A couple of questions...

Jakezori said:

1. How long does it take for a german blue ram to lay eggs, have them fretalized, and have them hatched at the very soonest?

2. Is it ok to feed german blue ram fry some fish food I got specifically for "any fish fry"? (its called "first bites")

3. Should I continue normal water changes when I have the fry or should I wait for them to get bigger?

4. How often should I feed the fry?

5. How many fish are there at the begining, and how many fry live to become adults?


THANKS!!!

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1. 4 months and they can be sexually mature and attempt spawns. First spawns are generally small and unfertile. The act of spawning can take a couple of hours. I just had some rams lay eggs for me on Thursday at 5:00 pm. I pulled the eggs at 8:00 Friday morning and the temp was 84 degrees. I got home from work Friday night and checked them just before midnight and there were already wigglers on the bottom of the container. I checked them this morning (Saturday) around 8:00 and nearly all of them had hatched. Generally this process takes 48-60 hours. Mine did it in an incredible ~40 hours.

2. Hikari First Bites suck. Toss out the package. I've tried and all it does is foul the water. Mine won't touch the stuff. You will need microworms and walter worms for the first couple of days before switching over to BBS if you so choose.

3. You can neglect water changes if the volume of the tank is large. I moved the eggs over to a container that is about 3/4 of a gallon and I'll be doing water changes every day that I can. Sometimes I might do it twice.

4. When they have just used up the yolk sac 2 times per day (every 12 hours) is sufficient with walter worms or microworms, which can last for days in fresh water. When they get older and large more feedings should be done. 5 times per day is recommended if you can do it.

5. Average ram spawns are ~200-300. I just had the largest spawn out of the pair I just removed the eggs from. 451 total eggs (used Microsoft Paint to count and erase the eggs one by one) and only 23 bad ones. Not too shabby considering this pair is half wild blood and my pH is 7.8 and my GH is 300+ ppm. In the wild you'd be able to count on one or two hands the number that would survive. I'm hoping to get 200 of my 400+ to survive but even that may be too high.

You will need to go to www.aquabid.com in the "Live Foods" section and look for a "Ready to Feed" source of either microworms or walter worms. Buy it today since you will need it ASAP. The fry should go free swimming soon and they will be looking for food. If you have some Java moss put it into the tank as a source of infusoria. You might get lucky if you have an established tank that may have a sufficient supply for most of the fry to survive.