Advice on motherless fry

[allentwnguy]

Here's the situation. I got in 5 wild caught alto tapiche on July 27th. They were young largest being 2 1/2 inches. They were kind of beat up. One had a round wound just behind the eye and 3 others had marks on their bodies. I had a 10gal set up for them with a ph just over 5, they were coming from 5 ph water. The out look wasn't good.

Now it gets sad and interesting. I treated with ParaGuard to ward off fungus. It developed. One female fired up into breeding dress. She was the first to die. I moved the 3 that looked the worse to continue treating leaving the male in the tank. Yesterday there were about 50 fry in the tank with the male! And the male had lightened up pretty much looking like a female without the vibrant yellow, I actually thought it was a female at first. The fry were following him and I saw him take one in his mouth and spit it out near the group. But he did swim away a lot and the fry did split into 2 groups possibly 3 and he didn't have the females doting care .

So here's the question to more experienced breeders.... Leave the father (I think) in the tank, well fed, as long as he doesn't snack. Or pull him out and put him with his "friend" in the second 10gal and raise the fry without a mother? The tank the fry are in has a lot of decor (sand bottom, driftwood, plants, leaves, seed pods etc). They are interested in First Bites food and live bbs (I hate daily for other fry and nanos). I really don't want to lose these guys after the shipment of such poor condition fish.

 

[gerald]

If you think you may not get another spawn due to declining health of the others, I'd remove him. He could decide to eat those fry at any time and they'd be gone within minutes. If you're pretty sure you've still got a healthy pair, you might leave them together.

 

[allentwnguy]

Thanks Gerald! That's pretty much where my head is at. I believe the two tapiche left are males. The male in with the fry I believe is the father. He pretty much stayed to the back of the tank (I have the tank side to the front) with the female in color and , now that I know what was going on, was protective of the area. I believe that due to condition and (3 days in transit with no food) the female just couldn't spawn and have energy to survive. She was one of the better looking of the 5. I'm amazed that she did lay eggs. I was puzzled when she died because she was so energetic. Now after seeing the fry it all comes together. It is a sad commentary but hopefully she has left a legacy.

I really need these little guys to survive. This was a replacement for an order that was also messed up... out of 2 pairs on one apisto and 2 pairs of another ordered 1 pair of each was sent. One male was DOA and again the fish beat up, 4 days in transit and the female of the other pair died recently with no spawn. What should have been at least one breeding pair of 2 species of apistogramma was none! I really didn't want to deal with this supplier again but it was a replacement order. Here's hoping they survive!

 

[allentwnguy]

Here's another crazy thought (I do have an outside of the box mind) has anyone ever "slid" a few fry into another brood? I have a Cacatuoides pair that is on their 5 spawn she just brought them out last week. The fry are perhaps a week older older than the tapiche fry. Probably not but I wonder if the C. mother would mind a few more fry? lol just a thought!

 

[Shane Puthuparambil]

Cool idea! I would remove the male and artificially raise.

Here's another crazy thought (I do have an outside of the box mind) has anyone ever "slid" a few fry into another brood? I have a Cacatuoides pair that is on their 5 spawn she just brought them out last week. The fry are perhaps a week older older than the tapiche fry. Probably not but I wonder if the C. mother would mind a few more fry? lol just a thought!

 

[allentwnguy]

Already done Shane! The alto tapiche are so hard to come by! I thought I was finished with getting a breeding pair when the "known" female died and it seemed like I had all males left. 2 more of the smaller fish died so all three small, possible females were gone. Definitely the last two are males. And then the fry emerged. I wouldn't want to change the Cacatuoide mom saying "who the hell are you" followed by "snack time"! I haven't read anything ever on a female surrogate mom for fry. Something to try when I have two moms of a plentiful fish with fry. I think the fry are at about half gone now. I hope they are able to eat bbs today. I'm trying to get the smallest youngest nauplii I can for them.

 

[Shane Puthuparambil]

I wish you luck!

Who was the seller that you purchased Alto Tapiche from? I would ask them to send me a refund.... no fish should be in such condition when shipped!

 

[Mike Wise]

Here's another crazy thought (I do have an outside of the box mind) has anyone ever "slid" a few fry into another brood?

Back in the 'old days' of apisto keeping, when even A. cacatuoides were rare and expensive, breeders often used A. borellii females as stepmothers for rarer species. Let's face it, any fish that will guard and guide daphnia and tubifex worms did not have problems doing the same for other apisto species.

 

[allentwnguy]

Thanks for the replies guys. The fish came out of Oregon this guy ships in sealed breather bags (like water pillows). He believes it's ok for fish to be in transit for days. Me... the health of the fish should be upmost if it costs more to ship faster let me know!!! Anyway on the bright side the fry have caught onto bbs. When one ate one the others said "hey wait a minute!" and now the ones that are left have little fat pink bellies.

