Crooked spines?!!

[JoefishGofish]

So after breeding my Rainbow Shiners for a year and a half or so I just produced a batch with about 20 or so fry with crooked spines. 
The eggs had a 20-30% death rate. 
Yikes. 
However, The following group of eggs/fry were all fine so I’m wondering if it was

1) a bacteria problem (water quality)

2) really tough eggs and they couldn’t bust out before injuring themselves 

3) genetics

4) bad batch/bad luck

Any thoughts?  Like I said the next group that are swimming now are all perfect. 

[Fish Folk]

On 4/10/2022 at 8:22 AM, JoefishGofish said:

So after breeding my Rainbow Shiners for a year and a half or so I just produced a batch with about 20 or so fry with crooked spines. 
The eggs had a 20-30% death rate. 
Yikes. 
However, The following group of eggs/fry were all fine so I’m wondering if it was

1) a bacteria problem (water quality)

2) really tough eggs and they couldn’t bust out before injuring themselves 

3) genetics

4) bad batch/bad luck

Any thoughts?  Like I said the next group that are swimming now are all perfect. 

Cheering you on! I love your Rainbow Shiner successes. @WhitecloudDynasty really got me hooked on them.

Sometimes, if there is a major difference between water eggs were laid in and water eggs hatched in, there are difficulties that result. The way one Killi breeder explained it to me was that the eggs themselves have certain naturally occurring "salts" that tend to explode outward when eggs are moved from hard water over to soft water for hatching.

Now, this may not at all have been your situation. If the next group are from the same brooders, I'd doubt the problem is genetics. I have never heard of bacterial infections causing bent spines.

Anyway, keep going! You're an inspiration!

 

[JoefishGofish]

Thanks for that. 
I’m personally leaning towards water conditions as to your point.  Perhaps the breeding tank is older we’ll conditioned water vs newer water (after the water changes during Meth Blue removal etc.)  

As for future batches, if it doesn’t repeat, it’s not genetics….yet. 
@WhitecloudDynastymentioned I likely have so many different ones mixing right now that the gene pool isn’t too lean yet….

[JoefishGofish]

I’m also hoping natural selection will sort these guys out…..but I have no predators, just time, I suppose. 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

It's cause by the lack of nutrition in the female.

Eggs not hatch mean the eggs wasn't good in the first place.

My 6 males can fertile all of the 1000s of eggs I hatch out every year just fine with out rare missing any eggs. So the male isn't the problem.

I have notices when I separate my female from the males their eggs hatch better and have strong frys. NOTE they could get egg bound if left apart too long.

My female always get a good all round quality fish food. With vitamin c, b6,b12...calcium, I also add .5-2% of astaxanthin. Live food is great if you can get the variety, but with a quality fish food you'll get better control on what they get. The whole point of feeding live food is for the fat content. I simply raise the fat in their normal food.

I have seen 3 fry, different time ... went from bent back to a normal fish over night. I have also seen fish that I cull already for bent back turn into a bent fish also.

 

 

 

[Fish Folk]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:57 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

It's cause by the lack of nutrition in the female.

Eggs not hatch mean the eggs wasn't good in the first place.

My 6 males can fertile all of the 1000s of eggs I hatch out every year just fine with out rare missing any eggs. So the male isn't the problem.

I have notices when I separate my female from the males their eggs hatch better and have strong frys. NOTE they could get egg bound if left apart too long.

My female always get a good all round quality fish food. With vitamin c, b6,b12...calcium, I also add .5-2% of astaxanthin. Live food is great if you can get the variety, but with a quality fish food you'll get better control on what they get. The whole point of feeding live food is for the fat content. I simply raise the fat in their normal food.

I have seen 3 fry, different time ... went from bent back to a normal fish over night. I have also seen fish that I cull already for bent back turn into a bent fish also.

 

 

 

How do you add your vitamins? 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 4/10/2022 at 3:04 PM, Fish Folk said:

How do you add your vitamins? 

I make sure all the food I use have it already, I do add the astaxanthin. Then I control the fat and protein with kensgreen pellets. Kens green is produced cold so it hold more protein, fat, and nutrition. But I always mix it down, to high of a protein will hurt your water quality cause they can't use it all and over time kill your fish liver

[Fish Folk]

On 4/10/2022 at 3:45 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

I make sure all the food I use have it already, I do add the astaxanthin. Then I control the fat and protein with kensgreen pellets. Kens green is produced cold so it hold more protein, fat, and nutrition. But I always mix it down, to high of a protein will hurt your water quality cause they can't use it all and over time kill your fish liver

I’d love to read a thorough post from you on feeding, nutrition, where you source your food, etc. This is great info! 

[JoefishGofish]

Whoa!!!!  @WhitecloudDynasty you’ve been holding out on us!!! 
I mix up my foods, bloodworms, brineshrimp live, algae wafers, flake food…..you name it.

But I don’t actually look the at content ingredients!!!!

I have a lot to learn still!
That’s a good thing.

Or I’d be bored. 

[Hobbit]

I’ve had a generation of platys with bent spines when the water in their outdoor tubs got really soft. I imagine it’s the same principle that @WhitecloudDynasty described—if the mom doesn’t have enough nutrition (probably calcium in my case) then the babies don’t develop very well.

