Setup for breeding Mikrogeophagus ramirezi

[stormhawk]

The rest are clearly not fertilised. I figure the male might still be too young. It's normal for them to not fully fertilise the whole lot of eggs laid. I've never used hydrogen peroxide to prevent fungal growth, but methylene blue worked for me always. The airstone's airflow can be increased if you feel the current over the eggs is not enough.

At least you have wrigglers now.

Now I'm having a major problem. My 2 dominant females formed a fake pair and now one of them is laying eggs all over the Java Fern root system in the middle of my 3foot tank. Clearly the eggs will not be fertilised since both are females, so I doubt I'll get any wrigglers. I bought 3 more younger males from C328 a few days ago, but they're always beaten up by the dominant females. Sigh..

[Puffer]

hi Stormhawk, the big clump of fungused eggs are so 'woolly' that I fear it might contaminate the tank water. So I remove it (together with the rock?). See, the problem is I can spot some wrigglers in the midst of the clump. I wonder if the wrigglers will grow out healthily if they don't leave the clump soon.

Back to your problem. Why don't you try to select 1 pair into a tank (just a pair) and see what happens? Maybe, the pair may bond albeit it may take a while.

[stormhawk]

I am considering removing all the rams except for the egg-laying female, and then introducing a bigger male into the tank. Problem is housing the extra Rams temporarily. I figure a small plastic tub will do for a short period of isolation. I figure if I take away one half of the dominant "pair", things might change. Alternatively, acquiring a larger stronger male might do the trick.

In this case I figure the wrigglers that remain in the midst of the fungal clump are more or less goners. If you have a bunch of wrigglers free of the clump and doing ok in the nursery tank, just raise those. Raising less means less feeding, less cleaning, and ultimately the quality of the brood will be better. Whether you choose to lose the ones still stuck amongst the clump is entirely up to you, but in my opinion, it is a sacrifice you might have to consider.

[Puffer]

All the fries are now free swimming. In the morning, tried giving their first feed with Hikari First Bite but seemed like the powder food did not entice the fries. Had to siphon out the unused food at the bottom 2 hours later. Just now, I tried Liquidfry No.1 and could see most of them taking the food. So, this should be good news. I've removed the unfertilised and fungused eggs on rock, washed and placed them back into the breeding tank where the parent rams are. There could be another sign of the female spawning soon. There are about 80-100 fries in my 1.5ft nursery tank now. Most of the fries like to stay together, there are a handful of "wonderers", a few even like to stay on the water surface. I've increased the bubbles in the air-stone by a little.

[Puffer]

A third of the fries gone. Haven't got a clue why...could be due to hunger or nitrate too high? I haven't tested the water parameters though. Guess this is the most trying stage as the fries are not so keen on Liquidfry now. As for Hikari First Bites, the particles of food might be too big still for the fries. As most of the food particules are untouched at the bottom floor, I have to siphon it out (water change in the process). When refilling aged water, got to be careful with gradual replacement of water. Boy, it's becoming quite taxing tending to them. If only the parent rams have mucus food on their body for these fries to feed on constantly, just like discus...Now, in my other tank, the parent rams spawned again. Got to leave this brood alone for now, for I've no more tank.

[stormhawk]

At this stage, chances are nutrition is insufficient. What Liquifry actually does is to encourage the growth of microfauna so the babies can feed on them. For example, Paramecium and other tiny buggers. I would suggest that you start them on daphnia or BBS right now. As long as their bellies are always rounded and full, they should grow up healthy. But like I mentioned before, it is best to raise a number that you are comfortable with, because once they reach the young adult stage, they will give you problems in terms of housing them.

Their nursery tank should contain some mosses for cover, and some ramshorn snails, so they can help in clearing up the uneaten food. I use snails in my fry containers when I used to raise killies. Great clean-up crew. Plus, the moss serves more purposes, in that the microfauna will be found on them and they will more or less soak up the excess bioload in the tank.

[Puffer]

Hi Stormhawk,
What an ingenious reply! Thanks so very much! Yeah I've some clumps of moss and I will add some ramshorns to tidy up the uneaten food. BBS and daphnia? I figure that they are bigger than my fry food i.e. Hikari First Bite. I'll try it anyway since my M erythromicron and S axelrodi love bbs in the other tanks.

An update: Some more casualties and my fries number has shrunk to about 50.

[stormhawk]

From memory, baby cichlids are able to handle BBS and daphnia once their yolk sac is used up. In the nursery tank, the daphnia will do 2 jobs. If you are lucky, they will start producing live young and these will be what the baby Rams will feed on. The adult Daphnia are filter feeders, and it so happens that their favourite food is bacteria in the water.

Problem with prepared foods is that the young ones usually recognise food items only when they move. Immobile foods like dried pellets etc., are only taken if you somehow "teach" them that those are food. To do this you will need to keep the young with other fish that will feed on these dried food. I figure you can do this later when they are able to handle tubifex worms or bloodworms.

I figure the casualties is a norm. Usually the weaker ones tend to die off early. Better to raise a few than to raise none. Besides, you have a pair that constantly spawns, so there will always be future spawns to raise should this batch fail.