• Hello guest! Are you an Apistogramma enthusiast? If so we invite you to join our community and see what it has to offer. Our site is specifically designed for you and it's a great place for Apisto enthusiasts to meet online. Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your fish and tanks and have a great time with other Apisto enthusiasts. Sign up today!

Survival rate with Ram fry

LyreTail

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
87
I have a theory that I wanted to bounce of everyone.

I have raised several spawn since last Christmas of Blue ram fry. ( they sure sell fast!)
Anyways I have been having trouble getting a good survival rate from the fry. Out of 60+ free swimming fry, I will see a huge sudden die offs in about weeks 2 to 5 to as little as 20 survivors . These seem to correspond ( possibly) to too large of partial water changes. They all seem to eat fine and are growing well when they die. None look sick and then boom - disappeared..

details of how I am raising them

1. Eggs removed from parents after being layed
2. Eggs placed in a 5.5 gal tank full of Java moss and some pond snails ( tank well settled)
3. Eggs hatch fine, good hatch rates, good free swimming fry rates. Fry eating "golden pearls" to their hearts content
4. I start getting concerned about pollution from feedings at about 3 to 4 weeks of age - no partial water changes done at all)
5. a Day or so after partial water change 50% seem to disappear. pH seems stable, temp stable etc.
6. Next week - every survivor seemingly to thrive, I do another PWC and see even less fry a few days later - pH and everything else stable

question - Are these fry more sensitive than most to partial water changes? I use Seachem's PRIME directly into tank water and never had a problem with doing PWC with all my other types of fry. Observation. After doing a PWC with PRIME, there are lots of gasses in the tank. Could this be related to some physiological condition that rams have that other fry do not seem to care about?

Fry I have rasied - Apistogramma sp "Papagei", Angel fish, Swordtails, Platys,Molys, Guppies, Serpae tetras, Perennial Killifish, two species of Kribs, and a few more

Or do you think I am off base with my theory that the water changes are causing my problems? Does anybody else see the same thing?
 

fishgeek

New Member
Messages
980
Location
london uk
do you leave your water to out gas for 24 hrs before adding to tanks ?

gas supersaturated watermaybe causing gas bubble disease which i believe small fish and marine fish are more susceptible to

andrew
what ever the cause sounds like smaller more regular water changes would help alleviate it
 

LyreTail

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
87
yes that is what I am going to try - no I do not let the water outgas. I do not have to with any other fry that I raise.
 

mrlimpet

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
18
Location
san francisco
kinda late in responding to your post lyretail, but better late than never i guess.

how about doing smaller water changes of say 15%-25% instead of 50%, but more frequently, say every other day? perhaps the fry are sensitive to major water changes but would tolerate smaller water changes that would need to be performed more often to keep the water clean from all the feedings. like you, i treat my change water with prime and change about 20% every other day.

this is what i'm doing with bolivian ram fry that hatched on june 15. they're 23 days old now and i must admit i've seen the numbers dwindle significantly also. i may be wrong, but i think it's natural for many fry to die off. that's why so many hatch.

out of ~200 eggs, perhaps 150 hatched. out of 150 fry, perhaps only 60 remain today. like you, i've got them in a 12G tank by themselves with only pond snails for company. i believe some fry are just not as effective at foraging for food as some of their brothers and sisters. some fry are definitely bigger than their siblings. i feed them frozen bbs and crushed powdered flake food several times a day.

here's some pics of the fry at 6-days old, and at 30-days old...



hth and good luck with your fry. this is my first batch and it's been a blast!
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
17,915
Messages
116,200
Members
13,027
Latest member
tonc61

Latest profile posts

Josh wrote on anewbie's profile.
Testing
EDO
Longtime fish enthusiast for over 70years......keen on Apistos now. How do I post videos?
Looking for some help with fighting electric blue rams :(
Partial updated Peruvian list have more than this. Please PM FOR ANY QUESTIONS so hard to post with all the ads poping up every 2 seconds….
Top