Greetings and advice needed on A. hongsloi fry!

[PGH Jeremy]

Hi everyone. I've joined to learn a bit more and ask for advice on my current situation. I set up a new (to me) 30 gallon in my home office about 6 weeks ago. I started with a small group of harlequin rasboras and some live plants back on 5/19. After that went well and my N-cycle seemed to be functioning well (NH3/NH4+=0) I thought I'd add a couple of blue rams as part of my community plan on 6/1. My LFS only had 1 blue ram, so I went to plan B - Apistogramma. I had researched them previously and they were a close 2nd to the rams. The LFS had a nice selection of half-ish sized A. hongsloi and I bought a M/F. They assimilated well, with the male displaying for the F when their paths crossed, but she was completely ignoring him. I went on a 5-day vacation starting 6/8, and my wife informed me that the male A. hongsloi had been doing well on 6/10 but was dead in the morning on 6/11. I came home and found her repeated going into an elevated crevice in a large driftwood piece and mildly/moderately defending it when rasboras came close by, but not doing any harm. I could not see inside the crevice. Coincidentally, I was getting a filamentous green algae outbreak, so I decided to do some "harvesting" and got 4 otocinclus at my LFS on 6/16. Everything seemed fine the first day, but the next morning 2 otos were dead near the female A. honsloi's lair. The remaining 2 otos have been fine since then. On Friday (6/21), I realized that the female A. hongsloi was guarding several dozen free swimming fry in the back corner of my aquarium. The school of fry make their way around the aquarium bottom hunting and pecking with her guarding (see photo - fry evident near her tail in front of the dwarf saggitaria). The mom chases the rasboras and otos when they get semi-nearby but has done no (further?) damage. My other fish go about their normal business without excessive hiding. Upon seeing the fry, I started trying to feed the fry ground micro pellets (dust) with a syringe, then bought a brine shrimp hatchery at my LFS late in the day. Yesterday I had some hatched BBS and started feeding them to the fry with the syringe. I haven't seen them clearly react to this, but the fry look plump and continue hunting (and pooping). I do have some extremely small whitish worms on my aquarium glass which have existed nearly since aquarium set-up and I suspect they are eating these. I am interested in any advice about what to expect in the near future and how best to help develop the fry. At this point, I do not envision a 2nd aquarium set-up. If all goes well, I will probably off-load the young A. hongsloi eventually.

 

[Mike Wise]

Keep feeding BBS to the fry (other fish in the tank will appreciate it, too) and hope for the best. The worms are not really a problem. They are eating excess food, so it seems that you might be overfeeding the larger fish a bit (not unusual). As the fry get larger you will need to keep the water quality high with more frequent water changes. Depending on how many survive, you might find that you actually do need another grow-out tank. Good luck.

 

[PGH Jeremy]

Keep feeding BBS to the fry (other fish in the tank will appreciate it, too) and hope for the best. The worms are not really a problem. They are eating excess food, so it seems that you might be overfeeding the larger fish a bit (not unusual). As the fry get larger you will need to keep the water quality high with more frequent water changes. Depending on how many survive, you might find that you actually do need another grow-out tank. Good luck.

Thanks. I’ll keep on the BBS. I wasn’t concerned about the worms and figured they might be an accidental benefit (seemingly). I’m lightly stocked currently (4 rasboras, 2 otos, mom A. hongsloi and fry in a 30 gallon)) but will keep an eye on it as things progress.