# Fry feeding questions???????



## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Hey

How many days untill I should feed brine shrimp???

Also how many days untill I switch to hikari first bites and bloodworms??

Is the brine shrimp really necessarry???

Past species of ciclids and oscars I had never used brine shrimp, seems to me from what I here the red belly fry are fragile.

I tried brine shrimps before on other species, but they had eatin the fry.


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## FootClanSkates (Apr 25, 2004)

mashunter18 said:


> Hey
> 
> How many days untill I should feed brine shrimp???
> 
> ...


And, Good Luck.


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

I personally wouldn't give your fry brine shrimp, it's sh*t in my opinion. I still have a TON of fry food I made. Vinegar eels if you've ever heard of them. Live for 3 days, no ammonia, and alot more nutritous for your fry. Just pay shipping and I'll send you more then enough to start your own culture. Don' worry in about 2 days they procreate faster than you can feed. I use 2 gallon size containers and there is no end in sight to them!


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## mantis (May 16, 2003)

Alot of poeple swear by brine shrimp, I have never used them, and had moderate sucsess rasing fry.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Cool deal thanks guys Im set.Iv only got a couple hundred syphoned, as I thought in my other post the eggs were all bad.

Iv got 2 and a half nests still with the parents, im on day 2 so I assume by thursday they will come back out of the gravel, see if I can get any out.I see alot more between the glass and gravel today then yesterday, lots are doing circles in the fry tank.

Still that clear color, not yellow though.


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

Clear isn't all that good. It's best not to syphon for a couple of days I find. If you syphon to early and don't have a TON of o2 over them they'll die plus, the male constantly checks for eggs that aren't fertalized and eats them lol kinda funny to watch but in my experience breeding it's always been better to wait and syphon them out after they've gone to the rocks and arose again to swim. I had alot better survival ration doing this method.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

CROSSHAIR223 said:


> Clear isn't all that good. It's best not to syphon for a couple of days I find. If you syphon to early and don't have a TON of o2 over them they'll die plus, the male constantly checks for eggs that aren't fertalized and eats them lol kinda funny to watch but in my experience breeding it's always been better to wait and syphon them out after they've gone to the rocks and arose again to swim. I had alot better survival ration doing this method.
> [snapback]1067372[/snapback]​


Oh yeah my fry tank is solid, could be bigger,ill get another soon enough.im running a sponge from the parent tank and like a 2 inch airstone.

but the clear eggs,I thought they were no good, since the females have been huge for 1-2 monthes, so something seems strange to me,I syphoned some out to look at them, and just to see what happend they turn to wigglers.

hopefully ill get a good amount, but I wont be dissappointed if none make it.Im a little more prepared if eggs show up again.Im figureing this batch is a little behind, may take a little longer to grow out, they got off to a slow start being clear.who knows maybe the clear is no big deal, but when they spawned before they were yellow.

have you ever had any batches that were clear???


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

not the complete batch. Maybe your dude is shooting blanks. Are your breeders alone in the tank cause if so just let them do there thing and wait till the fry are up and swimming. If they are the only ones in the tank they won't eat there own right away. If others are in there they will eat them out of instinct. I ALWAYS had a huge success rate with just having patience and letting nature take it's course. I used to wait for a couple days after they had been swimming and then net them very gently and transfer them to a 5 gallon bucket then tank. lol Sounds crude but works wonders :nod:


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

They are alone but not alone, because there are three pairs packed in a 135 gallon.

All 3 batches were clear, plus I had 2 other spawns, but the reds were with some terns and I think the terns ate the eggs.those 2 spawns happend the same month maybe a few weeks apart but was only 1 pair,so actually 2 or 3 of the females may have been holding eggs for 3-4 monthes.The terns just didnt give the reds any room to work with.

Hollywood actually told me before they even spawned, actually last friday, his experiance was when females are big and full of eggs for along time, whcih is what happend here, he said usually the eggs are bad.

Im selling 3 of the reds, I think 2 females and a male, this weekend, so will only have 4 left, in the 135 which will probually be 2 pairs.So if they want to get busy again they will have some more room, plus it's packed in there anyway.

these fish spawned before for the old owner but not 3 batches....lol....

So I know the boys probually dont have blanks, im guessing its the females holding them to long, or maybe a water quality issue.


