What is normal losses for a group of fry?

[CT_]

I'm working on my first breeding project (rice fish) and I found my first dead juvenile.  Whats a typical percent that don't make it? 

[CalmedByFish]

I can offer one data point:

I just counted my platy fry, born from 3 drops, ranging from 2.5 - 5 weeks old. Of the 42 I'd put in the baby net, 38 were left. A couple days later, 1 more died. So that's a loss of 5 out of 42.

[PineSong]

I'm sorry for that frustrating loss. I'm not an experienced breeder--I've just had a few batches of platies and now two of guppies. so far I have never found a dead fry, but with lots of plants and snails in the tank I'm not sure I would see one if it was there. I know in my last batch of guppies there were 7 fry the first time I counted, and now three weeks later there are only 5.  

 

 

[anewbie]

I lost 8 or 10 of 60 angel frys the first week; none after that. Of course angels are not rice and I have no clue about rice but i will note that frys are extremely sensitive to impure water. It only take a little decaying food to cause serious issues.

[CT_]

yeah i tested the water and got 0.5 ammonia so i guess every other day 50% changes is not enough now that they're bigger and I'm feeding more.  I better get their tub up and running sooner than later.

 

[PineSong]

On 10/19/2021 at 12:54 PM, CT_ said:

yeah i tested the water and got 0.5 ammonia so i guess every other day 50% changes is not enough now that they're bigger and I'm feeding more.  I better get their tub up and running sooner than later.

 

Adding more plants may be helpful here if you've not already maxed out. My guppy tanks are cram packed with hornwort, guppy grass, anacharis, and whatever clippings I make from my main tank's plants each week (pogo octopus, bacopa, mostly) and duckweed. Granted I have not had a ton of fry at one time, but with a mystery snail, adult fish, and fry in the tanks and feeding up to 4-5 times per day they've never showed ammonia or nitrites.

 

[timQ]

On 10/18/2021 at 9:28 AM, CT_ said:

I'm working on my first breeding project (rice fish) and I found my first dead juvenile.  Whats a typical percent that don't make it? 

Ill be honest, I have noticed a single Medaka juvenile that died. Eaten yes but by natural causes no. Might be eaten by the others but They are super hardy

[CalmedByFish]

On 10/19/2021 at 5:37 PM, PineSong said:

Adding more plants may be helpful here if you've not already maxed out. 

Also, if the inside of your tank is maxed out on space, pothos might be a good addition. All the greenery stays outside the water, so it doesn't take much tank space.

[CT_]

Thanks.  I did just add two kinds of water Sprite and a  pennywort.  But fifty fish in 2g is probably still too much now that they're .5-.75"

[CalmedByFish]

On 10/19/2021 at 7:05 PM, CT_ said:

Thanks.  I did just add two kinds of water Sprite and a  pennywort.  But fifty fish in 2g is probably still too much now that they're .5-.75"

I've seen this referred to as a "mosh pit," and done successfully. But it takes a bazillion water changes... which can't be done if you're suddenly in the hospital or something. So yeah, super risky. 

I might've just missed it above, but what's the game plan for spreading them out? A pond was it?

[CT_]

Yeah The plan was to move them to a garage tub (17g) last week but stuff happens and I didn't,  hopefully it'll be ready tonight for a move tomorrow.  I'm considering rigging auto water changes too but I don't have a good waste water plan yet.  I'm going to move them probably tomorrow, and float the water sprites.  I may just leave the penny wort in its rock wool unless that's not okay (its okay right?).  I also have a tiger lotus bulb that i'm going to try out in a dirted pot but i'm going to leave that in a 5g bucket until I'm confident its not going to ammonia bomb the tub

[PineSong]

On 10/19/2021 at 8:05 PM, CT_ said:

Thanks.  I did just add two kinds of water Sprite and a  pennywort.  But fifty fish in 2g is probably still too much now that they're .5-.75"

Oh, yeah. That's a lot of fish. I have one mom and five fry in a 5 gallon, and one mom and six fry in a 10 gallon, and I have had nine platy fry-turned-juveniles in a 10gallon with fewer floating plants, so it's apples to oranges with your 50!

[CalmedByFish]

On 10/19/2021 at 7:35 PM, CT_ said:

Yeah The plan was to move them to a garage tub (17g) last week but stuff happens and I didn't,  hopefully it'll be ready tonight for a move tomorrow. 

 I may just leave the penny wort in its rock wool unless that's not okay (its okay right?). 

Just in case you don't know, I'm pretty sure the 17g won't be big enough when they're grown. (Based off imagining my 1.5" endler females in their 20 gallon. I can't imagine more than 25 fish in my 20g, even with extra filtration.) 

I either have penny wort or something very similar. I've found the leaves to be annoyingly fragile, so I'd say to put it in the water in whatever way you think will keep it safest - like not being whacked by water flow, for example.

