German blue ram fry

[DiscusEden]

Hi guys,

I've never had this happen before, but have 1 day free swimming fry from the german blue rams. And gold rams on day 3 of eggs. Yay! :D

I have a few questions - I have another tank to put them into (currently in the 6ft community tank). The other is an empty 18" tank, with a heater, sponge filter & ceramic pot with an anubias on it. Do I move them? If so, when? (The parents are currently very protective). Siphoning was suggested. Sound right? When? Do the parents go with?

What do I feed the fry when I've moved them? (The live bbs thing isn't going to happen I'm afraid, but have some frozen if this works.) Do I feed them tonight?

The community tank is at 28c - do I maintain this in the other tank if i move them? If not, how do I adjust it - what increments, before you tell me to turn the dial on the heater - and what to?

That'll do for questions for a start I think.

Thanks guys! As always I bow to your wisdom & appreciate your input. :D

[Merrilyn]

Yaaaaaaay. Well done DE.

You're now officially a grandmother :P

First, you need to decide what's more important to you. Seeing the parents raising their babies in the community tank, or saving some of the fry.

You can actually do both. Prepare the small tank with water from the main tank. You don't want those babies being thrown into anything different from what they were hatched in. Syphon out about half the babies and carefully transfer them into the small tank. Leave the rest of the babies with mum and dad to raise.

You need to start feeding them as soon as their egg sack has gone. That means they will begin looking for food, so you need to make sure some is on hand.

I'm going to be a pain and tell you that live baby brine shrimp is the best food for young fry, but, if you can't manage that, then frozen baby brine shrimp is probably the next best thing. The way I do it is to suck up some of the shrimp in a large eyedropper and squirt them into the middle of the group of fry. You need to do this about 4 or 5 times a day for the best growth. The babies in the main tank will probably fare better with their parents. They'll find lots of food in the big tank, as long as their parents look after them, but they'll still need to be fed several times a day.

Your main job now is to keep the water clean with daily water changes, provide plenty of food of the right size and keep them warm.

They'll do the rest.

Good luck. It's looking good so far.

[catfishbone]

Congratsss !! DE ...

I just got mine laid eggs too ... can't wait for them to hatch ... :)

cheers,

andrie

[fishgeek]

i use microworm and decapsulated brine shrimp egg's mixed with them, i'm too lazy to hatch them

andrew

[DiscusEden]

Congrats Andrie! That's wonderful news!

Thanks for the tip Andrew!

Unfortunately I messed up a bit.

I got the frozen BBS, defrosted, mixed with a bit of aquarium water & couldn't find an eye dropper, so I used a syringe to squirt them into the middle of the group of fry.

I didn't think it through though, 'cos the pressure of the BBS being squirted sent the fry all over the area. I saw Dad come to the rescue & pick up one of the fry in his mouth, then move toward the clutch. But he chewed & swallowed instead. Probably not Dad after all. Oops. And by the morning they were all gone.

So next time I take them out, to a seperate tank. Live & learn. Or I will. Not the fry. This time. Maybe next.

[scott bowler]

so DE how are they all going .i do hope things are going well for you we need some pics i think hehe

[fish_r]

sorry to hear that DE :( i'm sure ur close to getting some through by the sounds of things though :wink:

[DiscusEden]

All gone Scott - sorry!

But one of the females is developing some very intense colouring on her belly again - fingers crossed.

[Th0mas]

Sorry to hear about the losses - hopefully it'll happen again soon.

I've heard BBS is too small for ram at early free swimmer stage, can someone confirm?

Somewhere I've seen/heard people uses egg yolk to feed ram fry, but this can foul the water pretty quickly if not careful.

I just don't have much experience with rams - maybe others can provides better advices.

[scott bowler]

sorry to hear that DE well as we say just try and try again hehe learn from it as you do its all good

[fish_r]

I've heard BBS is too small for ram at early free swimmer stage, can someone confirm?

how about Hikari frozen daphnia ? i just made the mistake "just now" of feeding them to my discus as per my lfs advise on something with a bit of variety, but it's way too small for adult discus.
i recon it would be ok for ram fry though ?

[DiscusEden]

I think the problem this time was not so much with the fry eating as getting eaten. Wrong end of the food chain. But I thought I saw some of the rams eating the BBS before they got munched. It was a whole munch-fest.

I could have been wrong though & am happy to stand corrected and learn better methods, so really appreciate the discussion...

The plan is to get the next lot into their own tank, so at least they're at the top of the food chain! But any hints as to what to do from there are greatly appreciated!