I’ve actually kept one of those babies and she’s about six months old now, seemingly very healthy. She’s about a quarter of the size of her mom, but other than that and having the longest poop strings ever, she seems pretty normal. Her name is Ziggy. 😁

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/10/2022 at 5:22 AM, JoefishGofish said:

3) genetics

Hit up some of the goliad farm videos. They have discussed how they removed some of the deformities in their fish.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 4/10/2022 at 5:30 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Hit up some of the goliad farm videos. They have discussed how they removed some of the deformities in their fish.

Genetics does play a role also, but if it was genetics you'll have a higher% of bent back.

 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/10/2022 at 3:33 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Genetics does play a role also, but if it was genetics you'll have a higher% of bent back.

I spent about 2 hours trying to find the video. They have a lot of conversation on their swordtails, mollies, guppies, and was unable to find the specific video in question.

Needless to say, they discussed the process of removing bent spines from a colony of fish they had. They lost those fish, have to start that process over and they discussed how long it took to resolve the genetic weakness/predisposition to the deformity.

[Hobbit]

 

On 4/10/2022 at 6:33 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Genetics does play a role also, but if it was genetics you'll have a higher% of bent back

I’m not sure that’s true… if it’s genetics you should see a fairly consistent percent with bent spine across each brood (esp since these broods are so large). But whether it’s many affected fry or just a few, it can still be genetics.

Since there was just one affected batch out of many from the same parents, that points away from genetics and more towards water quality.

[lefty o]

water conditions, genetics, and minerals.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 4/10/2022 at 10:15 PM, Hobbit said:

 

I’m not sure that’s true… if it’s genetics you should see a fairly consistent percent with bent spine across each brood (esp since these broods are so large). But whether it’s many affected fry or just a few, it can still be genetics.

Since there was just one affected batch out of many from the same parents, that points away from genetics and more towards water quality.

Right, that's what I said I mentioned in the other post. I believe it's more toward nutrition but there's so many factors that it may be something else also. From my record nutrition did help alot. 

[Hobbit]

Yep, you’re right. My biology brain was just getting picky about semantics. 😜

[modified lung]

A few water quality related causes of bent spine can be exposure to large, quick parameters shifts, low oxygen, or extremely low conductivity or TDS.

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 4/10/2022 at 4:38 PM, JoefishGofish said:

Whoa!!!!  @WhitecloudDynasty you’ve been holding out on us!!! 
I mix up my foods, bloodworms, brineshrimp live, algae wafers, flake food…..you name it.

But I don’t actually look the at content ingredients!!!!

I have a lot to learn still!
That’s a good thing.

Or I’d be bored. 

Niacin is a B vitamin by the way. 

xtreme is a good overall food, its a good base food for 80% of what you need for breeding. It's a big pricey for the amount I use and it drops a bit too fast. But my shiner do love it. 

for normal non breeding its a bit high on protein and fat. Off season i would like it to be around 40-45% protein and 8-10% fat. When you drop the protein to 40ish they wont breed as often which is a good thing for the females. Image the fall and winter months when they have less bugs to eat. The way this food is setup looks like it was aiming for growing fry.

This just my opinion and own experience with the species I work with.

@Cory hope you don't mind me doing a product review on here

If ya want to read it a study done..check it out

https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/vitamin-deficiency-hits-fish-fertility/

 

[Fish Folk]

On 4/11/2022 at 2:31 AM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

it drops a bit too fast

Are you referring to the fish food “dropping” down through the water column because shiners are drift feeders? Or some other parameter “drop”?

[JoefishGofish]

If that’s the XTreme Nano, I use it. And it does “drop” or sink quickly. 
The shiners still dig through my subwassertang to find it though. 
This has turned into a very useful thread. Thanks everyone. 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 4/11/2022 at 5:55 AM, Fish Folk said:

Are you referring to the fish food “dropping” down through the water column because shiners are drift feeders? Or some other parameter “drop”?

Drop down too fast. I do have bare bottom so they can alway come back to pick it up, but imagine if I had gravel lol

 

[Cory]

On 4/10/2022 at 11:31 PM, WhitecloudDynasty said:

Niacin is a B vitamin by the way. 

xtreme is a good overall food, its a good base food for 80% of what you need for breeding. It's a big pricey for the amount I use and it drops a bit too fast. But my shiner do love it. 

for normal non breeding its a bit high on protein and fat. Off season i would like it to be around 40-45% protein and 8-10% fat. When you drop the protein to 40ish they wont breed as often which is a good thing for the females. Image the fall and winter months when they have less bugs to eat. The way this food is setup looks like it was aiming for growing fry.

This just my opinion and own experience with the species I work with.

@Cory hope you don't mind me doing a product review on here

If ya want to read it a study done..check it out

https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/vitamin-deficiency-hits-fish-fertility/

 

No problem, this is the way in which a review should be done and is helpful for people.

[JoefishGofish]

We’ll, amazingly there is only 1 fry now with a crooked spine.
Either the others straightened out or they grew legs and crawled out of the tank!

Very curious. 

[Hobbit]

Wow! That’s super interesting!