I have babies!!

[eyeman]

I have six Occies in a 20L...2F 4M I think. Five took up residency on one side of the tank and one male on the other. To my amazement, I noticed a few fry in one of the F shells this morning. What bothers me is that just two days ago I cleaned the tank and dumped the sand out of all the shells. Who knows how many babies I killed since I was not looking closely.

What do I do now?? How do I feed them and/or should they be moved to a nursery tank etc.

I have only had them for a month or so and never noticed any different behavior etc. Kinda unprepared for this.

I have been feeding them NLS grow and doing weekly 25-50% PWC.

I have no brine shrimp eggs or a way to hatch them right now.

 

[fishfreak2]

I have six Occies in a 20L...2F 4M I think. Five took up residency on one side of the tank and one male on the other. To my amazement, I noticed a few fry in one of the F shells this morning. What bothers me is that just two days ago I cleaned the tank and dumped the sand out of all the shells. Who knows how many babies I killed since I was not looking closely.

What do I do now?? How do I feed them and/or should they be moved to a nursery tank etc.

I have only had them for a month or so and never noticed any different behavior etc. Kinda unprepared for this.

I have been feeding them NLS grow and doing weekly 25-50% PWC.

I have no brine shrimp eggs or a way to hatch them right now.

i find crushing up the pellets that you feed the bigger fish, or crushing bloodworms as well.

 

[YoFishboy]

That's pretty much how it works...one day, ya see a cloud of fry darting back into the shell! Crushed flake is fine, and leave them alone....the parents will give them da boot when it's time for round two....move the "teenagers" out when the colony gets too big for your tank...

 

[Aqua-Reliable]

The parents should look after the fry for a while, but to be safe, you could always take the fry out and put them into a small fry tank, like 10-15 gallons and feed them tiny crushed flakes, standard diet applies, that way you know they are actually getting some food. You will want to start feeding them small amounts at first, then gradually start feeding them larger amounts until you reach the normal amount.

 

[KingOfTheDeep]

nice! congrats!