Re: Loosing kribs fry

In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids gizmo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
> The second spawned of my kribs was much successful than the first. And this
> time I've decided to siphon 3/4 of the fry to their own tank. The tank is 30
> gallons and has a sponge filter that was connected to a Power head, I think
> part of the fries were lost because of it so I've connected the sponge
> filter to an air pump. It seems that I continue on loosing them.
> They are fed twice a day with frozen and dried food.
> What am I doing wrong ?

There are usually two keys to fry success: food and water quality.

Just exactly what sort of food are you trying to feed them? Is it small 
enough for their little mouths? If the dry food isn't meant for fry (like 
liquid fry or one of the many other fry foods), it is likely too big for 
them to eat. I've sat for 15 mins crushing normal flake food in a plastic 
baggie and still ended up with pieces too big for 1/2" fry to eat. 

The frozen food needs to be similarly small, newly hatched brine shrimp
for example. And in this case, it is so simple to hatch brine on your own,
that I would use that as a food source instead of frozen food (which could
have thawed and fouled without your being aware of it). Look for the kits
at your LFS which are basically a stand that you screw a 2L soda bottle
(rinsed of course) into and a few packets of eggs+salt. One or two of
those will produce more than enough newly hatched brine for both the fry
and the parents (and any other tanks you might have).

Also, I would go with 3-4 small feedings daily. If you feed smaller 
amounts more often, you can get a better feel for how much food the fry 
need without overfeeding. It also gets you over to the tank more often to 
watch the little ones. 

As for water quality, was that a new sponge filter or an established one?  
If it isn't established, you subject the fry to cycling, which is
extremely rough on them. A filter can easily be established by putting it 
in the parents' tank for a month or two. Putting it in the parents' tank 
when you have no fry also keep it established.

Also, I always use bare bottom tanks for fry only tanks. This allows the 
waste and excess food to be more easily siphoned off without accidently 
getting some fry. If you want to give the fry some cover, a few clay pots 
(that haven't been exposed to pesticides) or other caves can be added, but 
you might want to move the structures occasionally to get any waste 
underneath them. Fry tanks should be kept nice and clean. Lots of small 
water changes are key to good growth, especially if you have a tendancy to 
overfeed (which is sometimes unavoidable at first when you aren't sure how 
much to feed them).

One final thing, how gentle was the siphon used to take the fry from the
parents' tank? I've seen a few times where fry have been damaged by too
strong a siphon. I personally don't use the siphon method. Often I have
the parents in a prepared breeding tank and I'll remove the parents when
the fry get to a certain size. In my cichlid community tanks when spawning
occurs, I just either let the fry fend for themselves, or use a small soft
net to get them.

Also, try not to cross-post as much. This is not really on topic for many
of the groups you had posted to such as sci.aquaria (should be scientific
related items), rec.aquaria.freshwater.misc (this is a cichlid matter, use
the cichlid group), r.a.misc (same) and r.a.tech (this isn't really a
technical matter). I have set the followup to the only two relavant
newsgroups: alt.aquaria and r.a.f.cichlids.