Small Fry?

I am really, really worried about the growth of my fry. They look, developmentally, like healthy 6 week-olds to me, when they are actually 9 weeks old! Most of them are 1 inch long and the largest is barely 1.5 inches, with really nice fins and coloring, but they just do not look like they're almost 2.5 months old. They should look like little adults, but they look more like tadpoles with slightly more defined finnage.

I feel like a total failure. They're very cute, but definitely not up-to-par as far as size and fin growth. I know it's because it was such a large spawn to begin with, and I probably messed up with WC's and they got too much growth-stunting hormones from their siblings. ack.

Does anyone know of a good way to correct this? Am I just over-reacting? I have only 1 fry jarred, and that's because he/she has a curved or possibly broken spine. The rest really have not warranted being jarred, but I would start if it meant speeding up growth. I know I'm totally flooding the board with advice-needing posts, sooo sorry about that. I am such an amateur.

Here are pics to compare... 1) my favorite boy, probably about 1.25 inches long, with by far the longest finnage and most coloring of the spawn. 2) a juvie the same age, jarred, from a different breeder. His spawn only had 12 fry, btw.

What are you feeding them, as bloodworms and brimestrimp and daphnia, a good varied diet will fetch them on in leaps and bounds.

They get mostly thawed frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp, with occasional Atison's Pro Betta pellet and HBH Betta Bites. They've gotten this for over a month now. thanks for the suggestion, though! I might try to feed them smaller meals more frequently through the day.

80fry...Nice number... I'll just throw my address out there:

Jew Wanna

880 Wanna-Betta-Fry Rd.

Priority Mail, 12200

splashluff -- Two things... how often do you feed, and how often/how much do you change their water? These are really the keys to making them grow, but you're right that spawn size plays a role too. Jarring them will definitely make them grow faster, as they no longer have to compete with siblings for food and the water isn't so hormone saturated. Nothing's wrong with slow growers though... don't worry, once they're jarred and everything they'll catch up just fine

Edited because I realised a joke I was gonna make wasn't really that funny *lol*

Synirr ~ aww, now I want to hear the joke!!

I feed them 3 times a day, 2 meals are bloodworms/brine shrimp and one is Atison's Pro. I syphon off the bottom of the grow-outs and do 20% water changes every night. Before they were 4 weeks, I was doing 50-75% every night when they were still in the 10 gal. Yeah, I figured I really should be jarring them! thanks Hopefully they'll take off once they get their own 1.5 gals.

splashluff said:

Synirr ~ aww, now I want to hear the joke!!

I feed them 3 times a day, 2 meals are bloodworms/brine shrimp and one is Atison's Pro. I syphon off the bottom of the grow-outs and do 20% water changes every night. Before they were 4 weeks, I was doing 50-75% every night when they were still in the 10 gal. Yeah, I figured I really should be jarring them! thanks Hopefully they'll take off once they get their own 1.5 gals.

Click to expand...

I was gonna say Arrowhead's address would come in handy next time I wanted to stalk and murder someone, but it's not as funny when it's not a real address

Your feeding and water change schedule sounds pretty good, all I can think of is maybe feed more at a meal to make sure everybody gets some and jar a few

hehe... yeah, you're right. that's kinda creepy

Welll, that could definitely be right. I'm freaked out about not over-feeding for the water quality and swim bladder issues, and I've yet to have a fry die with any swim bladder problems. I could probably feed a bit more

They all seem mature developmentally, besides the fins and everything... there's a ton of raging hormones in there. Is it common for 9 week-old fry to show breeding stripes and chase each other around? In the "big kids" tank, there's 3 or 4 "females" (I'm guessing) that get really, really dark and stripe up a couple times a day and chase the other fry around. I haven't seen any real nips resulting from them, but they put on a huge display. It's really odd

1.25 inches isn't a *bad* size.. I've got a few 2.5 month olds and they were about that size too. Cute though

I was gonna say Arrowhead's address would come in handy next time I wanted to stalk and murder someone

Click to expand...

you do that often?