New: How long can 20 day old fry survive w/o food?

[Lennie]

Hey guys,

 

I wonder if anyone keeps any sort of cleanup crew like small pest snails in their breeder box/container for uneaten foods while raising fry? My ram fry are at bbs stage right now. My ph is 5.5 so its pretty low (which helps with potential ammonium instead of ammonia I believe) and I keep up with multiple water changes a day but no matter what there is always a bit of uneaten food left on the bottom. And of course, deaths happen. So maybe one or two pest snails would be nice to clean up all of these until I notice or better to say, assist me between water changes

What do you think? It is way too easy to overfeed live bbs to such small fry.

 

I considered shrimp but they might be a bit harsh on the fry as they are tiny and may kill them especially during night time. They love to get their hands on everything.

 

Does it make any sense to use one or two pest snails in the container? What do you think? 

@Fish Folk @jwcarlson @tolstoy21 and anyone else who would like to share some experience

[Fish Folk]

Yes! I always do add a couple snails with Rams. 

[Lennie]

On 11/13/2023 at 10:32 PM, Fish Folk said:

Yes! I always do add a couple snails with Rams. 

That's great. 

Have you ever observed one being better than another to clean up? I basically have mts, bladder snail, mini ramshorn, ramshorn,  mysteries ( including babies), rabbits, spixis and banded mystery snail (Vivaparus georgianus)

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I always have snails in my tanks. 
 

My little 2.5 gallon tanks that I use to hatch eggs and begin raising fry in, I wait until they’re free swimming and then add a couple snails. 

[jwcarlson]

I wouldn't necessarily want them in there with eggs, but I think once they're fry it's probably fine.  I wouldn't rely on snails keeping the fry raising container clean, though.  I was doing daily water changes and bottom cleaning, but I still lost the battle (due to overfeeding, I think).  I would be tempted to see how well nerites did, though.  Those things seem to clean like crazy.  But not sure if just that residual would be enough for them.

I will say, though, that your water probably gives you more leeway compared to my high pH.  Do you have pictures of your ram fry?  I'm thinking of getting some Rams hoping they're easier than Apistos that I'm failing at.

Edited November 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[tolstoy21]

I always have problems with breeder boxes getting to gross and gunky and then fry dying, so I try not to use them when I can. 

I do use the Ziss breeder boxes from time to time, but I make sure to clean them before I lose fry.

[Fish Folk]

On 11/13/2023 at 2:38 PM, Lennie said:

That's great. 

Have you ever observed one being better than another to clean up? I basically have mts, bladder snail, mini ramshorn, ramshorn,  mysteries ( including babies), rabbits, spixis and banded mystery snail (Vivaparus georgianus)

I add 2x Ramshorn Snails after fry are free-swimming. I use flow-through floating fry containers, so water changes are unnecessary…

 

[Lennie]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:40 PM, tolstoy21 said:

I always have problems with breeder boxes getting to gross and gunky and then fry dying, so I try not to use them when I can. 

I do use the Ziss breeder boxes from time to time, but I make sure to clean them before I lose fry.

Whats the way you prefer to raise if the parents are not taking care of them?

I tried keeping the previous batch in the tank they hatched in but ram fry seems quite lost without parents. They spread everywhere, either consitently go to light source or towards the flow. If parents are there, they keep them in check all the time. 

It was very hard to control in their main tank, but now it is a bit better. But yes, I have a couple losses each day. 

Would love to hear your method for those that are not under parental care

On 11/13/2023 at 11:46 PM, Fish Folk said:

I add 2x Ramshorn Snails after fry are free-swimming. I use flow-through floating fry containers, so water changes are unnecessary…

 

My ram parents go crazy if I keep a container in their tank. Constantly trying to pick on it trying to get the babies, super stressed nonstop. So I water change by taking water from their tank, however keep the container in red lizard whiptail breeding tank as they also like the warm temps. No other tank I have goes that high.

But the issue is, red lizard tank parameters are not the same with gbr one. I keep my tank parameters based on the species so I have to use a container without flow

[tolstoy21]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

Whats the way you prefer to raise if the parents are not taking care of them?

