My Tanks

Went home quick to check up on them. I have 8 free swimming now. My BBS has also hatched, I've put some in the tank just in case they start feeding when I'm not there. I see they are picking stuff off the sponges still. Plans for later are to do a water change and feed some more. Going to start small on the water change today (20%) and progress to larger near 100% eventually when they eat only solids.

Here's one of the little guys.

 

That's great boelderbeestie


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And the day 1-5 comparison, didn't take a pic yesterday as they looked the same as day 3.

 

@Adhil I'm really happy things are going ok so far.

 

I jacked my temp up to give them a break for a week or 2


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Did you raise it to 30?

 

31


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I found if my temp is between 30-32 my pair won't breed but as soon as I drop my temp below 29 they will spawn


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Ah good to know. My pair laid eggs again now. Biggest clutch so far, I don't know where the female kept them as there's more than she is big haha crazy.

 

Hope you get a bigger hatch rate this time


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Down to 6 this morning. The ones that died didn't look good from the start. They had crooked tails and weird shaped yolk sacs so it's for the best. The 6 that survived so far are looking good and must be eating something as they aren't dead yet. I am giving them egg yolk with bbs crushed in it smeared very lightly on the sides just under the water surface. I also put some bbs in the water in case they start to pick them off.

 

@BoelderBeestie Any updates? Did they survive through the weekend? And did the most recent batch of eggs hatch yet?

 

Down to one baby since Saturday. They ate the whole batch and are making ready to spawn again. The male drew a blank on that batch. All eggs turned white after 2 days. There's eggs in my other tank but I don't know if it's two females or not.

Because of the uncertainty I decided to experiment. I used 5ml of paragaurd in a syringe and gently blew it over the eggs when they where laid. That was 2 days ago and no fungus on them so far. They haven't turned dark yet so don't think they where fertilised but they have surprised me before so have to wait and see. 2 pairs from 6 fish would be a very lucky shot.

 

Forgot to mention I killed a baby on Friday like an idiot. Was busy cleaning there tank and doing a wc. When I was refilling I saw he got stuck on top of the sponge filter and dried out when I dropped the water level. IDIOT!!!!! Now I know to look out for this.

 

Weldone boelderbeestie, hope you do have 2 fertile pairs


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Ah that sucks, but next time then cuz i mean you learn a lot as you go along. Haha yeah having 2 pairs from 6 fish would be quite lucky hey, im hoping for the best on this batch. Haha nah people make mistakes and things like that happen, but yeah at least you know to look out for that now.

So are you thinking of artificially raising fry again or are you going to let the parents try again?

 

That would be awesome. They are always spawning behind the pot so I can't see who's what. I've got a plan for when I do the artificial raising again. I started to rinse the sponge from the cube in a bakkie on Thursday as the skin from the fry eaters sticks to it. I then dumped the water into the raising tank and the fry started to pick it off the sponge and bottom.

When its over for the last guy I'm going to put there sponge into the cube to soak up the skin from the parents. Hopefully this will get them past the first few days as most seemed to die of hunger when their yolk was depleted. I smeared egg yolk I prepared on the sides of the tank but only the bigger 2 of the fry ate it.

 

I'm going to try again because their deaths was my fault and I've learned quite a lot from this. The first problem was the fungus and the paragaurd treatment didn't kill any eggs so that's solved.

Next was the bowl I used. The temp in the bowl was running at 28c at night and 30c in the day so going to skip that step as the strongest fry where the ones left in the main tank. These where the two survivors I had left. Now its just one after I killed the other.

Next its the filter sponge. It's to big for the small tank I'm using so I'm going to cut it down so I can do wc's without exposing it to air and getting fry dry out on top of it.

I'll give my fish the next batch to try themselves again as they must learn but going to pull eggs out every now and then to practice myself. I really want to be able to do this.

I have confidence to handle fry now so I'll pull my next babies as soon as they start to take bbs. I waited to long on the last 3 and when the pair spawned the second time it was over and they ate them. Weird that they left them alone on the first respawn. The tanks are ready and waiting.

 

@Reedfish this never even crossed my mind. Now I know. Damn they are fragile little things. It wasn't even long only 2 minutes or so.