Fry food source questions?

I am not a breeder by any means, I keep fish for their beauty and the pleasure of watching them.

What I have experienced in the past is that when fish are happy they will breed, whether you planned it or not. Some fry will do just fine if there is enough hiding place and a caring mother, but with others you should have some kind of food ready.

I have to add, just as info, all my tanks is pretty natural planted tanks with proper substrate, plants, driftwood, rocks and proper filtration systems. I don't use filtration that will kill anything like UV filters. I want my tanks to maintain themself and hardly if ever do water changes. Have run some of my tanks for over 2 years without a water change and only changed the water when i rehomed to a new city. I will also do a water change when I rescape / reorganise a tank and also top up when needed.

I know how to hatch brine shrimp and do whenever I have unexpected breeding in my community tank. I just move the breeding pair to an established breeding tank, fire up the brine shrimp hatchery and when the fry starts free swimming, the brine shrimp babies are ready for use.

This week I was surprised to find my three Spot Gourami female carrying eggs. Moved them to a tank and within three days the eggs were in the nest and a day or two later some of the fry were swimming around. I never planned to breed them and were not prepared for how small the fry would be, BBS can not be used till the fry is at least a week or two old

I know the following will work but all of them will require at least 3-5 days to prepare.

1. Infusoria
2. Banana worms
3. Walter worms
4. Micro worms

By the time I get these going they would either be dead or big enough to eat the BBS.

My question is, will microscopic organisms in the substrate, plants, glass, sponge filter and driftwood be enough to keep them alive. Those who swim went straight for the driftwood, algae on the glass and the sponge filter. Some are clinging to the floating plants and others react to a very fine powder i throw in the tank. Will this be enough to keep the going?

If not, where can I find cultures to start all of the above? Pet shops that i managed to talk to today, did not even know what I was talking about. I can get infusoria going and ready within 4 days, but self made infusoria can only be used for two days.

Any recommendations?

 

I've heard people use potato starch (or at a pinch, maizena) shaken up and fed using an eyedropper. I have no idea how well it works.

 

I wonder if desolved egg yolk would work. Some sites say yes, others warn against it's use.

 

I've used this (hardboiled obvs), and I had fry survive - although I never bother to remove adults etc and didn't have any sort of experimental control. I'd say give it a shot. The worst that can happen is the fry starve like they might have done anyway.

 

I bought First bites to see what it is. It is just as fine as the powder i make when I grind normal pellets with a coffee grinder, so nothing special there. My pellets contain 4?% protein and so does the First bite. My normal fish food supplier only state the protein content so that aside I dont know how it compares to First Bites on the rest of the ingredients.

3 days after the fry hatched I threw in a few BBS to see what would happen and I can clearly see why its recommended not to feed BBS for the first two weeks. The BBS is about the same size as the fry.

There must be some shops selling cultures, but I cant find them yet. I need to get into contact with some breeders to learn the ropes, these specific fry is really small and i am a bit out of my comfort zone here. Its good to see them swimming around after 3 days, gives me hope, but I need to be better prepared next time around.

EDIT: I follow two channels on Youtube called KeepingFishSimple and Father Fish. I watch their videos on infusoria and how important it is to have them available when you need them. Simple ways to keep them as a source of food for fry for months on end. I have started my first culture and it should be ready in 48 hours. Will do the long term one this weekend.

 

Hello,

Get yourself some vinegar eels, setup a culture and you are good to go. When I switched to vinegar eels the fry survival rate skyrocketed. And they are really easy to culture and maintain.

 

Hi I have some fry food that i make myself. I can share some if you willing to try Im on the eastrand.

 

Where Can I find cultures? Tried a few of the bigger fish shops but nobody that I contacted has some.

In the meanwhile I got some infusoria going and once i have figured out the temp they like, they are doing well. Seems to be around 27 deg c. Following some of the instructions on YT proved to be a failure, some guys recommend leaving the culture out in the sun, but the decrease in evening and night temps mess with the culture. Have a big glass jar in one of my grow out tanks now at a constant temp of 27deg and the culture is doing much better.

Fry growing well and started chasing down BBS this morning. I guess the stress time is over now.