I have a spawning group of 2 male and 3 female H. notatus. They first spawned in my bare Q-tank which also housed three Burmese chocolate gouramis. Out of at least 8 fry (probably more, they are hard to see even in a bare tank), two grew to a fairly large size. Fairly large meaning about 1/4 - 1/2 inch in length. Soon they dissapeared, and that was the end of the first batch. I was feeding veggie wafers and various veggies that the adults eat, but apparently this was not enough for the fry.
I moved them into a 20 long with 50/50 Tahitian moon sand and flourite substrate. The tank is moderately planted with a couple pieces of driftwood. Filtration is an AC 70 with a prefilter sponge on the intake. The only other inhabitants are three otos, as well as pond and malaysian trumpet snails.
I have since had a couple of new batches of fry. There is some algae in the tank, but not much. I frequently pull algaefied plants from my other tanks and plant them in this one, as well as feeding cukes, zucchini, romaine lettuce, and algae wafers. In this tank I can never get an accurate count of fry, and most of the time I can't spot any. However, I know that none of them are growing very much before they die off.
I'm assuming the problem is with them not getting adequate nutrition, although I certainly could be wrong. I have read of parotocinclus fry being raised on lettuce coated with microworms. Since I have some walterworm cultures (mini-microworms), I'm thinking I'll give that a shot next and see if my results improve.
I'm just wondering if anyone here has some other suggestions on things to try. I've tried farming brown algae but just can't seem to grow that stuff - all I get is green algae. Does anybody have any ideas? I'm willing to try any reasonable suggestions at this point!
I moved them into a 20 long with 50/50 Tahitian moon sand and flourite substrate. The tank is moderately planted with a couple pieces of driftwood. Filtration is an AC 70 with a prefilter sponge on the intake. The only other inhabitants are three otos, as well as pond and malaysian trumpet snails.
I have since had a couple of new batches of fry. There is some algae in the tank, but not much. I frequently pull algaefied plants from my other tanks and plant them in this one, as well as feeding cukes, zucchini, romaine lettuce, and algae wafers. In this tank I can never get an accurate count of fry, and most of the time I can't spot any. However, I know that none of them are growing very much before they die off.
I'm assuming the problem is with them not getting adequate nutrition, although I certainly could be wrong. I have read of parotocinclus fry being raised on lettuce coated with microworms. Since I have some walterworm cultures (mini-microworms), I'm thinking I'll give that a shot next and see if my results improve.
I'm just wondering if anyone here has some other suggestions on things to try. I've tried farming brown algae but just can't seem to grow that stuff - all I get is green algae. Does anybody have any ideas? I'm willing to try any reasonable suggestions at this point!
