Some Qs on convict fry
- Thread starter REDKID!!!
- Start date
its ok
REDKID!!!;848306; said:
1. Don't. Leave them with their parents. Convicts have excellent parenting skills. If there are other fish in the tank, and it is a small tank, the parents will attack any fish that gets too close to their territory. A lot of fry will become fish food though.
2. Keep them wet and they will be fine. Keeping the tank clean is quite a trick though. The fry will be everywhere and it is hard not to vacuume up a few. Do not use a gravel vac until the fry are large enough to not live in the gravel. I use bare bottom tanks for my breeder tanks and grow out tanks. It makes cleaning easier.
I always clean the tank one last time the day before the eggs are due to hatch. Then I do not clean the bottom for a prolonged period. The fry will stay at the bottom, so it makes cleaning difficult but water changes are a breeze. Just keep your syphon hose near the top of the tank and one finger over the hose end that is in your waste bucket. If a fry or parent gets too close to the end in the tank, you just put your finger over the end to stop the flow.
Another reason to not clean the tank bottom while the fry are small is because the parents will chew up their food and spit it out small enough for the fry to eat. The food will look like frothy poo. Resist the urge to clean it. You will see the fry picking through it. You will want to clean it up every now and then because real poo will eventually get mixed in with the food. In my tanks, the growth rate almost doubled when I stopped cleaning out the frothy food. You also need to keep the water quality tip top. Neglected water will stunt their growth rate and increase disease.
3. Feed the parents their regular food. As stated before, they will take care of the rest.
4. Preferably a tank with only the parents. If the parents are small, a ten gallon tank will serve well as long as you are religious about the water changes.
5. When the babies are nibbling the food you feed the parents. That is a good indication of the parents weening them.
I tried the separation thing...I started with around 100 fry but quickly ended up with only 11. Many didn't survive the syphoning and others died later. Btw, the parents will mouth the fry to clean them. I had what seemed to be a fungus growth on that batch of fry. All later batches I left with the parents for two months and had very few losses.
pebble;852463; said:
Convicts lay 75-100 eggs at each spawn. Mature goldfish lay around 2,000 eggs each spawn. Goldfish also do not take care of their young (they eat their own young). Goldfish are done parenting when the eggs are laid.
If you have a pair of goldfish and convicts to spawn at the same time, the convicts will be tending their young while the goldfish will be spawning again. The convicts will not spawn again until the fry can fend for themselves or are removed.
