Raising SJO fry with parents...

[chicknb]

I am wondering how easy it is to raise F. sjoestedti fry together with the parents. I have a pair of SJO (about 1.5 years old) and they keep laying eggs in my 20 gal planted tank. I used to collect the eggs but after my plants cover most of the substrate it became difficult to do it. Then, I saw fry all over the place and put them in a breeder. However, after collecting more than 15 fry, they started to fight in the small space they have in the breeder so I decided to release the larger fry (about 1.5 inches) and see if they survive the parents. I noticed that the male did not react to them and had no interest in eating his fry so I released all the fry and they have survived for more than 2 weeks. The fry don't seem to be scared or anything by the parents, they just take care of not taking away the food from them (mostly live food) but other than that they seem to be OK. Is this typical behaviour or my fish are weird

Thanks for your response.

Tony

[RonWill]

Your fish are weird and I am jealous!

Tony,
I never had much luck with SJOs, not even with the 60 eggs I got off a Canadian Aquabid seller (off hand, I just cannot recall the population).

If the juvenile are large enough to fend for themselves, I think it's safe to leave them with the parents. They might predate on younger siblings though.

[chicknb]

Ronnie, thanks for your reply. I too believe they are weird because I have one cherry shrimp that jumped out of the breeder and is still alive, sometimes I see it over a crypt leaf without any worries. I got the eggs from a guy from the BAKA last year when I was in the Bay Area for a while. I kept the best pair in my opinion and they have done great. The fry have different sizes that range from 0.5 to 2 inches and they seem OK.

Will keep you posted and will try to get some pics.

REgards,

Tony

[chicknb]

OK, here are a couple of pics. The first one is my 20 gal tank. I am aware that I am not any good at aquascaping but at least my plants grow really well and I don't have any algae. You can see two breeders, the one on the left (net breeder) has about 20-25 red cherry shrimp and several snails with a bunch of java moss. the one on the right has F. gardneri Akure fry, about 20 of them (you may think that I am risking them escaping but it has a cover that fits tight and there is no way they can escape, I am the only one that feeds them).



The second picture (not really good) tries to show some fry of different sizes.



Any comments are welcomed.

REgards,

Tony

[mk_ultra]

If you say you are no good at aquascaping, how would it look if you were? That tank looks great! That's part of your success, I guess. Everyone has a chance of getting away from the paretns.

I have the Dwarf Red and only if I can keep the eggs from fungusing...

[RonWill]

I have the Dwarf Red and only if I can keep the eggs from fungusing...

David, same problem when I had SJOs, regardless whether peat or water incubated.

In an experiment with questionable eggs, I tried soaking them in strong methylene blue solution for a few days and subsequently, 100% water changes until the good eggs are clear again. Non-viable eggs will remain stained and discarded.

I didn't do well with those fry as well. Can't figure out why though (even when Chromaphyosemion hatchlings did ok).

Tony, I like the unkempt look of the setup and don't worry. If SJOs can breed in there, it's a great tank!

[Shaggathai]

Lovely tank setup, I'll bet you do trimmings like growing weeds! It's not Amano-esque, but it's gorgeous and so healthy looking. That's a tank to park one's butt in front of to watch instead of tv. Very nice.

I'm wondering, with the number of blue gularis in there, if they with some open space, work like some African cichlids, ie, they are nasty mean-*** fish to each other when they are kept as a few, but if you keep a LOT of them together, the aggression is spread out and ends up negligible (as long as they aren't bite sized). The smaller young have refuge, which I would think is essential to growing different sizes of blue gularis. Just a thought, I know packed in like lake cichlids in a bare tank wouldn't work as it does with them, the blue gularis would pick each other off, but I'm wondering if the fish density in a planted tank with refuge evens things out a little?

I'm thinking out loud still. Keep doing what you are doing, it's working, wow working! You tho will need to set up tanks for the growing bg's, can't keep them all in that tank when they grow up, they get big! It sounds like you have a colony going. I know with young bg's, when enclosed, like you found out, they'll kill each other off. I think the dense refuge of your tank is the key.

I think you need to set up more planted tanks for your babies, I'm sure you have room on your kitchen counter if need be:P. The tank you show'd is like I said, a "watch the tank instead of tv". What you are doing seems to be working. "Don't fix it if it's not broke"

[chicknb]

Well, I tried to reply with no success so I'll do it again.

Thank you all for your comments. I still don't think it is a good aquascape but it has taken me long to get to this point so I keep staring at my tank for almost hours (wife things I am crazy but I don't care ).

About the eggs fungusing, someone suggested me to use some colloidal silver solution (the one used to disinfect water and groceries, really cheap here) but I have not tried it since I had success with peat (sent some dozens of eggs to friends and most of them had luck with them). If this may help you, I do weekly water changes (30%) with tap water (pH about 7 and hardness 5º GH -I am not sure about this one-, one degree C below aquarium temperature) and I add sodium thiosulfate to remove chlorine (here we don't use chloramine for disinfection although some may be present but in small quantities, at least in my neighborhood). Then, I add a bunch of fertilizers (iron, flourish, flourish excel, planttabs) and peat extract and I have a generator (soda bottle with sugar and yeast) that lowers the pH to about 6.6-6.8 (I have a CO2 indicator that colours light green). I feed live food (tubifex, grindal and white worms, brine shrimp, daphnia) and pellets from different brands.

About the look of the tank, I am not sure if I will do more changes in the short term, I have a "cocktail" of species (several crypts, aponogetons, a couple of crinums, etc) and I took out a bunch of L. sessiflora, Hygro polysperma, and some others and that is the reason you look some empty space below the breeders but it took me some time to decide to take them out.

The small fry stays mos of the time among the plants but the larger fry is almos always in open water, but at feeding time most of them come to the surface to catch some food. Agression is always present but it is not more than a short chase. I also think that this would not be possible in a bare tank. I can not setup another tank since wife is not happy with all things related to fish (have another small 4 gal tank with rachovii and have all those gardneri in the breeder that need some place to live ) so I will wait until I can sex the fry to give them to some friends (killies were not common here in Mexico until recently, I gave some SJO to a friend as well as some GAR and now he has about 35 different species so that is something good for us here ). I know they get big, my male is about 5-6 inches and very robust. Something interesting (at least for me) is that during the first hours in the morning and maybe until noon or later, the male badly chases the female and she has to hide from him, but most afternoons I see them laying eggs all over the place.

And lastly, I won't fix it if it still works

Thank you again for your comments, I will keep you updated.

Regards,

Tony

PS. My red cherry shrimp is still alive