Tail Up, Head Down

[Andie]

From where I sit- it seems you were breaking a few of the rules as far as whats typically recommended for the first month of life I don't mean to be harsh

Don't worry, I don't think that's harsh It's quite accurate; it's not what's typically recommended, but in hindsight, I think that because all of the information I came across seemed to be specifically geared toward large spawns, I was reducing everything that was recommended due to the reduced size of my own spawn. And since right up until this week their growth rate was right on track in terms of what I read, I thought the size of spawn determining the size of everything else must work out the way I had been figuring.

It's only been this past week and a bit that they stopped thriving (and started, well, dying) so I'm looking back over the past two weeks to see what changed in that time period . . . whether I've unconsciously decreased the size of feedings, or gotten too rough with water changes because they'd gotten so big, or something like that. If they'd been sort of stunted the whole way through then I'd probably have smartened up a lot sooner and fed more egg yolk and less planaria/granules, but as it was they were either on track or even, in Liir's case at about week three, a little ahead, so I never clued in.

ETA: Liir, the fiesty little bugger, is actually trying to eat the egg yolk, so if he doesn't make it, it won't be for lack of trying on his part. I had actually intended to go entirely with egg yolk for this spawn, but I read somewhere it fouled the water terribly, and I suspect it was actually what caused the Great Planaria Uprising of the sorority tank, so I ended up not using it, and going with the planaria instead.

*hunts for a properly self-abusive emoticon*