What are these guys? How do I take care of them?

Hi

I have some dwarf neon rainbowfish, one molly, one otocinclus and recently bought a bunch of shrimp and got some moss from my LFS.

I now have some of these little things in my tank..



Are these guys little baby shrimp? How do I take care of them? Can I expect them to disappear due to my fish thinking they taste great?

Thanks y'all.

 

Congrats. You have rainbow fish fry, unless there were eggs in the moss. These little guys will get eaten unless you can separate them from the adult fish. You will need to feed them some tiny food such as infusoria or liquifry or some such type of food until they are large enough for microworms or baby brine shrimp. The next 3 weeks or so are the critical period I find, after that most of the fry survive.

 

+1 on the Rainbow fry.

You can try and float a bunch of hornwort in the tank, and see if the fry can use that to survive in.
The alternative would be to transform them to a separate tank where they can grow out.

The added benefit of hornwort is that it attracts infusoria, which the fry feed on.

Microworms will work if the fry are a few days old.
Hikari First Bites will also work, as the microscopic pellets differ in size from extremely small, to about the size of BBS.

I use a shooter / tot glass, and put a bit of water in the glass, then add a SMALL amount of Hikari, then swirl it around a bit, before adding it to the tank.
That way the Hikari acts like BBS, in that it sinks to about the middle of the tank, where the fry can feed on it.
If you sprinkle it on the water surface if floats around for a bit, then starts clumping together. Great for surface feeders, but not so great for middle/bottom feeders.

 

Thanks so much. I rushed out and bought a Breeder Net only to discover that the net holes are too big and the fry just escape. I have some Tetra Pleco tablets which I drop in the tank every now and then - I have dropped one into the Breeder Net on the hope it attracts them and the particles are small enough that they can munch on.

Been to a couple pet-shops and can't find any liquid stuff. I'll just try to overfeed my other fish for a while. I have a second tank but the tank has been empty for a while so the pH and other levels are a bit off so I don't want to chance it.

There is also hornwart (and like I said, some moss) in the tank so hopefully they manage to survive for a while and once they are a tiny bit bigger I'll try contain them in the Breeder Net again.

While I'm here, any ideas on this stuff? The fuzzy white dots on the moss and on my hornwart.





and thanks for the Congrats, TheGrissom!

 

Those fuzzy white dots are eggs, probably from the Rainbow fish.
Rainbows are egg scatterers, meaning they don't form a nest or hollow, but scatter the eggs in leaf litter, between stones and as in your case, the Java moss.
Those eggs seem to have a fungus growing over them, which seems to indicate that they are not viable, and will not hatch.

Hikari First Bites should be availabe at most good petshops.
Jungle Aquatics in Fourways stocks Hikari, and a number of the shops in Centurion also stock it.

Nano Aquatics usually has stock of Microworms, and can courier to you.

 

Siphon water from your tank into your empty second tank and add a heater so that the temps are the same. Then add the hornwort and moss. The tank doesnt need to be full, just full enough to cover the heater. Take water loss into account - maybe cover the heater with water and then add another half tank of water. IMO they are more likely to survive without adult fish around. No filter needed as the fry will produce very little waste as long as you dont overfeed. Once they have grown you can add a sponge filter or move them back to the adults if they are large enough not to be eaten. I used to do threadfin rainbowfish this way and am currently doing cpd fry this way.

 

Hi

Thanks, I just managed a small workaround successfully though. Well I think it is successful - I got some pantyhose and stretched that around the Breeder Net. Managed to find four fry without looking too hard and dumped them in there and looks like it is holding them.

When I have a bit more time then I'll sort out my second tank and siphon out from my main tank to get levels right for a slightly longer term transplant.

Thanks in terms of the dot / eggs / worm / food feedback.

 

If your stuck on getting food for the fry. Boil an egg. Use only the yoke. Mix a bit of it with water and feed this to the fry. Rainbow fish don't have a big egg sack so they will need food during the first 24 hours. Add some plants, from the tank, to the breeder net they will graze on the zoo plankton growing on it. With the pantyhose around the net it will stop a lot of flow through it which is perfect for the fry. Remove any uneaten food as it might spoil and foul the water. Good luck with the fry.

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I think those fuzzy white eggs are actually unfertilised+fungussed eggs and should be removed so they don't infect the healthy clear eggs.

 

Thanks. How would I do this? Syringe or tweezers or something?

 

Hi. Coolios - I have struggled to get to a pet shop that has the suggested food and in the mean-time bought some Daro "Baby Fish Food for egg layers" which is powdery and fairly fine but I'm still worried about. In the mean time I have done the boiled egg trick and moved them into my other small 1ft tank.

My only concerns now are..

1) Should I leave the filter off? It is a small Hailea internal filter but still produces quite a bit of movement and even though I've put pantyhose over the intake I'm worried the intake might be too strong for the absolutely TINY fry. What do y'all suggest?

2) I have been putting some boiled egg yolk in like 10ml of tank water and dumping that into the tank after shaking it but I'm worried about overfeeding especially given I'm not running the filter. How much and how often should I be feeding these guys? I think I only have four fry in the 1ft tank right now.

Thanks again everyone. I am really a noob when it comes to this stuff.

 

Regarding the feeding: your defnitly overfeeding and it will affect your water quality very fast. Very difficult to say what amount you need to feed them but to put it in perspective, I have about 120 Kutubu fry at the moment. I'm feeding them 2mm of the egg yolk water 2 x a day.

Regarding the filter: turn the outlet so that it faces the glass, if possible. This will reduce the flow to an extend.

Hope that helps

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