For corydoras and plecos, I do use the breeder Ziss boxes until the fish are larger enough to move to a growout. I hatch the cory eggs in a 2 gallon aquarium with an air stone and an alder cone for anti-fungal. Pleco eggs go in a tumbler.

The other fish I tend to breed are egg scatterers and I just have the parents deposit eggs into a ten gallon and then move the adults out when their "business" is complete.

Haven't yet employed snails or shrimp to help keep things clean in the breeder boxes.

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

My ram parents go crazy if I keep a container in their tank.

I've had South American cichlids do this as well. I usually hang the breeder boxes in a 40 breeder used as a grow out for other species.

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

But the issue is, red lizard tank parameters are not the same with gbr one. I keep my tank parameters based on the species so I have to use a container without flow

I tend to use 2 tanks for these scenarios with similar water params. One for adults, other for fry,

Edited November 13, 2023 by tolstoy21

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

Would love to hear your method for those that are not under parental care.

I've never kept rams, but @Lowells Fish Lab has a video on raising German blue ram fry without the parents:

 

[Fish Folk]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

My ram parents go crazy if I keep a container in their tank.

Yes... this is true. If you use an opaque container they cannot see through, you'll eliminate that issue. I guess I just don't worry about it.

[Guppysnail]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lennie said:

My ram parents go crazy if I keep a container in their tank

Mine decided to baby sit the container. Not peck at it but guard it like they are supposed to guard the eggs and fry they eat. 
They laid eggs while these fry were in the box and took turns going back and forth. Until they ate the new eggs they laid 🤪 

[Lennie]

On 11/14/2023 at 1:23 AM, Rube_Goldfish said:

I've never kept rams, but @Lowells Fish Lab has a video on raising German blue ram fry without the parents:

 

Thanks for sharing Rube. I watched this one and many others on yt actually. But as I mentioned I cannot let water flow in my container but manually do the water changes as I cant keep them in the parents tank. Because the parameters of the tank I keep them are set for the red lizard breeding and does not match the parameters they hatched in ( I hatched them in their parents tank and moved before they start to freeswim)

 

On 11/14/2023 at 1:36 AM, Fish Folk said:

If you use an opaque container they cannot see through

Mine can..... I bought  opaque ones this time on purpose but still failed to prevent this issue sadly. This is what I have, One small, one medium size and one big size. Maybe not opaque enough?

[Andy's Fish Den]

When I am hatching eggs, I will put a single neocaridina shrimp in the container with the eggs, I don't know if it helps much, but I do see them picking stuff off the eggs from time to time. Once the eggs hatch and are free swimming, and I put the fry either into a hang on breeder box or a small tank, I have pick a ramshorn snail or two out of a tank and put in to help with uneaten food. 

[Fish Folk]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:28 AM, Andy's Fish Den said:

When I am hatching eggs, I will put a single neocaridina shrimp in the container with the eggs, I don't know if it helps much, but I do see them picking stuff off the eggs from time to time. Once the eggs hatch and are free swimming, and I put the fry either into a hang on breeder box or a small tank, I have pick a ramshorn snail or two out of a tank and put in to help with uneaten food. 

I definitely recommend this for Killifish eggs. Neocaridina eat infertile eggs, limiting the growth of fungus. I have never tried it with Ram eggs.

[Lennie]

I added two bladder snails to the container today. Let's see how it will go

Thanks everyone for sharing their experience

[Andy's Fish Den]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:47 AM, Fish Folk said:

I definitely recommend this for Killifish eggs. Neocaridina eat infertile eggs, limiting the growth of fungus. I have never tried it with Ram eggs.

I've done it with killifish, corydoras, and rainbow fish eggs, If I ever spawn angels again and decide to pull the eggs I'd put a couple in with them as well. 

[Lennie]

As an update:

I can say it worked well. They cleaned up uneaten food particles pretty good. I haven't seen any deaths since I added snails. Two options; Either no fry died, or snails ate the ones that died. 

