PLEASE tell me these are fry not some kind of insect larvae 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[Oldspartan]

Very exiting.

 

[rebe]

beckfords! Well done. Raising and watching them develop is so cool.

Thank you! I'm over the moon, hoping that all the fry will make it. I think I have 4-6, since I moved in any eggs I saw. I didn't deliberately condition the parents or have preparations to raise fry this time around, but a small number of fry is probably easier to practice and learn with than a tank full!

Thank you for your food suggestions on my other thread a little while ago, they were helpful and I dove into researching what was available without remembering to thank you.

I have freeze dried bloodworms that I've crushed into a fine powder, a regular and a high protein variety of tropica fry foods, eggs I can boil for yolks, crushed fluval bug bites and a bottle of livebearer Liquifry a friend gave me. While the Liquifry is intended for livebearers, it's by far the finest/smaller food I have so I'll use it for a day or so until they're big enough to eat crushed foods properly.
I don't expect the livebearer Liquifry to be a complete diet for them, but it's better than nothing or polluting the water until they grow enough. I've assumed that their mouths are very small, as the adult pencilfish have tiny mouths as it is.
I'll maybe try a mix of foods in a day or two, once they're big enough for finely crushed foods

 

[GaryE]

Beware of the number one killer of fry - overfeeding. An eye dropper can squirt the food directly to the young, or into the filter outlet stream. Smaller numbers are tougher to raise because of that, and small numbers and egg yolk could go very wrong quickly. Usually, if I see 6 I have at least 12. They don't like to be seen, and cling to other things than glass.

They'll be eating micro-organisms, bacteria, etc off the plants and decor too.

 

[rebe]

Beware of the number one killer of fry - overfeeding. An eye dropper can squirt the food directly to the young, or into the filter outlet stream. Smaller numbers are tougher to raise because of that, and small numbers and egg yolk could go very wrong quickly. Usually, if I see 6 I have at least 12. They don't like to be seen, and cling to other things than glass.

They'll be eating micro-organisms, bacteria, etc off the plants and decor too.

Good advice, thank you. Are fry sensitive to water changes? I could match the temperature exactly when I need to do one.

I've only fed the tiniest amount so far, with a syringe and a dull needle. (Dull as in with no point, not as in one that used to be sharp.)
Spot feeding the ones I see, and then a couple of drops of my diluted food solution mixed around a little bit for any fry on the floor or plants

 

[EmmaS]

I have a 4 gallon tank that I grow algae on the glass and decor. There's also plants. I leave the light on a bit longer than normal. I've raised CPD fry in here without feeding them once until they reached a size capable of taking bbs. I also give them microworms. Remember these worms are not all the same size so small fry can take these.
I use an airstone and don't really change the water. There is some leaf litter in there. There's plenty of microfuna in the tank.
I'm not really a fan of really clean little breeder boxes that hang on the side.
Congratulations on your fry. I have been seriously considering getting these myself.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Excuse the caps BUT IM SO SO SO EXCITED

Beckfordi pencilfish! I saw them spawning a week ago, so I put three females and a male in this tiny five gallon in the hopes of raising some pencilfish!!! I can see four or five on the glass

How about a FTS* of this tank?

I'd like to see how you have it set up, being temporary and all, and very small, for breeding purposes....deco?...plants?...filtration equipment?

Again, congrats... @GaryE will be an excellent source of info with these fish, you're fortunate, in more ways than one

*Full tank shot (pic)

 

[GaryE]

I change water cautiously at first, dechlorinated/treated water is fine. I always do fry tanks first in my multi-tank set up. I do 40% once or even twice a week for fry.

Those are the slow water changes...

 

[rebe]

How about a FTS* of this tank?

It's very simple really, it has a tiny sponge filter and automatic heater. Then it has a thin layer of the substrate from the parent's tank, a small amount of fast growing plants, a cut up indian almond leaf that I boiled for the tannins. Then every time I saw spawning like activity I moved the relevant floating plants from the parent tank into this 5 gallon.

I did for two days have a male and three females in the tank, they grew comfortable but I wasn't seeing the same spawning behaviour. It may have happened if I had left them there longer but I chose to return them to the QT tank (that the rest of the group were in) as I knew they'd be more comfortable and I wasn't set up properly for fry rearing.
I hoped that the eggs I had moved in would hatch, but it wasn't worth making the parents unhappy in the small tank until I was deliberately spawning them.

Luckily they appeared to have hatched, and I'm very pleased.

In this first clip, in the first seconds the little fry swims up to the surface but it's so hard to film them that I missed most of it. I'm using a clip-on macro lens on my smartphone.

Second clip where you can see it's eye better

 

[rebe]

Here you can see just how small they are, maybe 2-4mm in length. You can see their size compared to the thickness of the tank glass

 

[Colin_T]

Does anyone have any advice on making sure they get food? I have some suitable foods but in a five gallon I don't know how to make sure they get any

Drop the water level down a bit so there is less water and the fry will be closer to the food.

Have lots of plants in the tank.

Make sure there is an established biological filter in the rearing tank (an air operated sponge filter is ideal).

Add some liquid fry food for egglayers or powdered fry food for egg layers. You can use boiled egg yolk, it's the same as a liquid fry food.
Hard boil an egg.
Take the white part off the egg and eat it.
Put the remaining yellow yolk in a handkerchief and squeeze the boiled yolk into a small container of dechlorinated water.
Put the lid on the container and shake it up. You can keep this in the fridge for a few days.
Use an eye dropper to suck some of the liquid out and add it to the fry tank. Try to swirl it around or put it near the filter outlet so it disperses in the water.
Do this a couple of times a day.
Monitor ammonia levels to make sure the filter is working properly.

 

[rebe]

Some pictures and a clip from today. This particular fry seems to be more developed than the others. The first proper free swimming one

 

[MuddyWaters]

Here you can see just how small they are, maybe 2-4mm in length. You can see their size compared to the thickness of the tank glass

as my Mom would say, those are "tee-niny!"

 

[rebe]

as my Mom would say, those are "tee-niny!"

I've begun to call them fry-ny (as in tiny)

 

[Seisage]

Truly the face of beauty:

-

 

[rebe]

Truly the face of beauty:

-

I liked this so much, I changed my pfp to a zoomed in image of the fry's face.
I don't know if I'll keep it...

...it's ominous