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maximizing fry growth and survival

mightymax1860

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ct
Hi just wanted to here ideas on maximizing my fry's survival and growth I curently have borelli bluesteel apisto ,caucatoids and melgar fry. I am feeding them newly hatched brine, crushed flakes and frozen brine water changes once a week at 20 % I hope this is right and if not some opinions and suggestions will be apreciated:)
 

Mike Wise

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Well, the ideal is frequent water changes and frequent feedings of live foods. Weekly 20% water changes are ok, but for real growth daily 20-50% water changes would be better. The ideal would be continuous new water flow. Feeding 5-6 small feeding a day would be great, too. The question is whether it's worth the effort (law of diminishing returns). I have a group of juvenile A. agassizii that had only 2 feedings of live food per day and a weekly 50% water change. After 4 months the males started appearing. In this case, this schedule is fine for my needs.
 

tjudy

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Fast HEALTHY growth is directly proportional to water quality and food quality. Too much food without the water changes will result in developmental problems and fry death. Too little food, regardless of the water changes, will eventually stunt growth. Poor quality food will cause problems as well.

IME, the key to proper growth is getting them to the 1/4" stage as quickly as possible. I keep the new fry in small spaces (like a one-gallon plastic box with a sponge filter or a 2.5 gallon tank only 1/2 full). This lets me concentrate the food. I do daily 50% water changes. Once the fry are 1/4" I move them to a 10-gallon tank filtered with a Poret foam wall filter. I can put 50+ 1/4" fry in that set up, feed heavily and be ok with 50% water changes 2x a week. If I am really motivated I will keep up with the 50% daily changes.

I feed paramecium, microworm, live bbs, and grindal worms... in that order, about a week apart. Once the fry get onto bbs and grindal worms I feed those two foods the most. Paramecium is AWESOME. You can put a lot in the tank without spoiling the water because they do not die. I use paramecium until the fry are 1/2"... they never stop eating them.
 

mightymax1860

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28
Location
ct
Thank you guys

I will up the w/c and culture some paramecium I wll try the seperating of the fry their next breeding as me and the miss wanted to see their fry reering behavior first. Thanks alot I realy apreciate the info. P.s Ted I hope the nec brings you back for another metting in the northeast sometime soon I attended your West african one at The Lutz museam great time.:)
 

ste12000

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Cheshire..UK
I feed paramecium, microworm, live bbs, and grindal worms... in that order, about a week apart. Once the fry get onto bbs and grindal worms I feed those two foods the most. Paramecium is AWESOME. You can put a lot in the tank without spoiling the water because they do not die. I use paramecium until the fry are 1/2"... they never stop eating them.

Thats very interesting Ted, your about the first person ive ever heard that feeds paramecium to fry tubs containing dwarf cichlid fry.. I raise a lot of dwarfs and also have 8 paramecium cultures, because the fry take BBS straight away ive never fed the Paramecium to them, i save that for my pencilfish or tetra fry, in fact i rarely even feed microworm to dwarfs and rely heavily on baby brineshrimp and then grindalworm when big enough. I think i might need to start experimenting with the paramecium in my fry tubs!!
 

tjudy

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I use a 3 gallon plastic 'shoebox' with a Jungle or Lee's round sponge filter with the lift tube cut to fit the height of the bin. To get a little more warmth I have the bins sitting on top of three 1/4" slats of wood so they are off the shelf, and then I placed a reptile heat cable under the bins between the slats. The heat cable passes under each bin twice, and it maintains the temperature of the water about 4 degrees above room temp.
 

Bilbo

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235
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Bulls. New Zealand
I like the paramecium idea. I use bbs and microworms from day one and usually have reasonable growth. I always use tanks with a thin layer of sand and a big pile of moss now too. I never had any luck with bare tanks.

