Why are my Texas fry dropping dead

[SaltyPlum]

Hi y'all, so a few months back my Texas pair spawned and I've been growing out the fry with the parents in a 90g. They are currently around 2cm. Everything seemed to be going fine with regular feeding and regular water changes up until the past fortnight for which they randomly started to slowly drop dead with few at a time.

I can't explain what's going on or why they are starting to die. I recently successfully raised a batch of Red Devils to a nice 8cm now and I haven't done anything different. However, I have noticed that the Texas fry have started to hide more with some of them hanging around the corner surfaces. I haven't seen the parents chase or show any aggression either but they went from comfortably swimming freely to now being more skittish and hiding.

Has anyone ever had similar experience and maybe explain what is going on, or provide some helpful advice on what I should do. I moved around half of the fry into their own tank but the same things is happening with random deaths. This is my first time raising Texas and it's really stressing me out. I was hoping to raise them up and make a few sales.

 

[C. Breeze]

How are the parents acting? 2 months later they are probably thinking of spawning again. Or at least the male is. The way you are describing it would lead me to believe that 1 or both parents are clearing the fry off to spawn again. The fry are dying most likely of hunger for not being able to feed freely. Or else picking each other off. And of course possibly predation by the parents…

Also water quality can really sneak up on you when you are growing fry and the bioload in the tank is doubling every few days or week. Suddenly your fry start crashing “even though my maintenance routine hasn’t changed” -
Which is the problem, it has to change or you don’t keep up with the increasing bio load.

Also starvation- the fry need to increase there nutrient intake as they grow and the fish keeper- especially in a tank that’s not growing all kinds of stuff (algae etc) has to keep upping the dose at feeding time. The fish keeper who is slow to realize and adapt starves his fry…

 

[dogofwar]

It's most likely a food thing. Fry need very small food (e.g. newly hatched brine shrimp) and it's easy to overfeed, which can result in ammonia / death.

 

[SaltyPlum]

How are the parents acting? 2 months later they are probably thinking of spawning again. Or at least the male is. The way you are describing it would lead me to believe that 1 or both parents are clearing the fry off to spawn again. The fry are dying most likely of hunger for not being able to feed freely. Or else picking each other off. And of course possibly predation by the parents…

Also water quality can really sneak up on you when you are growing fry and the bioload in the tank is doubling every few days or week. Suddenly your fry start crashing “even though my maintenance routine hasn’t changed” -
Which is the problem, it has to change or you don’t keep up with the increasing bio load.

Also starvation- the fry need to increase there nutrient intake as they grow and the fish keeper- especially in a tank that’s not growing all kinds of stuff (algae etc) has to keep upping the dose at feeding time. The fish keeper who is slow to realize and adapt starves his fry…

Yeah you called it. The parents have spawned again and I didn't even realise. I ended up moving all the fry out yesterday and during the move I noticed little wrigglers and when I got to close the parents were attacking. Explains why the fry all of a sudden went into hiding and dropping dead.

After moving them out I've noticed more dying by the hour, probably due to the stress and like you described probably also starving from hiding.

There is like 3 really big fry that are cruising around loving life with all the other smaller ones looking really sick and dropping dead. Think I'll scoop the smaller ones out and feed them to my other fish and try and do better with this next batch.

I'm kind of just getting into breeding cichlids and I would have never thought the parents would kill the fry to spawn again. I've read information that it's best to let the fry grow out with the parents because they will grow faster. Lesson learnt. Once this new batch are free swimming I'll give them 2/3 weeks and move them into their own grow out tank. Power feed and a lot more water changes.

Thanks for your response and advice. Really appreciate it ?

 

[Rocksor]

You could try to slow the spawn process by reducing the amount and frequency fed to the parents (something like no more than light feeding twice a week), and spot feed the fry with food that the parents wont bother try eating.

 

[SaltyPlum]

New batch of fry are free swimming.

 

[C. Breeze]

Beautiful

 

[SaltyPlum]

Hi again, so this second batch of fry I moved into their own 65g tank after 2 weeks and feeding 2/3 times a day (live baby brine shrimp and crushed pellets), with 30/40% water changes every 3rd day. Everything seemed to be going well, but like the first batch they are all starting to wig out and drop dead again around the 2cm mark. Not sure what is going on but this type of cichlid breeding is stressing me out.

 

[SaltyPlum]

From observing them at this stage what I've noticed is that they start to swim like in a spiral motion (wigging out) and end up dying. Some of them also have really swollen stomachs. Pic below:

 

[Punjabiking1500]

Some have deformities and other problems so they die
My texas pair I once had when spawned started killing the babies after they arre 2 cm
They eat some babies but if their stomach is full of don't wanna eat they chomp the babies and then spit out