Nursery

[pthechemist]

Hey guys,
Not sure if this is the right section but here goes. I have 2 forest jewels in a community tank and they have just had fry (didn't see any eggs, fry just "appeared" today). They are defending their young but not so that it is an issue. My question is as follows. WHAT SHOULD I DO I don't have a tank to take them to (not one that is cycled anyway), would I be ok leaving them where they are? Also if I crumble up the flake really fine, will that be ok for food?



Cheers in advance,


Phil

 

[Fish Guy]

Well you can try leaving the fry in their, but eventually you may end up losing all the fry. Due to the other fish eating them and the male jewel eating them. I havn't bred jewels before but what I find with cichlids that the male tends to get tired of caring for them after a couple of weeks and tries to breed with the female again.
Another option is you could use the water that is in your main tank to put in the nursery. Then there would be no worries about uncycled water. Finely crushed flakes can work, but baby brine shrimp is one of the better options to feed the fry. Hard boiled egg yolk is good too, just be sure not to use too much as it can make the water cloudy.
What size is your tank and what are the other tankmates?

 

[pthechemist]

Thanks fsh guy, my tank is a 130l sunsun and the sticking is as fllows
3 kribs
1 convict
2 sucking cats
3 female fighters


Phil

 

[Fish Guy]

What type of sucking cats do you have?

I would say your best option is filling your Nursery tank with your mature community tank water. The kribs and convict will be a challenge for the jewels while rasing their brood.

 

[pthechemist]

think they are ottos. I have set up the nursery tank with old filter media and community tank water. Managed to get the majority of the fry moved but had to leave about 20 in the community tank (about 60ish moved) Fed them with crushed flake and will see how they go. Should I move one of the adults over? (can't tell which is the female I'm afraid.)


Cheers

Phil

 

[Fish Guy]

Leave the parents in the community tank. If you put one of them in the nursery they will most likely eat the fry. You can buy frozen baby brine shrimp, so if you can get a hold of that the fry will grow much much faster. Make sure do you lots of water changes, that promotes growth.
What size is your nursery?

 

[pthechemist]

nursery tank is a 20l I think. there appear to be about 70 fry in there and about 20 left with the parents. they are all feeding on the crushed flake but i'll try and get some of the shrimp asap.

 

[Fish Guy]

Make sure to do a water change often espcially with a 20L tank. You may want to consider upgrading the Nursery tank size in the near future, a bigger tank will be easier to maintain in terms of water changes and will promote fry growth.

 

[OldMan47]

You are doing fine for your fry Pthechemist. Your main challenge now will be keeping the water clean for your fry. You will be feeding them a tiny bit of food several times each day because they can't eat much at all in a single sitting. With plenty of clean water and food, they should grow quickly enough. I use lots of variety in the food that I give my fry because what we don't know about fish nutrition would fill books. By using some mature filter media in the fry tank you have gone a long way toward cycling that tank. The water really doesn't enter into the equation much but leaving the fry in water that they already had acclimated to should help a tiny bit the first day. After that the water will be getting changed enough that what you started with won't much matter.