Unexpected fry from A. agassizii

[aidanjb19]

As stated in the title my A. Agassizii pair spawned a little earlier than planned. At the moment the only tank I have to move anything to is a 10 gallon. I'm wondering if my best course of action is to move the male and female out of their 20 gallon when the fry mature a little? So far there's been no aggression towards the male, and the female is being a great mother.

 

[MacZ]

To be honest... I'd consider the fact you are not required to bring every clutch of fry through. Because this may not go down well.

On the other hand... you have about a month to get a decent growout tank (100 Liters+) set up.

You have someone who will take the fish of your hands once they are old enough? If not either get that checked now or don't attempt growing these fry out.

 

[aidanjb19]

Jn

To be honest... I'd consider the fact you are not required to bring every clutch of fry through. Because this may not go down well.

On the other hand... you have about a month to get a decent growout tank (100 Liters+) set up.

You have someone who will take the fish of your hands once they are old enough? If not either get that checked now or don't attempt growing these fry out.

Yes LFS will take them off my hand, the tank the parents are in is a 60cm tall, right around 100l.

 

[MacZ]

Height is not what you're looking for, but footprint. Volume is secondary, dimensions are key.

You will need a separate growout and a third to separate the parent fish, as they will start brooding again right away after a short period of time.
Otherwise you are getting overrun.

 

[aidanjb19]

Height is not what you're looking for, but footprint. Volume is secondary, dimensions are key.

You will need a separate growout and a third to separate the parent fish, as they will start brooding again right away after a short period of time.
Otherwise you are getting overrun.

Guess this isn't the adventure for me. No room for more tanks was hoping to make it work with what I have at the moment.

 

[MacZ]

the tank the parents are in is a 60cm tall, right around 100l.

What now? A 20 Gallon as you first wrote would be 80 Liters.

 

[MacZ]

Guess this isn't the adventure for me. No room for more tanks was hoping to make it work with what I have at the moment.

I'll be blunt, but that's so you don't get your hopes too high. With what you have you'll be lucky if you get a handful of fry through to the 4cm required by most retailers.

 

[aidanjb19]

I'll be blunt, but that's so you don't get your hopes too high. With what you have you'll be lucky if you get a handful of fry through to the 4cm required by most retailers.

Purely because of fry aggression? Or bioload as well?

I just say 20 gallon because of the 60cm out of habit, it's 26 gallons.

 

[MacZ]

Neither. Stocking density. High density raises baseline stress levels. And stress is the number 1 killer of dwarf cichlids.

 

[MacZ]

But of course, once the parent female starts the next brood the older fry are fair game for her to push around, and if you move the fry to the 50 Liter you will have to do as many waterchanges as 50% a day, depending on numbers.

 

[aidanjb19]

Neither. Stocking density. High density raises baseline stress levels. And stress is the number 1 killer of dwarf cichlids.

I can perhaps fit another 10 somewhere and seperate fry into 2 batches? I hate the idea of not helping the fry to the best of my ability, just not sure I can swing another tank with my lady given the limited space.

 

[MacZ]

I know, I'll come across quite heartless now, but put it in the best way I can: Something every fishkeeper, even every petkeeper should learn is: You can't simply get every offspring of your pets through and frankly, you shouldn't. Especially in fishkeeping where you often have egg-clutches of 50-100 fry in species that do brood care. With human help they most often bring most of them through. And the next clutch follows less than a month later, while the first batch is not even halfway at sale-size. Until the first batch reaches sale size the mother can have put out 5-6 more batches. I hope you get the gist. Rather lose a batch and take time to prepare for proper growout and care than doing it on the fly.
So I would not feed them extra and not remove any possible brood predators like tetras. Just let nature play out.

 

[aidanjb19]

I know, I'll come across quite heartless now, but put it in the best way I can: Something every fishkeeper, even every petkeeper should learn is: You can't simply get every offspring of your pets through and frankly, you shouldn't. Especially in fishkeeping where you often have egg-clutches of 50-100 fry in species that do brood care. With human help they most often bring most of them through. And the next clutch follows less than a month later, while the first batch is not even halfway at sale-size. Until the first batch reaches sale size the mother can have put out 5-6 more batches. I hope you get the gist. Rather lose a batch and take time to prepare for proper growout and care than doing it on the fly.
So I would not feed them extra and not remove any possible brood predators like tetras. Just let nature play out.

Thanks for being frank, I needed to hear it. I'll try my best to get something that will work figured out for the next spawn. Unfortunately I'm not okay with letting the fry die off everytime so I'll likely end up rehoming them to someone better equipped.

 

[MacZ]

so I'll likely end up rehoming them to someone better equipped.

You're welcome. It's also part of the journey to admit it's not the right moment for something. Rehoming for growout is also an option and until you have the rest figured out separate the parents.