Leaving for weekend-what to do for fry.

[nonamethefish]

I will be going out of town for the weekend. I currently have 2 N. kafuensis fry at almost 2 weeks old. Both bigger than a cooked grain of rice now and eating BBS. While 2 people will be home, I doubt a crash course in hatching and feeding BBS would be the best idea-and could of course result in a serious mistake.

What would you guys do in this position? I have a daphnia/c culture outside but have never observed the fry eating daphnia. I suppose I could try hatching enough BBS to store in the fridge but portionining would be a problem.

[TyroneGenade]

Just leave them be. Do not have other people feed your fish. If you are only going away for a few days just leave the fish unattended. Perhaps add some more Java moss but that is about it.

I regularly left fry unfed over weekends and had no problems.

You may want to have the people watch for dead fish but that is about it.

Regards

[keehoe]

On top of what Tyron have advice, please place a cover over the fry tank and don't put too much moss in there. It is part of their live style to jump out of the tank to look for food.

Actually it is all depends on the size of your fry. My 2 weeks old Notho is consider "sub-adult". In order to buy time, i will lay a layer of tubiflex with air-sponge filter.

But i tends to over feed. So you might not like my method as that is not the best way of keeping them alive while you are away. Although that is why i normally do for short trip.

[stormhawk]

Hello thefish (hopefully has a name too ),

What I do over the weekends is to give them a heavy feeding on the last day before I leave and then just ignore them while I'm away. When I return the first thing I do is to do a slight water change for the fry containers, and then give them some food.. which they will greedily gobble up in generous quantities.

[whuntley]

Each of us is different, it seems.

I like to stop feeding, one day ahead of leaving, so I can do one last water change on the last day and know they will be as ammonia free as possible.

For smaller fry, I have found that a 1" piece of lettuce leaf, floated in their container, will provide lots of infusoria for a week or more.

Once they are big enough to look like fish, a few days of starvation will do no harm, and won't permanently stunt their growth anywhere near as much as a dose of ammonia will.

Wright

[nonamethefish]

Thanks guys! I was concerned the fry would perhaps starve to death over the 2 day or so period. Good to hear they will be able to go without food. I'll do a nice waterchange and add a little extra java moss. Maybe some daphnia/cyclops just in case(which unlike BBS won't die). The tank is a 10 gallon and is covered(not like it matters unless these little things can jump 1.5 feet up).

[nonamethefish]

Well, sure enough I arrived back and the fry were happy and healthy-and also grew a whole bunch-now they are easily recognizable as fish. BBS is starting to look real small for them but they have ignored the blackworms I offered. How do you guys go about with getting them onto larger foods?

[stormhawk]

Try grindalworms if the fry aren't interested in the blackworms. Grindals are a nice bite size for medium sized fry.

I start them off on tubifex as soon as I can see their growth is at the stage where they can take bites out of small tubifex worms.

I usually rinse out the tiny tubifex babies when I'm rinsing the main container. In place of grindals (which are difficult to keep alive in tropical temperatures), the baby tubifex have proven to be a wonderful replacement.

I raised some young Simp. fulminantis on just these worms. My current batch of Simp. flammeus fry started off with tubifex early and now one of them is at least 2cm+ in size.

[TyroneGenade]

I go from bbs (normally enriched) to chopped frozen bloodworm. One could try chopped tubifex... don't freeze it else it goes just ugly and the won't touch it. You could put a small ball of tubifex in the tank with the fry as they will pick at it.

Regards

[nonamethefish]

Thanks for the replies guys! I managed to get these guys interested in daphnia. They are pretty aggresive and track them down before coiling into the familiar S shape and grabbing the daphnia. The adults sometimes manage to escape but lots of slightly smaller ones are perfectly sized. Cyclops are eaten too.

BTw, when will I be able to sex them? Having 2-I am of course hoping for a male and a female. One is a bit larger than the other so perhaps I may get lucky. According to Bob Morenski's writeup on this species in the JAKA he lets them spawn at 2.5-3 months old.