My Borelliis had babies - what to do???

[Eva32181]

I can't believe they spawned - I didn't expect them to at all. I was just lazily watching the male swim around when I noticed his caudal fin was torn. I thought, "gee that female's getting mean." Then I noticed she was hiding in a little cave in the tank. "She's been hiding in there a lot lately," I thought to myself. "No way she's got eggs," I thought. But I was curious. So I got a flashlight.

8O Wigglers!!!!

I have never had fish eggs hatch before - rams, neons, and lemon tetras have all laid eggs in my 55 in the past two weeks, but no wigglers. All you expert fish breeders that post on this forum - can you give me some suggestions? What should I give them as food? Infusoria? Baby brine? Feeder goldfish?

BTW this pair of borelliis arrived in the mail from Neil on May 15th. That was eleven days ago. Very cool. 8)

 

[Cichlids1]

Are these in your tank planted with all the swords? If so, mom will escort them around to different areas picking off little things for food. You can supplement this with bbs and/or microworms. I always felt like enough weren't geetign to the fry when I tried to feed in a community setup, so I really overfeed. Then I heard somebody mention sucking the bbs up in a piece of ridgid airline tubing and dropping them near the fry. Worked a little better that way. Congrats and good luck with them.

 

[Eva32181]

Cool. I will go to my LFS tomorrow and get some baby fish food, and some more airline tubing. This is so neat!

 

[Neil]

Eva,
You are just a fish-breeding maniac, aren't you!? I think I told you that they were breeding size. Borellii fry are large enough fish to take BBS and that is probably what you should try to give them. If that is out of the question, because you have never done the BBS hatching before and are not prepared, then you can crush up flake food very fine. But try a get a culture of BBS going or something similar, like microworms - as Cichlids1 suggests. Do panic though! There will be some food available to them in the tank, but you MUST suppliment. Good luck, Neil