my dwarf cichlid spawned

[oqs]

signed up at Apistomania and also read the article. very informative. thanks a lot.
the brine shrimps still haven't hatched till now... i guess the cysts might have been killed or i put too much salt in the water. will get the JBL nobil tomorrow.
hmmmm... small plastic tanks. what's the size that you use? and you use any lighting for the tank? sounds like i can own a lot of breeding tanks....

[Simon]

I'll measure it 2nite.. can place 3 of them on my 2tier 2ft stand

[benetay]

small tank like 20cm by 15cm. Using different kind of food for your fry is defientely better=) you will notice yr fry being cherry red if you keep feeding them BBS due to the fact that BBS is orange in colour when first hatched.

[Vican]

oqs,
If you're worried that there's not enough food, you can always buy daphnia to feed them. They're fresh water creatures and shouldn't foul up your water as long as you strain them using a brineshrimp net and dip the cleaned daphnia into the tank.

Places to get daphnia:
1) L35F Pasir Ris farmway 1, Lor Halus
2) Lam Hong (Ang Mo Kio)
3) house of Betta (Ubi)

Maximum growth comes from daphnia from my experiences with bettas.
The only reason I can think of is that daphnia has a mild laxative effect. So the fish eats and poop the whole day, thus growing maximally. BBS should be more nutritious, but it takes a while for them to digest and poop.

Another thing to note is that with bettas, extended periods of feeding with brineshrimp gave me bettas with swim bladder problems which I do not think was associated with genetics

[A. Moae]

Congrats my fren! Hope your Rotkeils will soon follow suit. BTW, dun worry about the food. Simon and Bene are both right. There should be enough of microscopic goodies to go around for those frys. They may grow slow but, they grow. Another way is to cultivate your own infusoria culture. May be quite an unpleasant affair to some but, better than your frys dying on you, right.

1) Fill a jar with water from your aquarium.
2) Put in a piece of moderately sized lettuce or similar.
3) Put the jar near to a strong light source. e.g Window. Sunlight's free.
4) Once water in it turns cloudy, it means the infusoria culture is active.
( light brown tinge )
5) Use very fine sieve (Turkey Baster is good) to filter and retain infusoria
culture. Rinse lightly with tap water.
6) WALA! Feeding time. []

[benetay]

thats what i always intend to do =) but due to the fact that time constraint it's always beyond my strg.

[tltan]

Hi Oqs,

You can get ketapang leaves from the roadside as long as u can identify the leaves which is actually indian almond trees. To be even safer..hehe..like what I do, I get from Qianhu fishfarm when i need...just go to CCK mrt during weekends and take the feeder service there. Go to there packaging area and office there. Just behind, u will find bags of ketapang that they have picked!!!So politely ask from the workers there and I am sure they will allow u to get some (not those they already tied up in bunches though) I even asked for plastic bag from them =) to hold the leaves. Good luck and i am pretty sure these ketapang leaves works wonder for acidic based fish and has some medicinal properties cause it cured my betta fry from a deadly velvet (stabilizes their condition) very good indeed

rgds,
tltan

[Simon]

blackwater is good for yr fishes... but u have to control... anything between PH 6 to 6.8

[oqs]

thanks for the reply guys. went to havelock to get the JBL nobil but the lady boss there say no stock already. so have to make do with Liquidfry No1.
20cm tanks for breeding? whao... really make me gian already. heh

Vican: i have Hikari frozen daphnia but i guess the fries are still too small to eat them. maybe at later stages i will try. anyway i saw packages of daphnia at a Lor Halus farm... will the live daphnia bring diseases to the tank?

A Moae: haha i hope they will... but i think the female don't like the male! keep chasing him away. but then.. i saw the male digging up some sand.... spawning behaviour?? heh the female seems to be yellowing up too... wish me luck!

tltan: you mean ketapang trees can be found at roadsides? i saw some pics of the leaves at some website and thought i've seen them b4 but forgotten where... Qian Hu quite far from me leh.. see if i can find some other sources.

Simon: i was thinking of lowering the breeding tank's (when i get one) pH to 5.5. the low value cos i saw some japanese apisto website suggesting that. what say you? good bad?

[benetay]

Not too low...it's like we Singaporeans living under a hot and wet climate a sudden change of climate and if the temperature hits negative it will affect most of the people, same as fishes if you lower the ph to as low as 1 or 2 it will actually do more bad then good.

when the female chase away the male it may mean that the female has a spawn or eggs already.

[Simon]

LOL...

the female's duty is to guard and fan her eggs, the male's will be guarding the outer perimeter of the spawning site.. so, the female shldnt be chased of the same male that fertilizer her eggs

[oqs]

thanks benetay and Simon. point taken.
here's a very blur pic of the mother and fries.



edited:
more pics added. (macro shots of fries)

quite blur...


cheese!

edited again:
more pics added: (i can't stop myself from taking photos of them! )

[benetay]

she will

[Vican]

Daphnia shouldn't bring disease to your tank. Provided you don't pour the water into the tank. Pour the bag of daphnia through a fine net, and dip the daphnia into a container containing clean water. Then scoop out those at the surface for feeding. You can use a dropper to suck some and expel near the frys.

one strange thing about frys is that they are only susceptible to velvet and unclean water. They seems to be able to eat live food such as tubifex (when they're big enough) without getting sick. But once they turn adult, it's a different story.

Anyhow, only the water that daphnia comes in is dirty. Other than that, they're pretty clean fry food

[benetay]

hmm if u wanna do all the trouble to bring them up this way by all means =)

I can finally see the fry =)