New brood and feeding

[Chavez]

What is the best way to feed fry in a fully planted tank? I just got free swimers - A. Borelli - today. Have lost the last 4-5 broods because I just could not get enough food to them. The parents like to hide in the most thickly planted portion of the tank. Would like to have something that is commercially available as I do not have a local source for live foods. I also do not have time to hatch shrimp - OK so did not want to be a shrimp hatcher.

Open to any suggestions!

 

[jvr]

Starter foods

The best choice is baby brine, If you do not want to hatch shrimp better forget breeding in my opinion.
However there is a couple of foods that are available Cyclop-eeze is a freeze dried food that works extremely well with non-finicky eaters. You could grind up some flake foods and feed these. Microworms are also good and vinegar eels, the eels require almost no work.
I will guarantee that if you do not use live foods you can loose 50% or more of certain species, the wriggling action acts as an attractent.

IMHO, if you are not prepared to go the extra mile for your fry, why bother, you are doing your fish a disfavor.

John

 

[Chavez]

Thanks JVR for the advise! I do want to give them the best chance, but unfortunately I do not have the time and funds to have a great breeding program. The A. Borelli just happened to spawn in the tank, was not trying. I am also not looking for 100% hatch rate and to produce many fry. I barely have the tank space to provide the 50 or so fry that are produce with each spawn. I am a mere newbie and only dabble in any type of breeding.

 

[Neil]

Chavez,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

The main benefit of BBS, etc. is that they will stay alive in the tank for awhile and not start deteriorating the water quality so fast, along with the fact that they provide a moving stimuli for the ram fry to get excited about eating. There are only a small percentage of the fry that will be able to take BBS right away anyway. However, IMO, I don't think that it is a must to have live food for Ram fry. Just a heck of alot easier. I have used tetramin powdered fry food for egglayers along with egg yolk and had a 90% survival rate, but I really had to work to do it. Several large water changes daily with excess food removal. Which meant - removing the fry cleaning the BB tank and then replacing some old tank water with new, then putting the fry back in. It was a pain! :x I don't really think that you have to go to that length to see OK results. Just make sure that the fry have a foam filter to nibble on and some small food (aboe + liquifry) for about 5 - 7 days then start adding regular powdered flake food or frozen bbs, if you can find it. The key will be keeping the water conditions stable and clean, as well as getting food to these guys fairly often. It is best to feed them small amounts several times per day. Good luck, Neil

 

[SanDiegoFishes]

You could get a microworm culture, it is cheap, easy, and always available. Start a couple up, and you are set
Fishes