i would also add that smaller more frequent feedings will help for the water quality,and the fact that young fish can't eat much at one time anyway.the hard part is judging how much food to add for a cloud of fry
Raising fry in a natural setting
- Thread starter rrcoolj
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Yeah, the fry will easily damage the parents even at a small size. When you're talking about a swarm of 50 - 200 hungry fry, it wouldn't take much for them to cause problems. Discus keepers have reported this for a long time with discus fry because they naturally feed on parents' slime coat. If you don't supplement the feedings with something like baby brine shrimp or golden pearls, the fry will start eating into the parents' actual skin and fins. This happens as early as 4 - 6 weeks old when the fry are only pea to dime sized.
IMO the fry will not grow as fast unless there is a constant supply of food. They will definitely graze off natural detritus in the tank, but unless it's a huge tank with lots of detritus, it's not going to be enough to feed a swarm of grazing fry for several weeks. It's easy enough to crush some pellets or add First Bites, so why not? They can certainly stay with the pair though.
Keep in mind that some fish will start to eat their fry once they're ready to spawn again, so it's not just the fry who can do damage to the parents.
IMO the fry will not grow as fast unless there is a constant supply of food. They will definitely graze off natural detritus in the tank, but unless it's a huge tank with lots of detritus, it's not going to be enough to feed a swarm of grazing fry for several weeks. It's easy enough to crush some pellets or add First Bites, so why not? They can certainly stay with the pair though.
Keep in mind that some fish will start to eat their fry once they're ready to spawn again, so it's not just the fry who can do damage to the parents.
i really liked using wafers like clockwork said. they are very stable in the water and the fry can graze for some time on them
My Umbees breed regularly. I've found that if I barely feed the parent umbee the fry don't get any food and they starve. They do not eat the parents slime coat at all. If I throw in a few massivore pellets, some gets expelled from their gills and the fry eat that. There are currently 1/2" fry...about 20 or so, and the parents are actively hunting them. This is because there are about 300-500 eggs the female is fanning as I type this. My male is 6"+ and female around 5" so they are young I don't know if that is the reason for this behavior or not
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Thanks for your comments. SO the worry is that fry will essentially eat their parents alive? I have read of discus fry causing damage to their parents but if I am not mistaken most discus breeders breed discus in a bare tank. I am talking about raising fry in a tank with tons of algea and driftwood that they fry can go through. And I am talking about a huge tank with lots of detritus. I am not talking about like a pair of midas in a 125 but something like a pair of convicts in a 125 to where the tank has lots of surfaces that allow algea to grow where food particles can be trapped and eatin by fry.This kind of thing would only happen in a large natural setting and not your typical breeding tank. I have gone through a couple threads on cichlidae.com where members have had success with this.
On another note I really like the algea wafer idea and I tried it today. This method is a lot less mess and I am hoping it is successful.
On another note I really like the algea wafer idea and I tried it today. This method is a lot less mess and I am hoping it is successful.
Part of the chalange of doing this is as has been stated the fry eventually damaging the parents or the parents eating the fry as some cichlids are better parents than others. In the wild the parents abandon the fry after a certain amount of time. In and artificial setting such as an aquarium the parents or fry can't escape when the time comes. I have Krobia XO fry with their parents for two months now and they have proved to be excelent parents however the fry are fed on NLS .5mm Threa A and leave mom and dad alone. What I do is use a very well aged tank which has been set up over two years so it has "stuff" growing all over it. When I'm going to breed a pair I don't even clean the glass and for the first week of free swimming I don't feed the fry, they just graze on everything growing all over the place. I've always had better luck letting the parents rais the fry rather than removing them right away. However I realize results may vary depending on species etc.
Above, is the damage fry did to my male hait just before I pulled him. He never resisted, and would probably allowed the fry to eat him alive. I was feeding a few times daily, but just could not keep up with the amount of food they required, and eight hours of my work day was too long for the fry to wait.
I now allow algae to grow out of control in my breeder tanks to supplement feedings, and it really helps, because th fry continually graze on it.
Thanks for the comment. I don't want to try this for months on end just until the fry are big enough to take pellets for themselves as you apparently have done. And of coarse like you said some cichlid parents will be better than others.
Thanks for the info, so at a certain size it probably would be wise to remove the fry anyway assuming the parents are like you dedicated pair of haits willing to kill themselves to save their babies. I think my pair of centrarchus would do the same thing. I like the abundance of algea in the tank a lot. What kind of lighting do you use?
I agree the amount of algea probably helps the fry grow faster since they can feed continuously.now that tanks looks natural. i bet the fry do great munching on tons of algae all day.
I am still just experimenting with this so I proably going to do what Aquanero and some other members do which is let the fry graze in the tank until they are big enough to take small pellets like the .5mm NLS pellets.
The light on that tank is just a simple hardware shop light, with cheap fluorescent bulbs.
I do seed any new breeder tank with some of that hairlike algae, from a window sump. With a good start, it out competes cyanobacteria and other less desirable algae/bacteria species. I have checked it under the microscope, and beyond the just the algae, it is filled with nematodes, ciliates, rotifers and other micro-organisms that I believe the fry with those over sized eyes can see, and eat, that I can only see magnified.
I do seed any new breeder tank with some of that hairlike algae, from a window sump. With a good start, it out competes cyanobacteria and other less desirable algae/bacteria species. I have checked it under the microscope, and beyond the just the algae, it is filled with nematodes, ciliates, rotifers and other micro-organisms that I believe the fry with those over sized eyes can see, and eat, that I can only see magnified.
