Emergency!! Help with Fry!

[neo]

Hello,

We have Jack Dempsey wigglers in a large community tank. With Fire Mouths, a pair of Convicts.

Would it be ok to remove the wigglers without Mom and Dad?
When do you start feeding the fry baby brine shrimp?

The Wigglers are 2 days from being free swimming. Im afraid they are going to become fish food when they do become free swimming. The eggs were laid on June 22. They were hatched June 24 pm.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

TIA,
Bonnie

 

[ScottoMacD]

Leave them until they have become completely free swimming.
Usually 3 to 4 days free swimming.

By moving them at this age you will probably lose the same amount that you will if you left them for a few more days. They are very fragile at this point.

The parents will do a great job protecting them.

I have never been a fan of baby brine. They are expensive and usually end up polluting the water to no end. I always use a small amount of finely crush flake with all of my broods. Cheaper and does a bang up job. Then when the get a little bigger and start to look like real fish, I start the heavy protein diet. Usually freeze dried plankton powder. Since I started that my brood have been growing great. Big, fat and healthy. My LFS loves it when I bring mine in for sale.

 

[neo]

Thank you very much for your prompt reply.

We wasnt expecting eggs in our community tank. We have never breed fish before. This is our first experience.

We will give the plankton a try. Did you crush the plankton yourself? We have never use brine shrimp and our LFS told us to use the baby brine shrimp. I suppose to sell us a hachery.
Have you ever used the egg yolk method? Or would that make just as big a mess?

Thanks Again,
Bonnie

 

[ScottoMacD]

The crushed plankton was discovered by accident. You will find that when you buy freeze dried plankton that at the bottom of the bottle/bag is always full of powder. I use to throw it out.
The regular sized fish wouldn't touch it. I found it a terrible waste of money considering that it was about a third of the package.
So one day I decided to feed the babies instead of chucking it. They went crazy for it and that brood grew at an unbelieveable rate. From that point on, that is the diet of all my broods.

It will work nicely for you. Feed the big boys the plankton and the fry the powder. Win/Win situation.

The yolk method is messy....very messy.

The brine hatchery is just Easy money for the LFS. It's one of those things you buy use once maybe twice and then it sits gathering dust. If you want to raise them, You can raise them with a plastic 2 litre coke bottle for a tenth the price.
If you decide to use the baby brine just buy the frozen and save yourself the hassle.

 

[Tightdog1]

yea u can take em out and feed the crushed flakes, make sure they are super fine tho, and the plankton sounds like a good idea i will have to try that instead of tossing all the powder.