Is this what the fry look like?

[yashinfan]

I'm very confused right now because about 17 hours ago I saw my zebra danio lay eggs. Now there are small black creatures at the bottom of my tank but I don't know if they are the fry because most breeders say they tank at least 1.5 days to hatch. There's a picture of them in the newbie forum but it is not very clear so I drew a picture of what they look like.

Plz tell me if they ARE, in fact, baby danios, so I can know whether I should go out and buy food for them.

Oh yes, I just remembered that I saw another female lay eggs on thursday so that would make more sense that they are her's.

[wetmanNY]

Too cool! Can you remove the adults to another tank? The fry will do best grazing on the biolfilm , say of Java Moss. If the fry are freeswimming (they've absobed their yolksac and are darting around), then it's already too late to start up some infusoria. Dust from the bottom of the flakes canister. I invert the canister and tap for fifteen seconds, turn it back upright and gently tap flake-dust from the inside of the lid onto the water surface.

If you've removed the adults, you might want to lower the water level. Cover the siphon inlet with sponge. Is the filter intake covered with sponge?

Live food would be good. What do folks think? Vinegar eelworms? Microworms?

[TwoTankAmin]

Baby brine shrimp if you wan live food I would think.

I got 2 z danio fry that lived a couple of years ago. They actually hatched and survived in a 15 gal I was fishless cycling. Apparently the eggs were transferred in on some plants I added from the tank with the parents about a week into a 2 week cycling process. I never fed them anything as I did not know they were there until they were about 1/4 inch.

Oddly enough, a year later I found a pseudomugil gertrudae in the 10 gal. planted tank in which the parents did their Q. Again I was maintaining the cycle with a maint. dose of ammonia.

Similarly, I have had a few lf rosey barb fry make it to adulthood. Again in a planted tank in which I added no special food for fry as i never knew I had them until they were over 1/4 inch.

The upshot is, having live plants in a tank creates the food many newborn fry need to survive, assuming they are not eaten of course. Once they are beyond that stage, ground flake works fine.

Aside to wetmanNY- I am 3rd generation born in Manhattan.

[ArkyLady]

Microworms are the easiest of the live foods to culture/harvest it seems, but I don't think it would be good to feed them any one food exclusively.

I have been reading about some prepared foods from brineshrimpdirect.com:

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/golden-pearls.html
http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/brineshrimpdirect-product-1-3-26.htm#decap

These don't require any culturing or anything. I've never used them, so I can't comment on them really, but I have read good things about them. I plan to try them out myself.

[yashinfan]

Okay so this is my problem- I found out that they will eat the fry when they start swimming around (which they haven't done yet and aren't expected to for another two days). I just set up my other tank less than half an hour ago so there's not much I can do moving-the-fish-wise for at least another two days so I'd be cutting it rather closely.

23 g tank: I guess it's cycled, 7 adult danios, plus 16 or more fry

10 g tank: Not cycled, no occupants, sponge filter, heater, marbles layered for 2-3 layers.

Do you think it would be wise to move all my adults into the 10 g when it is ready and let my baby fry survive?
-OR-
Do you think I should let them be and hope for the best and then just breed them on purpose later on so that the fry would always reside in the 10 gallon?


Ahh! I'm so nervous! I want them all to be fine but it seems someone's got to move in order for that to happen!!

Oh, if there are only 4 fake plants is there any chance the fry will survive? Are they fast swimmers?

I looked for baby fry food in three stores and was unable to find any but I'm going to just grind up brine shrimp really fine when they start swimming because I heard that the fry can live on their yokes for three days after they hatched.

[ArkyLady]

I would probably leave them be and hope for the best. They WILL breed again and you can get prepared now so you'll be ready the next time.

[yashinfan]

Oh yes, so they bred again last night, so I'm expecting MORE fry in a couple of days. These guys are unstopable!! I'm surprised they're not full yet with feedings 3x a day plus all the eggs and lil fry they've munched on. They're going to be big fish soon!

[riffless]

isn't it a crime to be a yashin fan in ottawa?

[yashinfan]

:p Yes, I suppose it is. I'm the last of a dying (if not dead) breed. lol. I've liked him ever since he got here in '93. 10 yrs of my life is pretty big considering I'm only 17. But he was always REALLY nice to me and he spoke Russian with me so he made me really happy and he's so hot :D Hehehee....... :o

[riffless]

are you originally from there or is it your family's heritage? I always love talking to hockey fans...

[yashinfan]

lol, I hope we don't get in trouble for non-fish talk..
Yea, it's family heritage, my mom is half-russian but she doesn't speak a word of it besides what I have taught her.

So Oregon? Do they even have hockey there?? :p

[riffless]

one of the local players went #8 in this years draft... there's some of us that are looking foward to a NHL club coming here... btw, I run a 30 gallon tank with 3 green barbs, 3 barilius and a pleco... what's in yours

[yashinfan]

What is the pop of Portland anyway? As long as you don't steal another Canadian team then you're welcome to join :P In my tank I have 7 adult zebra danios and about two dozen fry. They are starting to uncurl today so tomorrow they might swim and then be eaten :( I have about 15 goldfish in my pond, another died today, they are having some bad luck. I have an empty 10 gallon that I am cycling and heating up and then I hope to get some fancy guppies. I like to breed fish so I'm going to stick with the easy ones for now.

[riffless]

how exactly do you do it? do you have to isolate one breed from all the others? and how many of a breed do you use to mate? I've kind of wondered about breeding some of my fish, and actually could handle doing it right now (as far as time goes)... sorry about your pond fish... is it really early in their outdoor stage or have they been out for awhile? portland population is 530,000, but the metro area adds another 800,000 to a million (vancouver washington is right across the columbia river from us)... we're the biggest city in the us with only one major sports team (nba blazers... way too boring a sport for me) we'll probably get the montreal expos before we get an nhl club here, but I think this area would support a team... and marian hossa played here, as did his brother marcel

[SnakeIce]

I have raised a few danio's from a similar situation. honestly when the fry are first born all you will see is eyes and the yolk sack. within a day you will be able to make out the tail. so by the time they are swimming around they will look like eyes with a tail.

the way I raised the few that I did is unconventional at best. when I noticed that the parents had spawned I would wait two and a half to three day and then use the gravel vacume to syphen the fry out of the tank. the idea is to get them befor they start swimming around. hopefully you have cleaned the gravel well the week befor you try to remove the fry. then I keep the water that I syphened out for about a week as I used a small container( about an ounce) to scoup them out and put them in a tank that I can raise them in.

I had a planted tank so it was easier to remove the fry that way than to try to catch the parents. I also raised some serpae tetras that way. they have a shorter time till free swimming so I had to syphen after about 36 hours

[yashinfan]

Riffless: I didn't even try to make my fish breed, I suppose that after living in PetSmart my conditions are much more ideal for breeding. I only have one species in the tank and there are seven on them in total. My first two fish bred about 5 hours after I put them in and my last three that I put in bred that night as well. So 4 out 7 fish have spawned in my tank so far. I have another crop of eggs waiting to become fry as well. I remember Hossa played in Portland now that you mention it. You guys could get the expos and the Ottawa Lynx (Montreal's farm team) because no one watches them here at all. But I hate baseball and basketball so I don't care at all :>

SnakeIce: I saw one swim around today but the other one's are still stationary. I have a dozen that have straightened out and about 10 more that are still curled. The problem is I have nowhere to move the fish right now!! I have another tank in the process of being cycled but the heater isn't working so it's like 18 degrees celcius (I need it at 24 at least!) and I can't move the tank to a warmer spot in my house as it is sharing the stand with my other fish tank (it has two levels). I am going to buy a heater holder for my other heater that will hopefully work tomorrow, and then I can try moving the adults, rather than the babies. I'm really scared to siphon them out. Some people claim that their danios have survived from fry to full grown with adults in the tank but it doesn't look promising in my tank! The adults are skimming the bottom waiting for one to slip up and become lunch! It'll seem funny if I succeed in keeping the adults and fry seperate. It'll look like I have an empty 23 gallon and then a 10 gallon with 7 adults. lol. People'll think I'm nuts. :D Well.. all I can hope for is that the fry will hold off their swimming for another day and not become dinner for my danios.

[phpKerouac]

Perhaps just separate them in the same tank? I have seen in the past small containers that hang on the edge of the aquarium, in the same water, that would remove the necessity of maintaining two aquariums - at least in the meantime between it being fully set up. . .

perhaps you could find one large enough to hold all the adults, or one with holes small enough for the fry to not fit through.

just a thought.