Swapping borelli fry

[pjvtrash]

Hi all,

I have a trio of borelli in a 10 gal, well structured aquarium. Both females spawned at about the same time, and as I have read here on the forum, the females are swapping fry. One seems to be dominant, however, and keeps most of the fry, most of the time.

Meanwhile in another community tank I have another female with free swimmers as of today. There are many cory's and tetras in that community tank though, so I suspect she will lose most of them to predation.

My question is this. . . If I siphon out the newly hatched fry from the community tank and add them to the breeding tank with the other females caring for their own, will they accept those new fry as well? The fry in the breeding tank are about 1 1/2 - 2 weeks old, and the community tank fry, as I said, just appeared yesterday or today. Pending your responses, I might give it a try since I think there is little chance for survival in the community tank.

Thanks in advance,

Pete

 

[Cathy G]

Off hand I'd say there is nothing to loose. I think your biggest issue will be the change in the water parameters. I don't suppose you can move any of the fish out of your community tank to make it easier for mom?
Cathy

 

[pjvtrash]

Successful adoption

Thanks for your input, CathyG. I agree, so I went ahead and moved them. The dominant female gathered them up right away and they joined the school of slightly larger cousins without a problem.

I can't help but feel a little bad for the other mom, who couldn't figure out what happened, but there was no way the fry would have survived in there - their numbers were already dropping - and no where else to put the many cory's and etc. from that tank.

Thanks again.

 

[Apistogramm-Sam]

Glad to here the female adopted her new young without a problem Somtimes if there is a size difference between the fry the female will not take them in. I had a few A. borelli once that refused any fry that were not their own, no matter how small the size difference.

 

[ed seeley]

That's great to hear.

This is something I've always thought about doing where the parents constantly eat the eggs or wrigglers, including things like angelfish.

I've always thought that babies that are removed at the egg or wriggler stage will often make bad parents themselves and this could reverse that. If you can transfer the little ones accross to a proven caring pair, then these babies will hopefully learn how to do it from then and then be good parents themselves.

Well done and I hope you have lots of little babies doing great with their foster mum!

 

[pjvtrash]

thanks guys,

I was worried about the size difference too, but she doesn't seem to notice or mind too much.

Can anyone else share any successes, failures, or opinions about this? It's not something I would do often, but it sure seems like a nice tool to have when you need it.

 

[tjd]

I have no experience with introducing fry to a female already protecting her own (aside from the swapping), but I have gotten a female that had not spawned recently to act as a surrogate.

I stumbled upon this when I floated some 1 week old fry in a clear container in a grow out tank. At first several of the young adults in the grow out tank came up and tried picking at the fry, presumably trying to eat them. However, several hours later I noticed that there was a female that had taken residence by the container. She had assumed her brood care coloration and was chasing all others away. The fry had congregated in the corner by where she was and proceeded to relocate as she moved around the container. In this instance I never introduced the fry to the female, but I repeated these steps and was successfully able to introduce some other fry to a female in one of my breeding tanks.

I have only done this a couple times as I have dedicated breeding tanks and usually relocate the fry to grow out tanks after 2-4 weeks. But, it was interesting to see this behavior.

Tom

 

[nightowl1350]

pj...congrats on the Mom accepting fry that were not her own and on all 3 spawns That would be so interesting to watch Mom's swapping babies and caring for them.

ed s....I have heard of people given proven angel breeders slates of eggs and they have raised them.

Not sure if the age old question of instinct vrs learned behaviour is true.

I had a pair of blue rams that ate their eggs and I know both were parent raised....I stole a few spawns and some of the youngster I sold went on to be parent raisers. I had one young pair (just over 4 months old) in the grow out tank protect eggs overnight from the 3 small BN and 20 other siblings. The eggs did get eaten in the end for this young pair.

I had a pair of angels on loan from a friend and the female did parent raise one brood for her to about a week old, then water conditions killed the fry. I got the pair and would remove the Dad and she never raised any for me

 

[wickedglass]

I have a viejita female which has raised various amounts of broods of borellii (3), agassizii (2), papagei (3) and baenschi (4) fry, as well as her own (1). it all started when needed more space and she just happened to have fry, so I dumped some borellii fry with her. once they were bigger, I took them out and replaced them with other fry, and so on. She was brood caring for a good part part of last year. I got a bit worried that it would be detrimental to her to be so switched on all the time, but there are no apparent ill effects resulting from theis ... however I stopped replacing the fry and she's having a well deserved rest now. I will do this again with a younger female soon and actually keep a record.
by doing it this way, the other breeding pairs took a lot less time to breed again.

 

[pjvtrash]

Wow, I never would have guessed adoption would work across species lines. That's really amazing. Have any of those young had any identity problems, lol? If brood care is learned behavior, I wonder if mate recognition/sexual selection is too.

With regards to egg eating, I've always felt that something must not be right. I've had plenty of eaten eggs and fry, so I'm not claiming to have a solution, but I think that eaten spawns must be the result of 1) stress from tanks size, tank mates, human interference (or even cats in my case), pending overcrowding as the fry grow larger, food availability, etc. 2) problems with water chemistry, temperature, current, etc. ; or 3) just an imperceivable problem with the development of the eggs or fry themselves.

Thanks to all for the input and well wishes. Things are still going along great.