Feeding Ram Fry

fleehouse2

AC Members
Jan 7, 2005
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Bedfordshire, England
Hi,

I currently have a pair of rams in a 150 litre tank and a batch of ram fry in the larve stage.

I plan to feed the fry (when they become free swimming) unhatched decapsulated brine shrimp eggs.

Will this work? Will I have problems due to the fact I have quite a deep layer of fine gravel for subtrate? What sort of water changes will I need to do?

How many eggs do you feed a batch of fry?

The reason I am feeding unhatched eggs is that I just do not have the time to set up and deal with hatching BBS every few days, my missus will go mental if I start doing more fish related activities.
 
Heh, I've always wondered about this. Setting up cultures can be a hassle and I've always thought that feeding the eggs may be simpler.

I do not know if unhatched, hey have the same/enough nutritional values for your Rams. There are very small (think 4 in. by 5 in.) hatcheries where less than 5 min of work is needed to start a culture. At $10 it's no hit to the wallet.

SB1113.jpg


http://www.petstore.com/ps_viewitem.aspx?idproduct=SB1113
 
Oh dear, don't know if they will eat them or not. Is the tank planted? Can you find any microworms? You might also try frozen bbs, however, I've never had any luck feeding them anything but microworms and live newly hatched bbs...
Cathy
 
Just don't have the time to mess around with anything at the moment, we are getting new dogs at weekend and my 2 tanks plus a QT tank housing neons is enough to keep me more then busy. I need some ram contraception.

I will try the unhatched decaps and see how I go, if I screw up will have to try again next time and try and ignore the guilt :sad:

A few people on the Apistogramma Forums have tried it with some success, others though haven't.
 
I hear ya. Especially with the 2 dogs. New dogs can be a workload.

Good luck with the eggs, hope they work.

Also, do your Rams breed regularly? I have yet to breed any of my cichlids.
 
1 More thing!
Liquid Fry Food is a Great, Easy Alternative that I just remembered.

You don't even need to buy it, this website (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/fry_food.php) will give you instructions on how to make it at home.

It seems like a hassle, but once made it will last for weeks (refrigerated). All you have to do is shake it up before feeding!
 
hikari makes baby fry food. its almost like a powder texture so im positive it would be small enough. i havent bred GBR's but my electric blue, convict, and betta fry all ate it and turned out ok. well they all became feeder fish at around an inch but up to that point atleast =)
 
Cheers guys, I have ordered some Hikari First Bites and I already have some Interpret LiquiFry food as well as the decaps, so hopefully something will work without me having to set up more equipment. If not will try again making my own Liquid Fry food and hatcing BBS.

I have only had the rams for just over two weeks, they spawned in the first few days. I think they spawned becuase they were introduced into the tank at the same time as some new neons that developed white spot and as part of the treatment I raised the temp, which probably triggered the spawning. I think I have been lucky as we have pretty hard water around these parts.

The neons have since been removed as they looked like they had NTD or false-NTD, so the rams now have a 40 US Gallon tank to themselves and their fry. Though I am a little worried that feeding may be even more tricky, as 40 gallons is pretty big for raising fry in.
 
They were free swimming when I got home from work last night so I squrited some LiquiFry into the tank.

This lunch time I gave them some Hikari First Bite and Decaps (both soaked for a few minutes first in tank water). I clearly gave them far too much and 99.9% settled on the substrate and leaves.

I fed the same mixture again a few hours later (but a lot less of it), most still settled on the substrate and leaves, so I am not sure if they are taking it or not.

I did a very quick vacuum of the leaves, literally for about 2 seconds as the male came charging over to attack the gravel vac and his fry followed, I am sure I sucked up a couple but couldn't really tell.

Need to do the weekly water change tomorrow, which is now even more important due to all the uneaten fry food. I am worried I am going to suck more up.

Not confident I am going to get any through this at the moment.
 
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