Lots of baby GBR’s. Now what?

[Melissa Ann]

This is my first successful attempt at breeding.   Lots of babies.  Pulled the mom out since the dad randomly died before they were free swimming.  Free swimming yesterday morning or most likely Saturday night.  Water parameters are great across the board.  I’m feeding Golden Pearls 1 for now. Did first water change today.   
Any advice on when to start then on baby brine?

[Melissa Ann]

Momma went here for now. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

You could start offering them BBS anytime now. The fry are probably picking off all kinds of microscopic foods in the tank.

[anewbie]

When you start bbs (or for that matter now) you could use an eye dropper or turkey blaster to remove the uneaten food before it decays. Also you will need to feed them 4 or 5 times a day for the first week or two - just a tiny pinch (better to underfeed than over feed as long as you feed frequently). The problem with decaying food is it will produce small amount of ammonia which can be deadly to the frys. That is one reason most breeders use bare bottom tank or smaller breeder containers (marina has some really nice one) - so it is easy to vacuum out debris. Your fry container is larger which helps but still the small amount of impurities from decaying food is probably the common cause of ram fry death.

[Melissa Ann]

@anewbie - agreed.  This ended up being an usual situation. I had planned on pulling the eggs and putting in another tank.  How frequent on water changes?  Daily?

[anewbie]

4 hours ago, Melissa Ann said:

@anewbie - agreed.  This ended up being an usual situation. I had planned on pulling the eggs and putting in another tank.  How frequent on water changes?  Daily?

Once you start feeding the frys then you will need to do 'daily' water changes. I would not actually change the water per sey I would use a turkey blaster to suck out uneaten food and dead frys and then replace that water - then do a water change a couple of times a week - maybe 30% depending on size of container. 

 

The biggest problem is decaying food - and if a few die decaying frys - they frys themselves don't actually produce much waste - just try to not overfeed...

Edited May 5, 2021 by anewbie

[Lowells Fish Lab]

I think you can try introducing BBS pretty quickly but if you watch the fry closely you might find that some are big enough to eat them and some are not. You could increase survival rate by leaving a little overlap between bbs and whatever you were feeding before that. If I had to guess I would say it's about 7-8 days before the whole spawn including stragglers is big enough to move to BBS full time.

As far as cleaning and water changes, it might make life easier to transfer the fry to an acrylic breeder box so that you only have to worry about cleaning something the size of a 3x5 card rather than a whole tank. Both will work though. I've raised fry in a breeding box and also loose in a 10 gallon.

I don't water change anywhere near daily, only when nitrate levels suggest I should. I do siphon out any mess on the bottom frequently.

Best of luck!

[Melissa Ann]

10 hours ago, Lowells Fish Lab said:

I think you can try introducing BBS pretty quickly but if you watch the fry closely you might find that some are big enough to eat them and some are not. You could increase survival rate by leaving a little overlap between bbs and whatever you were feeding before that. If I had to guess I would say it's about 7-8 days before the whole spawn including stragglers is big enough to move to BBS full time.

As far as cleaning and water changes, it might make life easier to transfer the fry to an acrylic breeder box so that you only have to worry about cleaning something the size of a 3x5 card rather than a whole tank. Both will work though. I've raised fry in a breeding box and also loose in a 10 gallon.

I don't water change anywhere near daily, only when nitrate levels suggest I should. I do siphon out any mess on the bottom frequently.

Best of luck!

Thank you very much.  ❤️