How do you keep paramecium? Do you have to buy a starter culture or can you have them show up like infusoria.
 

dw1305

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Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Hi Ted, I use the same approach as Bilbo, I'd be interested in the answer as well.
I like the paramecium idea. I use bbs and microworms from day one and usually have reasonable growth. I always use tanks with a thin layer of sand and a big pile of moss now too. I never had any luck with bare tanks. How do you keep paramecium? Do you have to buy a starter culture or can you have them show up like infusoria.

cheers Darrel
 

tjudy

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I culture paramecium is large jars. I start a culture by microwaving soft water (usually reverse osmosis mixed with a little tap... nothing is measured) with a piece of dry dog food until it boils. I use Mason jars, and for a cover a place a paper towel over the top and screw the ring down around it. I let it cool over night and then inoculate the new culture from an old one. The dog food feeds bacteria, and the paramecium feed on the bacteria. Because the system is using a high protein source (dog food) to grow bacteria, the odor can be unpleasant. But it does not smell so bad that you notice it unless you hold the jar under your nose.

I got my paramecium from another hobbyist. You can buy them from biological supply companies that sell lab materials to schools. I have never had any luck trying to isolate the paramecium from an infusoria culture.

The paramecium I have are large enough that you will see them as a grainy cloud when you hold the jar up to the light. A scum usually forms on the surface of the culture, and a pile of gunk accumulates on the bottom. TO feed from the culture I use a large syringe (draw or bulb) to pull samples from the space in the middle of the tank. I have never had a problem with the bacteria going into the tank with the fry.
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
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Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Thanks Ted, we do get Paramecium cultures in every now and then for classes etc. I'll see the Technician who buys them in and I'll try and persuade her to buy a large species next time, and then I'll sub-culture some using your technique.

cheers Darrel
 

Bilbo

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235
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Bulls. New Zealand
As above thanks :)

Some of the micro biology team go to the local uni a few times a week so I am sure I can twist someones arm.
Otherwise its going to be a long hard job with very fine tweezers seperating them from my infusoria cultures.

Great info Ted we should make that a sticky somewhere.
 

ste12000

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5 Year Member
Messages
619
Location
Cheshire..UK
Hi all,
Thanks Ted, we do get Paramecium cultures in every now and then for classes etc. I'll see the Technician who buys them in and I'll try and persuade her to buy a large species next time, and then I'll sub-culture some using your technique.

cheers Darrel

Hi Darrel, ive got Paramecium cultures, if you want to send me your address ill gladly forward enough to start your own culture..
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
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2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Thanks Steve, that is a really kind offer. I'll PM you when things have calmed down a little at work.

cheers Darrel
 

tjudy

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I would look at the supply companies for school science classes. Carolina Biological or Ward's are both easy to work with. You will be amazed at the diversity of live foods you can get from them... but they will be more expensive and small samples.
 

Bilbo

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5 Year Member
Messages
235
Location
Bulls. New Zealand
So as it turns out the answer from my contacts is sorry not available.

I have been doing a bit of reading about paramecium culturing and hopefully, if this is true, it can help some people out.

If you cant get a starter culture.
1) Put a banana skin in an open container for a few days until the water turns cloudy. Remove banana skin, add some dried turnip and seal the container. Infusoria including paramecium from air will have landed in it and will begin multiplying.
2) Siphon up some detritus (brown muck) from the bottom of any planted tank. This almost always has some paramecium in it.

Treat these as starter cultures and if you follow Ted’s instruction for making a new culture and seed it from the banana or the brown gunk one you should find that paramecium will quickly become the dominant animal and after 2 or 3 new cultures it should be close to pure paramecium.

I am giving this a try at the moment so hopefully it will work.
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
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2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Rotifers

Hi all,
Along the same lines we have squeezed out a filter sponge a couple of times when cultures have failed before a micro-organism I.D. class, and you get a lot of rotifers. Michael Hellweg (in the invaluable "Culturing Live Food") suggests that they are realtively easy to culture, and feeding them with either a green water culture or yeast and powdered Chlorella algae.

cheers Darrel
 

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