However there were two issues. First eggs. TONS OF EGGS. I have seen around  10-15 clutches in a week. Besides eating leftover food, they had an option to snack on dying leaf parts so they always had food available. Second problem was poops. The container was full of poop usually.

Might be a better idea to add a baby snail that would not lay eggs for this period I think. That is a self note.

------------------------------------------

As it is a bit related my topic here, I don't want to create another topic for this question. The gbr fry are exactly 20 days old tomorrow. They have been eating bbs for a while. Ive just fed some this evening. Gonna feed more tomorrow morning before I leave (friday morning for me). Then I will be back on Sunday afternoon. 

1) Planning to setup a new bbs hatchery tomorrow morning. Would bbs survive if I set it up early morning on friday and farm it on sunday afternoon?

2) Would 20-22 day old GBR fry be okay with being fed on friday morning and no food until sunday afternoon? ( I made them acclimate to whiptail tank parameters so I now have them in your type of  fry container with sponges on since I wont have time to make water changes @Fish Folk)

 

Thanks for the help in advance. 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 11/23/2023 at 1:08 PM, Lennie said:

1) Planning to setup a new bbs hatchery tomorrow morning. Would bbs survive if I set it up early morning on friday and farm it on sunday afternoon?

I can't answer the second question. What temperature is your brine shrimp hatchery? Early Friday morning to Sunday afternoon is about 50-55 hours? I guess I'd want to hatchery to be as cool as possible while still allowing hatching. All the quick web searching I just did was oriented around "optimal hatching temperature", but it looks like you could go as low as 21°C (~70°F) without killing off the brine shrimp. After that, maybe just run a smaller batch? So that they foul the water slower?

[Lennie]

On 11/23/2023 at 10:41 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

I can't answer the second question. What temperature is your brine shrimp hatchery? Early Friday morning to Sunday afternoon is about 50-55 hours? I guess I'd want to hatchery to be as cool as possible while still allowing hatching. All the quick web searching I just did was oriented around "optimal hatching temperature", but it looks like you could go as low as 21°C (~70°F) without killing off the brine shrimp. After that, maybe just run a smaller batch? So that they foul the water slower?

I hatch mine on room temp everyday actually. Maybe it lowers hatch rate a bit but usually I get a nice result. I use magnetic eggs (called Sep-art) so all I do is dropping a magnet inside and get the orange juice. I dont use any heater or light. 

 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 11/23/2023 at 3:18 PM, Lennie said:

I hatch mine on room temp everyday actually. Maybe it lowers hatch rate a bit but usually I get a nice result. I use magnetic eggs (called Sep-art) so all I do is dropping a magnet inside and get the orange juice. I dont use any heater or light. 

 

Well, in that case, I guess all I can say is to give it a shot and see what you get, and have a Plan B if possible (maybe flake food ground up with a mortar and pestle?). Good luck, though, and in the meantime I'll have to look into those magnetic eggs, because that sounds very cool!

[Fish Folk]

On 11/23/2023 at 1:08 PM, Lennie said:

Would 20-22 day old GBR fry be okay with being fed on friday morning and no food until sunday afternoon? ( I made them acclimate to whiptail tank parameters so I now have them in your type of  fry container with sponges on since I wont have time to make water changes @Fish Folk)

I’d add some greens - floating plants, java moss - to provide some available infusoria. Feed well before you leave them. Some might die… hard to predict.

[Lennie]

On 11/24/2023 at 1:47 AM, Fish Folk said:

I’d add some greens - floating plants, java moss - to provide some available infusoria. Feed well before you leave them. Some might die… hard to predict.

 

On 11/23/2023 at 11:57 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

Well, in that case, I guess all I can say is to give it a shot and see what you get, and have a Plan B if possible (maybe flake food ground up with a mortar and pestle?). Good luck, though, and in the meantime I'll have to look into those magnetic eggs, because that sounds very cool!

I just wanted to update and say all fry survived

yippie! 

🥳

[Rube_Goldfish]

That's great news! Thanks for the update!