Dead dead dead/Ram Fry

Cathy G

Cathy G

Bolivians Rock
Jan 15, 2006
720
0
16
Wisconsin USA
www.cathygeier.com
Boo Hoo! Most of my little ram fry died. I had moss in the tank, fed microworms and infusoria... as far as I can tell, nobody ate anything. The fry hung out at the top of the tank, all the food sunk right past them. (They were in RO and I thought I was being careful enough with water changes... but perhaps not.)

The last 2 days I tried that liquid fry food and powdered food, they at least float awhile. Is it normal for the fry to hang out at the top? I figured they would swim around looking for food, but no.

Tonight the bbs will be ready so I'll add some to see if any of the survivors are interested. Sigh. :sad:
Cathy
 
Usually fry will hang out at the bottom. Are your water parameters in order (0 ammonia and nitrite). I'm surprised they didn't eat the live microworms. Any chance of some kind of contaminant?
 
Hi, thanks for answering. They hung out on top from the time they started swimming. The moss I had in the tank came from another tank which was cycled. I don't know if there was anything in it - hmm, that is something to think about. The moss sunk, which it was supposed to, and most of the fry never went near it. Because they were all at the top where the current was highest, I had to reduce the amount of bubbles to a small trickle - I used a very weak bubbler and airstone. But there was enough circulation that scum never formed at the top.

Perhaps most of the fry were just defective? There are about 3-5 still alive, and they are the ones hanging and picking things off the bottom and hanging around the moss.

Well, better luck next time huh? I wondered if perhaps when the parents gather the fry all into gravel/sand pits, if that doesn't teach the fry that the food will be at the bottom. And because they were artificially hatched they didn't learn that lesson?

It is interesting that they swam up and stayed up.

Cathy G
 
Willow Moss/Ammonia

Hey, I had ammonia in the tank - even with all my water changes. I got very frustrated today and decided to test the moss for ammonia - found some! I rinsed the moss in other/cycled tank water, put it in a bowl of RO, and waited a few hours. It tested positive. It looked healthy, but it must not have been. It
killed my poor little fishies.
Cathy
 
I don't think it was the moss that was creating ammonia, unless it was dying like crazy and decomposing in the tank, and even then the bip-filter should have been cycling it instantly. Did you colonize the sponge filter before setting up the tank? I always have a couple sponges in the filter tray of my eclipse, so that whenever i need to set up a tank, I've got it ready to go. Put the sponge from your growout tank somewhere where water is flowing over it, and it should be ready to go when your next spawn hits. Good luck Cathy.

ps, how did the brine shrimp hatching work out. Feed them to your adults, they'll love it, and it's great for conditioning females.
 
Hi Mooman,
The bbs is working fine - I am hatching less than 1/8 teaspoon every other day and feeding 3 fry! I'll try adding some to the parent's tank - they have never been interested in tiny foods though. (They only love the frozen daphnia when it is in clumps, as soon as it totaly seperates into tiny individuals, they lose interest. They are probably spoiled rotten!)

Hey, I have a quick question regarding storing the bbs. I read that they could last in the refrigerator for 2 days, well mine only last 2 hours (a slight exageration here...), anyway, how do you store yours? It would be nice if I could hatch one day, harvest the next and get another batch ready to hatch the following day. As it is, I might have to get another batch going every 12 hours or something. Surely there is a way to keep the bbs alive for 1 day!? Perhaps I should only siphon off what I need that day and let stay in the brine for a while?

So many questions, so little time!
Cathy

Oh, the sponge filter has been bubbling in other tanks for 2-3 weeks now. I did order another one and will be placing that in my filter boxes where the water is flowing to seed it. Good idea, I thought I had to run bubbles through it to seed it. (That dispels my co2, and I don't like that very much...)
 
The bbs lose a ton of nutritional value after 24hrs, so after that I feed the leftovers to my other tanks. If you're siphoning the bbs into freshwater, that's whats killing them. siphon them into a holding container, and then top off with some of your saltwater mix (essentially performing a water change). Use an eyedropper/pipette to remove the very bottom layer (unhatched eggs and dead bbs). This will keep the water quality from going south too fast in your holding container. They should last a couple days at room temp. Since it takes 36 hrs for mine to hatch, and I only feed them for the first 24hrs, there is usually one feeding (I feed twice a day) every other day that I have to use microworms or frozen bbs (sometimes I just skip a feeding or feed bbs that is past it's prime). It doesn't get me 100% optimal growth, but IMO is better/easier than maintining multiple hatching containers. I've tried storing them in the fridge, and it does work. At that temp they are nearly inactive so probably don't use up as much of their energy reserves (nutritional value). The problem is, that they all sink to the bottom, and become mingled with the dead bbs.

No bubbles needed to seed a filter, just water movement over or better yet through the sponge.
 
Cathy,

I feed all of my adult dwarf cichlids bbs. The fry get their portions first and then the rest gets fed to my other tanks.

Despite the fact that bbs are tiny, adult Rams (and apistos) gobble them up. Your adults are probably not interested in the individual daphnia because they're not moving.

So don't worry about "wasting" bbs by feeding them to the adults. Heck, it'll probably result in larger, healthier future broods that they produce.

I rotate 2 hatcheries that are on 36 incubation times. This keeps my fish pretty well fed with bbs. I supplement my fry with microworms (I add a multivitamin to the oat substrate that I use raise the microworms, just toss it in while boiling the water for the oats).

Sam
 
Yes Sam, but does your multi vitamin include iron! :laugh:
Actually, I am using baby oatmeal and it has 8 essential vitamins, iron AND zinc!
If my stupid fry would only eat the them...
Your letter is crackin me up...
Cathy
 
BBS can be fed Spirulina powder and Cyclop-eeze to retain a good deal of nutritional value. Though I prefer to hatch a new batch every 12hrs, even after 2-3hrs they lose much of their nutritional value.

The java moss did not create the ammonia, infact java moss utlizes the ammonia to grow.

This next time around I would suggest trying a bare bottom tank, with cycled sponge filter, and doing daily 25% or better water changes. After the fry hatch straight RO is not nessecary. Fry grow better in harder water, and have better finage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom