How To Get More Rotkeil Babies To Survive?

[mikeplatt101]

Hi all, We've had a breeding pair of W/C Rotkeil Sevs for about 5 months now. When we first got them they took about a month before we had any eggs, which didn't get fertilised, then 2 weeks later the same thing happened. The next batch we got loads of babies of which we still have 11 in our growing on tank. Basically my question is this is they're any way we can get more babies to survive. The most we have had survive is about 30 out of about 100!

 

[Colin_T]

Are you feeding the babies as soon as they are swimming around?
If you add some newly hatched brineshrimp to the tank as soon as the baby fish are swimming around, the baby fish will eat that. Then you just keep feeding them and you should get hundreds of babies. However, if you get too many fish you might be stuck with a lot of them as most shops will only take small numbers every month or so. You can quite easily get stuck with hundreds or even thousands of baby fish and nowhere to get rid of them. Your best bet is to pick out 20 or 30 nice fish and grow them up and leave the others to die or feed them to something.

 

[mikeplatt101]

Are you feeding the babies as soon as they are swimming around?
If you add some newly hatched brineshrimp to the tank as soon as the baby fish are swimming around, the baby fish will eat that. Then you just keep feeding them and you should get hundreds of babies. However, if you get too many fish you might be stuck with a lot of them as most shops will only take small numbers every month or so. You can quite easily get stuck with hundreds or even thousands of baby fish and nowhere to get rid of them. Your best bet is to pick out 20 or 30 nice fish and grow them up and leave the others to die or feed them to something.

Thanks for the quick reply. Ive already got some baby brine shrimp from the breeding clowwnfish I used to have. Does this stuff go off as its about 2-3 months old?

 

[Amerce]

If you keep it in an airtight, clean bottle / container then you should be OK.

But you will be feeding the babies 2/3 times if not more (if you can) so it will be used fairly quickly, don't forget plenty of water changes as well to help keep ontop of all the feeding you are doing.

 

[mikeplatt101]

If you keep it in an airtight, clean bottle / container then you should be OK.

But you will be feeding the babies 2/3 times if not more (if you can) so it will be used fairly quickly, don't forget plenty of water changes as well to help keep ontop of all the feeding you are doing.

Thanks for the info Amerce, We've started doing about a 20% water change about every 2-3 days, Is this too much?

 

[mikeplatt101]

If you keep it in an airtight, clean bottle / container then you should be OK.

But you will be feeding the babies 2/3 times if not more (if you can) so it will be used fairly quickly, don't forget plenty of water changes as well to help keep ontop of all the feeding you are doing.

Forgot to ask how much should we feed them this? and when do we move on to the powdered food?

Also whens the best time to take them out of the parent tank?

 

[Amerce]

Hi I'd do a bigger water change every other day if you can, lot of work I know but needs must. When I have a lot of fry I do it everyday and usually 50% just to ensure that the water doesn't get polluted.

You will have to feed them enough that there is no food left in the tank bottom, otherwise it will rot and then the water goes bad, not sure how much as I've never bred fish as large as Sevs, little and often is the key I've found personally.

Powdered food can be introduced inbetween live food, and then as they grow bigger then you can give mostly dried and alternate with live till you ween them off.

As for when you remove them from the parents tank once again I can't really advise, but based on discus young I'd leave it till they are about 1/2 inches in size.

Hope someone with more experience can help but I do hope this is informative enough for you.