How often to feed fry?

[ginnie5]

I have microworms ready and brine shrimp on the way. How often do I need to feed them? I usually change water 1x a week should I increase that?

 

[Apistt_ed]

Hello,

Sound's like you have alot of work coming ahead, just like me! Every apisto pair I have has either fry or eggs!

When it comes to how much you should feed the fry it should be 2-3 times a day. I usually will feed them once in the morning and then slightly less than that around noon-ish and then once more just about an hour before lights out at around 6pm. The fry grow quickly and with the increase in feedings, it would be best to increase the water changes to at least twice a week. Your fry will grow stronger and faster than if there were less feedings and less water changes. Best luck. john

 

[ginnie5]

thanks! that's kind of what I was thinking but these are my first little fry and I want to do it right. I can tell they're growing already.

 

[tjudy]

I feed 3 - 5 times a day and do a 30-50% water change every day.

 

[Cathy G]

Hi,
So how important is it to syphon water from the bottom as you are doing water changes? With tiny fry, I am having trouble keeping my nitrates at 5 or below. They are all over the bottom and it is hard to suck out the junk and not the fry. I just started squirting in microworms and bbs, so I imagine I'll have to do something soon. (My sponge filter is very well seeded... )
Thanks,
Cathy

 

[tjudy]

I use clean-up crews in my fry tanks. I either use cory cats (usually young C. panda or dwarf cories like C. pygmaeus), or mystery snails (brigs). I really like the snails. They are excellent cleaners. I use one 1" snail in a ten gallon tank, and three in a 40. I do not worry about siphoning of the bottom. My growout tanks are bare-bottom. When the fry are 1/2" or so I use a filter floss plug in the vacuum end of the siphon and just let it sit in the tank until it has drained enough.

 

[nightowl1350]

I feed 3-4 times a day, do 25-50% w/c daily. I start with microworms and then add some bbs after a day or two. The microworms don't die and spoil like bbs do so I like them for a day or two when it is very hard to vacume up the tank bottom. I breed BN plecos so I put some small ones (1/2-3/4") in with the free swimmers (not wigglers or eggs) for a clean up crew. My fry only (no parent raising rams or apistos here) are in bare tanks and the bottom shines with the BN in there.