Re moved festae fry today

[wild bill]

We moved our festae fry from our 230g tonight just to afraid the other mouths in the tank would get them. Any ideas to keep them going. We filled the fry tank with the water they hatched in dont want to shock them the transfer was probably shocking enough. Kinda thought the parents would show agression to us but they just swam away had neon jewels attack my hand when just cleaning the tank when they have fry.

 

[Gatorxxx420]

If they're wigglers still, just keep the tank clean until they start swimming then start feeding some flake food crushed into powder (you could also get Hikari First Bites or NLS has a fry powder, but if you already have flake food, no sense spending money on something you don't really need). I use a toothpick and dip it into water to feed mine. If they're swimming then just feed them 3-4 times a day and depending on the size of the tank do a 30-40% water change a day until they're about a half inch then you can start going every other day. I've raised several batches of fry this way, from guppies to cichlids.

 

[Otherone]

That was quick - Both of the 2 prior posts go against what I've been told or done.
I'd never do massive waterchanges with wigglers basically because my tapwater contains chlorine and I don't have an extra tank for pretreatment and preheating.
I'd be afriad the wigglers would die if exposed to even small amounts of chlorine or changes in temperature. I've also never had fry in a tank full of other hungry fish.
I'm curious as to how this works out for ya.

 

[smitty03281964]

Must keep very good clean water and keep there bellies full.

 

[buddha1200]

I have done massive water changes with wigglers in the tank,i add the conditioner before i add the water(at the corret temp.)never saw any ill affects. I have done it with oscar fry,fenestratus fry,kraussi fry, all pretty tough fish even as fry. but as they say what works for some may not work for others.

 

[wild bill]

We will be doing alot of small water changes they are still in the original tank water and we have several kinds of fry powder. If they had been convicts we would have left them alone but festae are a little harder to come by. We did raise a batch of cons in the tank and they were what most worried us would get the festae fry.

 

[Gatorxxx420]

We will be doing alot of small water changes they are still in the original tank water and we have several kinds of fry powder. If they had been convicts we would have left them alone but festae are a little harder to come by. We did raise a batch of cons in the tank and they were what most worried us would get the festae fry.

What size tank did you move them to?

 

[RD.]

I have done massive water changes with wigglers in the tank,i add the conditioner before i add the water(at the corret temp.)never saw any ill affects.

ditto, many times over for more years than I care to remember.

The more fresh water that you can throw at those fry as they grow, the better.

 

[Freshwaterpredators]

ditto, many times over for more years than I care to remember.

The more fresh water that you can throw at those fry as they grow, the better.

Again I agree with RD.

The last batch of festae i raised, i pulled the parents before they even hatched. the eggs remained in that tank by themselves untill a week free swimming. i placed an air stone under the eggs to keep the oxygen up. after a week i moved the all to a 55g. from there i did a water change every other day of at least 50%. I feed crushed HBH veggie flake, Crushed hikari pellets, and I bought some de-capsulated brine shrimp eggs from Jehmco that worked exceptionally well. now i feed all my fry the eggs and you can see their lil bellies turn orange after each feeding lol. I would definitely recommend trying the decapsulated brine shrimp

and on that note i never had a bloat issue with festae. im sure you'll hear about people that has. but with festae its not the food that starts bloat or whatever they are calling it. usually its stress givin from the slightly larger fry (males) that pick off the week ones. Also if your looking for better growth, once they get close to an inch if you have a 75g or 6' tank, that will benefit them greatly for growing out. that was my mistake. i only put couple dozen in my 125 to grow out and they blew by the rest that stayed in 55. plus i did have losses due to aggression by some of the festea but more to other tankmates that had to be removed.

As long as you have good filtration, oxygen in tank and you keep up on water changes they will be just fine bud and you can feed them anything u like, although i would hold off on frozen foods till they reach an inch and if your worried about bloat dont feed frozen brine shrimp, ive had issues with that food. the eggs are fine just the frozen id keep an eye on when feeding. good luck bud. oh and keep your temps around 82

 

[wild bill]

I think there was some cofusion here we never changed the water yhe water we used is water out of the tank they hatched in. When we do water changes for the first week or two we will use the tank water that way the water will remain relativly unchanged. We have put them in a 25 with a bubble filter for now when they reach quarter to half inch probably into a 65 or 90. As for thinking we moved them to soon my wife has hatched and raised several kinds of fish in the manner Jason explained. It looks like we have about 100 fry right now so we are quite happy with ourselves and the festae. Next time we will leave them with the parents a little longer. As we have succesfuly removed the convict issue.