change ph and dh but the female was not in the mood.
I made them bunch of places for the spawn with a giant nanas, some clay pot parts and dry oak leafs... Looks like separating them for some time and adding small amounts of colder destiled watter immitating rain did the trick.
Examining the tank for some time I finaly spoted the female ... lil coon they spawned in the least expected place betwen two leafs barely having the place to fit in ...

Now I am waiting for hatching...gues if everything is ok it will be tomorow.
I got a big culture of microworms...enough for 10 spawns but still I like those fish (You should see me catching mosquitoes jumping around the room or raising larvae of moths in a oat-full bag for the parents making my roomate mad hahahah).
So I bought some Artemia (and trying to get some frozen cyclops also)
It is Sera artemia mix ... it was the only thing I could find here... So it is 18 grams mostly salt and some artemia eggs I gues 2-3 grams... I went to their site and it said nothing about the hatching artemia size or rate it said just small size and big hatch rate haha bastards ... so I am a bit woried if the babies could eat the artemia...

What are Your experiences ?... has anyone used sera artemia mix?
And what is the size of them since small is relative
Also any idea how should I feed them ... microworms first or artemia first or maybe mixed?

Thanks in advance for the help, every advice is valuable .

 

[Dzo]

Wriglers wrigling on the rock ))))
Also took some decapsulated artemia from friend today.

 

[Mike Wise]

N. anomala fry can easily eat newly hatched artemia and microworms from the beginning (once they become freeswimming fry). I would alternate the 2 foods for the first 2 weeks, then add powder-size dry food if you want. The fry are not as 'picky' as apistos.

 

[Dzo]

Thanks Mike,
That is good news because I was woried about the size of their mouth... I had spawns of larger cichlids but not this small size.

 

[Apistomaster]

What matters most is not the size of the fry but their ability to take firsts foods as large as Artemia. Many fry from those as small as Black neons or wild Betta spp like B. imbellis and B. sp Mahachai can take newly hatched nauplii but not all of the fry can so if I want the maximum number I feed both infusoria and/or mikroworms The size of Artemia nauplii varies greatly depending on what species and or from what location the eggs are originally collected.
I have never heard of a ready to use mixture of salt and cysts before but I would expect a lower hatch rate than eggs which have been well separated based on their weight so empty shells in the cans are minimized.
I like many other American hobbyists use mostly eggs from the Great Salt Lake in Utah but I also keep a smaller can of San Francisco cysts as they hatch out at about 2/3 to 3/4 the size of Salt lake cysts. Without exception the best hatches are from those cysts which have been processed and then packed in hermetically seal tins.
I find I get optimum hatches when using these eggs if i use a marine water salt mix instead of rock salt or rock salt+Epsom's and a dash of sodium bicarbonate.
I use one tablespoon of marine salt mix per liter and hatch at about 84*F/~28*C. I use a small light as hatches which are lit seem to be better and I can use a 20 watt compact fluorescent bulb and cover the hatchers and light with a large plastic bag to keep the warmth constant. The eggs hatch within 24 hours.
I highly recommend that you buy your Artemia cysts when sold in the sealed containers. Otherwise you are paying too much for too few hatching cysts.

I have shipped in hundreds of wild Nannacara anomala and had many spawn in over crowded bare holding tanks. They will spawn in the corners of a tank if no shelter is provided. I often thought they could be bred in plastic bags if one really wanted a to try. All my experience is with the wild fish so I do not know if aquarium strains have remained what I considered the easiest of dwarf Cichlids to breed. They were once a very popular animal behavior laboratory animal. They use such a variety of color changes and body language to communicate with their fry and their ease of breeding made them good lab animals. They have played an historic role in our understanding of Cichlid behavior. It seems that the less common Nannacara species are not anywhere nearly as easy to breed.