Baby Apisto Food suggestions?

[biofish]

Came home from a weekend trip to a fun little surprise. 7 little tiny baby apisto fry! And I have no idea what to feed them! I promptly removed daddy apisto so no more would be snacks.

A quick internet search said live baby brine shrimp but I don’t really have the means to do that any time soon so I’m looking for alternatives?

For now I crushed up the adult pellets into a fine powder and sprinkled in some freeze dried brine
ship I had on hand…. Both Hikari brand.

I’ve heard boiled egg yolk is good for some species of fish too, would they work here?

 

[GaryE]

Dad is probably innocent, unless the tank is really small.

Egg yolk pollutes the water. Since you're in the US, you can get decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (online) or a food called golden pearls. Short term, because both would need to be ordered and the brood is there now, you need a turkey baster and to pulverize the food you have. Overfeeding is easy with 7 fry, and will kill them, so several times a day put about as much food as would fit on the point of a knife into a jar of water, suck it up into the baster and fire it at the fry, wherever they are along the bottom.

At about 5-6 weeks, Momma will want to breed again, and if the teenagers don't get their own places, she'll kill them. They threaten the next batch at their size. So you now have that much time to plan for a second tank, if you want to raise them.

 

[Colin_T]

Newly hatched brineshrimp and microworms.

 

[biofish]

Dad is probably innocent, unless the tank is really small.

Egg yolk pollutes the water. Since you're in the US, you can get decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (online) or a food called golden pearls. Short term, because both would need to be ordered and the brood is there now, you need a turkey baster and to pulverize the food you have. Overfeeding is easy with 7 fry, and will kill them, so several times a day put about as much food as would fit on the point of a knife into a jar of water, suck it up into the baster and fire it at the fry, wherever they are along the bottom.

At about 5-6 weeks, Momma will want to breed again, and if the teenagers don't get their own places, she'll kill them. They threaten the next batch at their size. So you now have that much time to plan for a second tank, if you want to raise them.

Noted! I’ll do my best. Online the food won’t get here until Halloween…. So I’ll call around see if any LFS have any but I don’t recall seeing anything like them.

It’s a 20 gallon tank so it’s not the largest LOL.

The only occupants were the two apistos and a clown pleco I honestly kinda forgot was in there lololololol (had him for a couple years at this point but only actually see him once a month). And I moved daddy up to a 55g, so he’s definitely not hurting.

I won’t be completely surprised if this batch doesn’t make it, since I really wasn’t prepared but I’m gonna still try my darnedest.

 

[Colin_T]

If you can't get any food for a week, use boiled egg yolk. The instruction are in the following link

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

 

[biofish]

For the golden pearls what microns size would you recommend?

 

[GaryE]

I used the real small ones. I figure that I eat raisins, and they are a fraction of my size. Your fry will be feasting on bacteria in the tank. Small is no problem.

 

[biofish]

How fast do the kids usually grow? I know it’s only been about a week/week and a half since they were born but I have no basis.

I ended up getting Hikari first bites since a local fish store had them and have been putting in some of that once a day. Probably too much bc it’s a super fine powder.

There are three fry left (at least that’s the max I’ve seen at once every day) and they seem to be getting more energetic every day. They still keep low on the sand/in the plants but they explore the entire tank independently without following mom and sometimes chase each other.

It’s moms first batch and she’s been pretty fins off. She sometimes looks at them but doesn’t really stick close by. Could be she’s just interested more in me and I don’t sit there long enough for her to forget I exist.

 

[GaryE]

The broodcare is way off, but with three, she may be giving up.

I feed fry 3 times a day if I can. I use a small amount of food )the point of a steak knife) in a water container, shot to them with a turkey baster or a pipette. I rarely use prepared foods though, usually live. They grow more slowly on the powders.

They grow slowly but steadily, and will be a under half an inch when she starts to kill them for the next brood. She started with around 30, most likely, so the shut off of interest is practical, if harsh. They act like they are older than you think they are. Could you have missed something? Parents can be very secretive.

Broodcare is partly learned, partly instinct. The practice of taking the eggs to raise maximum numbers of fry creates young fish that are incompetent parents.

 

[biofish]

Could you have missed something?

Only other thing I can think of is: I was at school when my sibling found them and they sent me pics… of the babies in cups…. A habit formed from when I kept guppies. I told them to put the kids back immediately but they were out of the tank for ~20 minutes. Could that have done something?

+ a pic of one of the blobs since I finally got a mostly non blurry pic

 

[biofish]

Getting bigger slowly but surely. Mom still doesn’t give a rats fuzzy toosh about them tho.

 

[GaryE]

Her colour suggests brood care. She's yellow, and the pectorals are black. But it is possible the bond may have been broken when you removed the fry into cups. She may no longer recognize some of the fry as her own, and only ones with super maternal instinct adopt another mom's fry. That's a guess.

If she's still twitching her black pectorals at them, she still recognizes them.

 

[biofish]

When would be a good time to move the fry to their own tank and put daddy back in?

When the fry are about a month in a ~week?

 

[Colin_T]

you remove the babies about a week after the parents stop protecting them, and when the fry no longer go back to the nest.

 

[biofish]

What if…. I’ve never seen the baby’s in the nest and always loosely scattered about the tank….. and never actually seen the mom doing all that much…: