Ok so my centrarchus have spawned and babies began free swimming today. When should I began feeding them and what do you guys feed your fry. The pair are in a 29 gallon alone and so far parents are doing a great job. As for water changes I was thinking about 5 gallons every other day. Comments?
Dealing with fry
- Thread starter rrcoolj
- Start date
I've noticed with my fish that spawn, they tend to chew food and shoot it from their gills down into where the fry are. It's nothing to see particles of food build up in different areas of the tank. As for water changes, I'd do a couple 10 gallon changes a week. Keeping that stuff to a minimum will lessen the chance you could spook the parents and cause them to eat the fry. It's really going to be trial and error though, find what works best for you and them. That could take a couple batches of fry to get right.
You can feed them once they're all free-swimming. They will graze around the tank, but will grow faster if you feed them directly. I use the powdered Hikari First Bites fry food, live baby brine shrimp, or Hikari frozen baby brine shrimp. The Hikari stuff is expensive compared to hatching your own brine, but it's a lot less work and seems to not foul the water as bad.
I do 50% w/c every day on 20 gallon fry tanks. You probably don't need to do that many, but the more you feed, the more w/c you'll need to keep the water quality up.
I do 50% w/c every day on 20 gallon fry tanks. You probably don't need to do that many, but the more you feed, the more w/c you'll need to keep the water quality up.
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Water changes are good. 10% weekly is a bad idea. I feed mine first bites, or i use a crumble or flakes and mash it up between the fingers as I drop into the water. My Zonatus parents are the only parents that I have seen doing this, but they would eat, and with some of the left over food they would chew it up and spread it all over the tank. Then every once in a while one of them would drop down into the substrate and flap their fins really hard causing the food in the gravel to float up. Every time they did this the babies would all converge on that area and feed. Never had to feed their fry separately.
Water changes are good. 10% weekly is a bad idea. I feed mine first bites, or i use a crumble or flakes and mash it up between the fingers as I drop into the water. My Zonatus parents are the only parents that I have seen doing this, but they would eat, and with some of the left over food they would chew it up and spread it all over the tank. Then every once in a while one of them would drop down into the substrate and flap their fins really hard causing the food in the gravel to float up. Every time they did this the babies would all converge on that area and feed. Never had to feed their fry separately.I agree with gator. As long as they're in with their parents you don't have to do anything at all, except for maintenance. Parents will chew up their own food and shoot the small particles out of their gills for the fry to munch on, and the fry will survive on detritus/algae/leftover food particles for months. All these fry foods are not necessary really unless you raised the eggs yourself in a separate aquarium.
There's lots of algae and microorganisms in any well established tank even if it looks clean to us. If you take the wood out and scrape it, you will see what I mean, there's a layer of detritus, biofilm and algae covering most surfaces. Bad maintenance/excess nutrients cause these algae colonies to grow out of control, but they're always present and are beneficial to the system. They will feed on that. My Salvini pair regularly took their fry to a large piece of driftwood for them to forage on, I couldn't see anything but I could see them eating, and growing every day. I never fed em any "fry food" and they were very healthy.
Start feeding them now several times a day. Mine grow very well on pulverized flakes and food residue from empty food cans.
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Remember, this is a 29 gallon tank. So 2-3 10 gallon changes will be less stressful on the parents as you're not really in the tank too long. Eventually as the parents get more experience it will be a non factor. As for feeding, as long as they're with the parents then fry food isn't needed. If the fry are pulled to their own tank, then feed First Bites, crushed flake food and frozen baby brine shrimp. My Dempsey's raised their own fry just fine and it takes a lot of work out of it all.
+1
Remember, this is a 29 gallon tank. So 2-3 10 gallon changes will be less stressful on the parents as you're not really in the tank too long. Eventually as the parents get more experience it will be a non factor. As for feeding, as long as they're with the parents then fry food isn't needed. If the fry are pulled to their own tank, then feed First Bites, crushed flake food and frozen baby brine shrimp. My Dempsey's raised their own fry just fine and it takes a lot of work out of it all.