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

That, or what you might try and do is what I did. When I had two pairs in the same tank I used to take the eggs right after the night they laid them and I would really gently syphon the eggs and I put them into a tuppawear container. Then I hung the tuppawear container and this was the hardest part. I suggest doing this and setting it up before you take the eggs out. Hang the tuppawear right of your filter. I have a penguin 400 so the water coming off the bio-filter is o2 rich. I hang the tuppawear container right in the overflow and the hardest part is getting the angle right to were the water overflows the container to just the right amount that it won't suck the eggs over with the flow. If you have the patience to do this it works GREAT. Everyime I sat it up using a coat hanger for the attachment lol I always had a very high turnout rate for my fry. I would say a better turnout then just good old mother nature. Constant water flow with good o2 all the time. Plus the cool thing was as soon as they can swim and no longer need the excess current and o2 they swim high enough to were the current sucks them overboard into the tank to were they are free to swim. Again it takes patience but building an incubator is the best and provided the best result that I ever had, espicially with two pairs in the same tank. I would get several thousand eggs at once time and have almost all of the hatch into fry.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Thanks for the info, ill probually just syphon them out if I get more or keep getting them.


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

No prob, but if you keep losing them I seriously suggest this route. I got mad over losing soooo many and decided to intervene and came up with this method. The cool thing is it's cheap, you can use house hold stuff and it really really works!


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## CROSSHAIR223 (Jan 17, 2005)

let me know if you want any vinegar eels as I have two gallons of them and no longer need them. I can take a macro pic so you can see the nasty ass little dudes if you want. Cool to watch them feed on them though cause they ALL react when fed. The fish that is. I like not having to clean the tank!!!


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## nubsmoke (Feb 4, 2004)

In my opinion baby brine shrimp makes fry grow faster, and the fry leave hardly any mess when only eating brine shrimp. It seems like they like to go after movement even this young. If so many people have been using it for so long why change now? I have a batch of fry that just hatched last week, and the eggs they came from were smaller and more clear than ones in the past(they are usually very orange). The fry seem only the slightest bit smaller. The eggs that are unfertilized will turn opaque/white within 24 hrs. I just had three pairs lay eggs last night and they are very orange. I think the batch of clear eggs came from a different set of parents.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

Cool deal man.I will have brine shrimp ready tommorrow, I put some eggs in the hatcher.

Im hoping I can try to retrive the rest from the parent tank tommorrow also, if they dont get eatin.

the house across the street went to sherrifs auction, they left all their stuff, today the people that bought it to resale or whatever were bringing all their stuff out.

I eyed them bring out one of those 30 gallon tall tanks 30"Lx18-19"Hx 12" wide.I snatched that up.Iv got the few eggs I syphoned in a 20 gallon long, now I have the new 30 to work with.

I wish I didnt sell off my other 55 gallons, and all my other small tanks, but scored a free 20 gallon, from back51 yesterday and now scored this 30 gallon for free


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

CROSSHAIR223 said:


> let me know if you want any vinegar eels as I have two gallons of them and no longer need them. I can take a macro pic so you can see the nasty ass little dudes if you want. Cool to watch them feed on them though cause they ALL react when fed. The fish that is. I like not having to clean the tank!!!
> [snapback]1067540[/snapback]​


I appreciate the offer man,I got 2 of those brine shrimp hatchers,so I could do some feeding tomorrow.Im just gonna pump them full of the brine shrimp for a few weeks.


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## HOLLYWOOD (Feb 6, 2003)

Matt,

Just wait till the egg sac is fully absorbed and the fry are free swimming. You will noticed that a large amount of fry will gather in one spot. When the light is turned on they will disperse in all direction. Thats when feeding is recommended. As a baseline just wait till the egg sac is gone.


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## mashunter18 (Jan 2, 2004)

o.k, thanks Arnold, I wish the rest would come up from the gravel so I could suck them out, I guess they are still down there....lol......

I wont feed today then sounds like a waste, and most are still buried in the parent tank anyway.Still plenty of egg sac left, the little tails are getting longer.They dont move alot.I thought alot died but I moved a little water around by them and they were all still alive.They just do circles every now and then.

Makes sense to me to do first feeding if I can recover more and feed them all together.

They seem to like to swarm around the little pieces of debri I cant get out.

I think one mistake I made was syphoning the eggs I should have used a net, becuase I sucked some debri and crap while syphoning into their little tank.I got alot of it out, but some pieces were debri and like 20 fries together, so I couldn t really suck it out with out getting lots of fry to.

I guess when they start to swim around and get off the bottem I can clean it real good.


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## nubsmoke (Feb 4, 2004)

Matt, I have had spawns that I could'nt get too in time and they hatched in parent tank. I have gravel vac'ed the hatchlings out , and had good success. If you wait too long the young fry move around the bottom of the parent tank, and you will not get the majority as they are scattered around. I'd get them out as soon as possible! Trebor


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## siggy (Jun 11, 2005)

deffinately suck them out of the gravel. You will be suprised at how many will come out swimming around.


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