[Hobbit]

My ricefish are 1.25” full grown, and they’re pretty slender little things. They aren’t as zippy as I think endlers are (though I’ve never had endlers so I could be totally wrong).

I had maybe 25 adults in a 5 gallon and even though the water quality looked fine, I had one develop bloat and pass away. I’m seeing the same bloat issue in my overcrowded platy fry tank. 25 adult ricefish in a 5 gallon looked really crowded too. I now have 12 in that 5 gallon and it looks full but at least reasonable. 😄 

I think you’d be pushing it with 50 in a 17 gallon, but if you’re on top of the water changes and have lots of plants, you may be fine. I’m never one to tell anyone that something’s impossible—guess I’m parroting Cory there. I mean, look at the winter setup at the koi farms!

The adult ricefish will predate the fry, so you won’t have their population growing unless you put spawning mops in and remove them.

In terms of fry losses, I can say that I rarely lose enough fry that I notice, unless I mess up to water quality. I lost 22 honey gourami fry one time when I overdid the infusoria—I was just trying to raise too many in a fry box. I also learned that snails are very important for those tiny fry because they eat the extra infusoria gunk and keep the soft algae down. I had several fry just kind of get stuck in the algae, or at least get stuck in the foul water around it.

I’m sorry about your losses. It really stinks when life gets in the way and you just can’t keep up with what the fish need. I’ve been there (may be there right now actually 🤪) We just do what we can.

[CT_]

Yeah the long term plan is to pick the best 10ish to put in my back yard tub pond or maybe a new pond if i can ever get around to digging it.  The rest will be sold or culled if there's something obviously wrong.

 

My half wine barrel had about 50 fish in it over summer just by me not doing anything (also medaka and white clouds) including water changes.

[Hobbit]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:14 AM, CT_ said:

My half wine barrel had about 50 fish in it over summer just by me not doing anything (also medaka and white clouds) including water changes.

Nice! Hmm, I wonder if the fry have a higher survival rate in a tub just because it’s darker. I didn’t have any fry survive with the parents in my 10 gallon until I took the parents out. There was a pretty decent amount of plant cover too.

I did the same thing: picking the best as broodstock and selling the rest. (Well “selling” is a generous term when I didn’t get any money for them—but I did get money from the plants I brought with them. 😄) It meant I had 100 in a 10 gallon for a while, though they were still mostly juveniles at that point.

[CT_]

On 10/20/2021 at 9:13 AM, Hobbit said:

Nice! Hmm, I wonder if the fry have a higher survival rate in a tub just because it’s darker. I didn’t have any fry survive with the parents in my 10 gallon until I took the parents out. There was a pretty decent amount of plant cover too.

I had a bunch of water lettuce and water hyacinth all of which had crazy roots.  probably 60% of the volume was unswimmable by the parents.  the baby rice fish hung out in the clear pockets on the surface and the baby white clouds hid down below.  Also the rice fish parents for whatever reason were happy enough to mate but never ate well in the tub, perhaps they were just old, but i lost all but 1 of the parents by the end of summer.   All 6 starter white clouds did fine before I gave them away.  I'm pretty sure 80% of the fry in that tub didn't make it but a good number still did. 

To update the grow out tank.  I've moved them to their new tub digs  I hope they like it.  I got the auto feeder on kinda light for now until i figure out how they'll settle.  It's horrible timing but I'm going out of town for 3 days.  but even 3 days of doing nothing is less food in more water than if they stayed in that 2g.

 

Hopefully when I get back I'll have some fat, or at least living fish.  We'll see. 🙂

 

 

[Hobbit]

Rooting for you and fingers crossed!

[CT_]

Wellp I'm back and everyone is alive!  The autofeeder had a mounting hickup so it ended up at an angle dispensing about 1/4 the food I intended, better than 4x too much though!

[Hobbit]

Hey, not bad!

[PedroPete]

Post pics! You are clearly very good at breeding the medaka! I had a lot of success in the spring but was out of town and busy in the summer, so I stopped pulling eggs. Definitely lost a lot of the fry that hatched and went into my 5 gallon outdoor tub, but I think it's all good, as I had enough at the end of summer to enjoy them and not feel overwhelmed, plus I'm sure I can get more eggs when I have time to harvest eggs. I feed them Sera micron fry food(supplementing natural outdoor infusoria and bugs). What about you?

[CT_]

On 10/25/2021 at 12:16 PM, PedroPete said:

Post pics! You are clearly very good at breeding the medaka! I had a lot of success in the spring but was out of town and busy in the summer, so I stopped pulling eggs. Definitely lost a lot of the fry that hatched and went into my 5 gallon outdoor tub, but I think it's all good, as I had enough at the end of summer to enjoy them and not feel overwhelmed, plus I'm sure I can get more eggs when I have time to harvest eggs. I feed them Sera micron fry food(supplementing natural outdoor infusoria and bugs). What about you?

I'm not good at anything fish related.  I'm just trying to figure things out as I go.   I decided to make a new thread with a better title here with the latest update and photos.