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New guy with 30-40 Linkei fry

Groovy Jeff

New Member
Messages
9
Bought a pair of A. linkei 3 weeks ago and have them in a planted 40B with rock caves, wood, leaf litter, etc. I have been feeding bloodworms, some pellet food, and mosquito larva. I was feeding this afternoon and notice I have a good size batch of fry. Both parents seem to be herding them about, but will chase each other off. Should I be getting some microworms or vinegar eels in there? The fry are snacking on the wood, leaves, and sponge filter. This is my first liter of Apistos and I wasn't expecting any this soon, sooooo not too sure about what is next???
 

central tanks

Active Member
Messages
109
Location
Dallas, Tx
Really up to you. You can allow them to to feed themselves off of the leaves and wood as well as giving them finely ground fish flakes(sprinkle them in areas the female often bringds the fry to, they can eat it while sifting around). Doing this you will likely lose a large number of the fry. Otherwise Baby brine shrimp or micro worms would also work. Personal i find baby brine shrimp to be a pain in a**. Micro worms are relatively easy but may take a week or so to get going. Id suggest doing whichever your set up for or able to do. Providing these live foods will increase your fry survival but if you dont have a place to groe them out there isnt really a point.
 

Phile

Member
Messages
58
Location
Indianapolis, Indiana USA
Really up to you. You can allow them to to feed themselves off of the leaves and wood as well as giving them finely ground fish flakes(sprinkle them in areas the female often bringds the fry to, they can eat it while sifting around). Doing this you will likely lose a large number of the fry. Otherwise Baby brine shrimp or micro worms would also work. Personal i find baby brine shrimp to be a pain in a**. Micro worms are relatively easy but may take a week or so to get going. Id suggest doing whichever your set up for or able to do. Providing these live foods will increase your fry survival but if you dont have a place to groe them out there isnt really a point.
Brine shrimp are easy to hatch and raise if you can get the eggs easily. All that you need are a small air pump, some air line tubing, airline T's and 1 valve for each bottle, 2-3 one liter bottles, some plain salt (no silica or other additives- I use pickling salt, its cheap and available at the grocery store. It comes in a box.) something to stand the bottles on(I just set them on some large wide mouth jars, but you can make a wooden stand). Cut the bottoms off of the bottles at the joint. Keep the caps on them-use the bottoms as lids. Fill bottles with dechlorinated water. Add 1 3/4 tsp of the salt. Connect the air tubing to the pump and insert into the bottle. Make sure it gets all of the way to the bottom, so the air mixes the water completely. Adjust the airline valves to get a vigorous bubbling. Add a measure of shrimp eggs(cysts actually) and put the lid on. I have my setup in my garage, which is a little cooler than my house, so it takes 2 days to get a shrimp harvest. I have 3 bottles going--one that's ready today, one that'll be ready tomorrow, and one that's set up and just needs to have the eggs added. I have the numbers "1, 2, and 3" marked on the lids. as I use the shrimp in the bottle, I move the lids. #1 is always ready today, # 2 is for tomorrow, and # 3 is on deck and ready to add eggs. To harvest I have a large cheap plastic funnel, some large cheap coffee filters, and a large bottle or jar. put the funnel on top of the jar, put a filter in the funnel, use a large cheap turkey baster to transfer droppers of shrimp solution from the hatching bottle into the funnel. Let the water drain down, the pick out the filter full of shrimp and invert it into a plastic cup of water to free the shrimp. The shrimp are ready to feed with a medicine dropper. I use a 5 ml medicine dropper. It only takes a minute or two to reset the hatchery. 1. add eggs to the standby bottle and switch lids-its now #2. 2. rinse the newly emptied bottle, refill with water and salt, and the air line and place the lid. It is now the #3 standby bottle. Done. You can also make it easier by using sections of hard plastic tubing attached to the airlines, to go into the bottles. The rigidity helps keep the airlines on the bottom. It takes longer to describe all of this than to actually do it. Remember to get cheap materials from the discount store. You're not actually eating out of the coffee filters. If you can't find shrimp eggs, go to brineshrimpdirect.com. They have various quantities and qualities at different prices. An 8 oz. jar will last a long time unless you have an entire fish room full of fry. Keep the eggs refrigerated when not in use. You can get a shrimp hatchery going in 2 days-quicker if you have a warm location. Microworms may take a couple of weeks to get a harvestable yield.
.
 

Groovy Jeff

New Member
Messages
9
Thanks Phile!! I have been feeding brine shrimp and it seems everyone is thriving. I haven't moved the fry out of the tank and parents seem to be doing well. I have been feeding them mosquito larvae, daphnia, blood worms, and New Spectrum pellets. I haven't fed any blood worms since the fry hatched as I have heard that there are problems with fry eating them.
 

