Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Food and Feeding => Topic started by: Fiona on July 23, 2016, 07:10:31 PM
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Does anyone know how to feed fry within bubble nest with liquifry? I mixed the correct dose with some tank water before adding it to the tank. It's dispersed across the tank but of course the fry are all huddled up in the bubble nest.
Any ideas please?
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Absolutely no experience of this but did a bit of "googling" and there were some suggestions of feeding Liquifry with a dropper - would that work ie without interfering/ruining the bubblenest?
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- would that work ie without interfering/ruining the bubblenest?
erm no is the answer to that question :( The male is now busy rounding them all up again.
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The fry don't need feeding while they are in the bubble nest as they will be consuming the yolk sac. They only need feeding once they become free swimming. And at this point, dad could view them as his food.
If you think about it, how would food get to the fry in a bubble nest in the wild?
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Instructions on the liquifry say start adding at day one which is why I'm adding it, I did speculate on the yolk sac issue when I was at Crews Hill yesterday but the general consensus there was add from day 1 regardless :(
Last time I let nature take its course and zero fry survived, this time I am going to actively nurture them. I've googled how to breed them @Sue but there's no definitive advice on when to remove the fry from the main tank, other than after 4-5 days the male loses interest. It says feed them newly hatched brine shrimp and infusoria, I'm hoping the liquifry will do. I've got a 30l tank that I was going to fill with water from the tank they hatched in.
I've raised celebes rainbow fry, it's the bubble nest bit thats throwing me. So should I wait for them to leave the nest or move it now? Unfortunately he built it against the side of the tank that has no long stemmed plants in it, so the fry will have a way to go to reach cover.
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Fish that show parental care are often different from egg scatterers, and I think it's the latter that the liquifry instructions refer to. With egg scatterers, the fry won't stand much chance of survival if they go through a 'wriggler' stage. They need to be able to swim off and hide from the second they hatch. For fish like gouramis and some cichlids, the parents care for the newly hatched fry, so they can go through a 'wriggler' stage between hatching and becoming free swimming. I use the word wriggler as that's what this intermediate stage is called with south American cichlids.
The danger of moving the bubble nest without the father is that the fry need to be kept at the surface at this stage; if they fall out of the nest, dad puts them back. If he wasn't there, they wouldn't be able to get back. You could try moving the nest and the father, though he might get so stressed he'd eat the fry.
Hmmm, not sure what to suggest for the best.......
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I think with your input @Sue and a bit of trial and error I'll eventually have success, even if it's not this time. The male spends all his time under the nest gazing up at it, maybe if I keep a really good eye on him I'll be around when he 'loses interest'. I can then try and scoop some out and try and grow them on.
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Dunno if it was a flukey moment but I just saw the female swim over and spit a baby into the nest. Or maybe she just didnt like the taste. Considering I read that it's only the males that croak and I actually saw the female do it, I wouldn't be surprised to find the female sometimes assumes a parental role too.
Also the fry don't seem to be hanging tail down anymore, they're more horizontal.
Who knows, if I can get them to breed successfully I might see if PFK will accept an article from me. :rotfl:
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From my limited experience with honey gourami fry, they should be free swimming quite soon.
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Do you have any pictures? :)
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They're about 2mm maximum at the moment so I doubt I'd be able to focus on them with my son's camera phone, video might be possible. He's charging his phone atm Donna, however I'll try in a bit. They're little more than a dot with a tail atm.
I think they're very close to the free swimming stage Sue. I've got the 30l tank out of storage and I've got a small heater for it. I'm not sure I'll need a filter just now, I'll probably need to buy a very small sponge filter, can anyone recommend one?
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Do you mean a sponge filter powered by an air pump?
The one shop worker I trust told me to get one with a weighted base rather than the kind that attach to the tank with suckers. It is possible for the sucker type to come unstuck, float then stop working whereas weighted ones can't do that.
If an air pump causes too much flow for fry, it is quite easy to reduce the flow. All you need is an air line splitter, for example this (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AQUARIUM-2-WAY-CHROME-AIR-LINE-SPLITTER-TAPS-TANK-MANIFOLD-REGULATOR-FISH-/221360607471?hash=item338a1ed0ef:g:RHgAAOSwy4hUUYMK). The pump is connected to the single outlet on the right; the filter to one of the two outlets on the same side. Then the spare outlet is opened to bleed the air through reducing the amount of air being pushed through the filter and slowing the water flow. That's what I've had to do with the sponge filter in my betta's tank. Bleeding air off doesn't strain the pump as much as using a single tap to slow down the air flow.
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Yes I was going to use one driven by air pump. Just picked up one on ebay suitable for up to 40ls