I will keep that in mind Mike. But if I get a breeding pair of tapiche I will have the 4 species (cacatuoide triple, agassizi double red, sp tefe and the alto tapiche) I set up my 40 breeder racks for and hopefully won't go through anything like this again. After I thought about the surrogate mom thing I thought about trying to identify and separate two different species (n 2 sexes) of apisto juvies! Having a borellii mom step in would have been nice if I had one. But after having my cacatuoide mother snack down on 50 fry in one day I would have been hesitant to put a grown apisto in the tank.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Back in the 'old days' of apisto keeping, when even A. cacatuoides were rare and expensive, breeders often used A. borellii females as stepmothers for rarer species. Let's face it, any fish that will guard and guide daphnia and tubifex worms did not have problems doing the same for other apisto species.

Fascinating. Are there any "cuckoo" fish in the Amazon that use Apistos for fry raising?

 

[Mike Wise]

I don't know of any reports of this. Then again, little is known of breeding behavior in the wild. Most data is from fish kept in captivity.

 

[allentwnguy]

Of course I'm reading anything I can on the subject and gong through my library. I did read that in the wild where you have a colony of apistos and the high possibility of several close aged spawnings that parents will go after and snack on fry that aren't theirs. So somehow they can tell who's who.

So far so good with my tapiche fry. They are hanging out in the same spot of the tank. I guess knowing that that is where the food comes. They are happily snacking on bbs for now. I lost my microworm culture to mold but I'm off to my favorite fish store today for blood worms and they usually have microworm cultures. I'll be checking in my Cacatuoides juvies I sold them to see if they need a restock.

 

[gerald]

"in the wild where you have a colony of apistos and the high possibility of several close aged spawnings that parents will go after and snack on fry that aren't theirs. So somehow they can tell who's who". That's surprising ... usually female cichlids in fry-guarding mode will not eat fry that look similar to theirs. I have not had Apisto species trade fry (never kept multiple species together) but i've seen it happen with Laetacara (fry of curviceps and dorsiger went back and forth freely through a screen divider), and I've read reports of Central Amer cichlids of different species caring for fry in a mixed school (neetroplus and nicaraguensis, for example). Some Tanganyikan mouthbrooders will drop off their kids in a school of another species (even catfish!) while they take a break to feed. I would have guessed that synchronous harem spawning in Apistos would be advantageous to females because they'd have more eyes (and teeth) defending their communal area.

 

[allentwnguy]

SEE!!! You can believe everything you read on the internet!! That would be my thinking too Gerald. There are several mammals that share pup rearing too. And birds that lay eggs in other's nests then go on their merry way. Someday I may pop a few fry into another apistos brood and see what happens. but right now these little guys are precious and I need everyone I can save.

 

[Mike Wise]

Koslowski discusses brood adoption in his book. As long as they were of similar age/size there were few problems. Size differences - especially when larger fry were added to newly freeswimming fry - was another story.

 

[allentwnguy]

Well it looks like of the two males left of the original shipment the one that isn't the father of the fry will be the next causality. I appears as if he has some sort of swim bladder trouble. If he sits on the bottom and if he lifts off of it he inverts. Supposedly these fish went through all the protocols when they were imported. They were 3 days in transit to here, beat up and I didn't want to hit them with a barrage of drugs. I did hit them with ParaGuard to fight fungus with the skin damage they had. Now I'm using API General Cure. But as we all know by the time you see the sign it's probably already too late.

 

[Shane Puthuparambil]

bummer...

 

[allentwnguy]

If this wasn't a replacement order I would have never done business with this guy again. I was hoping "the third times the charm".... NOPE!

 

[allentwnguy]

Update: The male tapiche that was flipping upside down when he came off the bottom seems to be ok now, perhaps it wasn't his swim bladder. It seems like API General cure did the trick, I hope. The downside - the larger male was dead one morning, for no reason I could see. He did have a little skin damage but it looked like it was healing. I doubt the smaller male killed him... The upside - there are still plenty of fry happily eating live bbs. The tank had an outbreak of hydra, bbs and hydra seem to go together. I gave it a dose of Fenbendazole and they're gone. Each time I try to count the fry I get to 35 - 40. Going to try them on some Grindal worms as soon as the colonies recover a bit.

That's it for now. Out of a horrible order of 5 alto tapiche one male survives. One female laid eggs then died, 35 some odd fry remain.

 

[allentwnguy]

Spoke too soon. I haven't a clue what is wrong with this male. Yesterday he was eating and swimming like normal. Now today he's back to hugging the bottom with his pelvic fins as "stabilizers" hitting the bottom. As soon as he rises he flips upside down. he heads to the bottom and rights himself hugging the bottom again. I've never seen this. I imagine he isn't long for the world.