Mbkemp

Member
Messages
45
Brine shrimp are easy to hatch and raise if you can get the eggs easily. All that you need are a small air pump, some air line tubing, airline T's and 1 valve for each bottle, 2-3 one liter bottles, some plain salt (no silica or other additives- I use pickling salt, its cheap and available at the grocery store. It comes in a box.) something to stand the bottles on(I just set them on some large wide mouth jars, but you can make a wooden stand). Cut the bottoms off of the bottles at the joint. Keep the caps on them-use the bottoms as lids. Fill bottles with dechlorinated water. Add 1 3/4 tsp of the salt. Connect the air tubing to the pump and insert into the bottle. Make sure it gets all of the way to the bottom, so the air mixes the water completely. Adjust the airline valves to get a vigorous bubbling. Add a measure of shrimp eggs(cysts actually) and put the lid on. I have my setup in my garage, which is a little cooler than my house, so it takes 2 days to get a shrimp harvest. I have 3 bottles going--one that's ready today, one that'll be ready tomorrow, and one that's set up and just needs to have the eggs added. I have the numbers "1, 2, and 3" marked on the lids. as I use the shrimp in the bottle, I move the lids. #1 is always ready today, # 2 is for tomorrow, and # 3 is on deck and ready to add eggs. To harvest I have a large cheap plastic funnel, some large cheap coffee filters, and a large bottle or jar. put the funnel on top of the jar, put a filter in the funnel, use a large cheap turkey baster to transfer droppers of shrimp solution from the hatching bottle into the funnel. Let the water drain down, the pick out the filter full of shrimp and invert it into a plastic cup of water to free the shrimp. The shrimp are ready to feed with a medicine dropper. I use a 5 ml medicine dropper. It only takes a minute or two to reset the hatchery. 1. add eggs to the standby bottle and switch lids-its now #2. 2. rinse the newly emptied bottle, refill with water and salt, and the air line and place the lid. It is now the #3 standby bottle. Done. You can also make it easier by using sections of hard plastic tubing attached to the airlines, to go into the bottles. The rigidity helps keep the airlines on the bottom. It takes longer to describe all of this than to actually do it. Remember to get cheap materials from the discount store. You're not actually eating out of the coffee filters. If you can't find shrimp eggs, go to brineshrimpdirect.com. They have various quantities and qualities at different prices. An 8 oz. jar will last a long time unless you have an entire fish room full of fry. Keep the eggs refrigerated when not in use. You can get a shrimp hatchery going in 2 days-quicker if you have a warm location. Microworms may take a couple of weeks to get a harvestable yield.
.
This is awesome!! Thank you for posting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

central tanks

Active Member
Messages
109
Location
Dallas, Tx
yes, BBS start up faster and are amazing fry food. However they do take more upkeep then micro worms. I can toss a pinch of yeast and a thin layer of wet oats on top of a culture every 3 days and split the culture around 2 weeks in.

I work 12 hour shifts at the hospital then go to the gym for 2 hours. Personally continuously switching and starting BBS batches in a pain, when the micro worms i can come in slide my finger across the tub and dip my finger in the tank. I do BBS sometimes tho. Its just about spending less time so i can do other things. Ideally id love to do both, giving the fry varied live foods which will condition them to taking worm like foods (although most apistos dont neeed to be conditioned for that lol)
 

Phile

Member
Messages
58
Location
Indianapolis, Indiana USA
yes, BBS start up faster and are amazing fry food. However they do take more upkeep then micro worms. I can toss a pinch of yeast and a thin layer of wet oats on top of a culture every 3 days and split the culture around 2 weeks in.

I work 12 hour shifts at the hospital then go to the gym for 2 hours. Personally continuously switching and starting BBS batches in a pain, when the micro worms i can come in slide my finger across the tub and dip my finger in the tank. I do BBS sometimes tho. Its just about spending less time so i can do other things. Ideally id love to do both, giving the fry varied live foods which will condition them to taking worm like foods (although most apistos dont neeed to be conditioned for that lol)
I completely agree. BBS take a little more effort, and if you're gone for a few days, it takes at least 2 days to get a culture up and running. However, if you're caught off guard with sudden fry (the fish got frisky when you weren't looking :)), You can get BBS going a lot faster than microworms, especially if you don't have a ready culture and have to hunt for a starter.
 

central tanks

Active Member
Messages
109
Location
Dallas, Tx
Ya for sure I just keep the micro worms going since I do feed them to my pencil fish often and my adults eat the a little(they obviously prefer the blackouts tho). Iv thought about doing daphia but that looks like much more work and testing then anything else lol
 

Phile

Member
Messages
58
Location
Indianapolis, Indiana USA
Ya for sure I just keep the micro worms going since I do feed them to my pencil fish often and my adults eat the a little(they obviously prefer the blackouts tho). Iv thought about doing daphia but that looks like much more work and testing then anything else lol
I have also kept daphnia in the past, and I would like to start again. I have a large, plastic storage container that I keep in my backyard. It is on the north side of the house. I have it positioned so that It gets a few hours of full sun a day, but a lot of shade. I put a few leaves in it, and let them sit for a few days before I put any daphnia in it. It helps to get a bacterial and algae culture going for food. Some people actually use a container just for green water that they use to feed the daphs, but that's too much work for me. I cover it with a screen to keep the junk out. If I get it started right, it can last all summer and until the fall cool down. If the daphnia don't work out, I leave the screen off for a few days to get mosquito larvae started. Once there are a lot of larvae, put the screen back on. Keep a spray bottle of water handy. Before you take the screen off, check for adult mossies hanging on the screen. If you see any, just spray them into the water with the spray bottle. once their wings get wet, they drown. I use a large meshed fish net to harvest daphs and mossies. It takes the large ones and leaves the little ones to grow more. Occasionally, I even get a few blood worms. Bloodworms are actually chironomid larvae and mature into midges--those are the flies that look like mossies, but aren't. The really nice thing about daphs is that they are live bearers. This means that you can put a bunch of the large females in a container that just has fry, and the babies that they produce are instant food for the fry. Its like a vending machine, but without the coins. I used to do this all of the time for killifish fry. All in all, they're both pretty easy, and cheap food.
 

central tanks

Active Member
Messages
109
Location
Dallas, Tx
Ya with living in an apartment i cant have stuff outside like that. Id have to do it inside and with the space that takes up i can have another intresting fish tank. when ever i move into a house tho i will probably give them a try. Im also upsessed with flowerhorns but thatll have to wait for a house also, dont got the space for big tanks lol.
 

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