ram fry no infusoria

[Christople]

Hi all, my rams had babies and surprised me. I put a brine hatcher up for my krib fry, but normally I'd do infusoria. Will mashed up egg yolk, live bbs, even smaller than normal first bites.

 

[slimbolen99]

Are the fry still in the tank they were hatched in?
If there is plenty of natural decor (plants, driftwood, gravel) they should have plenty to eat until you can get some infusoria going, I would think.
If you've moved them to a bare fry tank, you might think about moving some decor from the tank they were bred in into that tank...I've moved plants and driftwood along with very tiny fry and had little trouble.

Best of luck!

 

[Christople]

they are with the parents, and it is a all planted hard to see the back tank, with wood and plants, thanks

 

[Mike Wise]

One reason I use foam/sponge filters is that I can squeeze them and release a lot of micro-organisms for super-small fry. Such fry often 'feed' on the filter. This is where they can find food that is the right size for them.

 

[gerald]

If you have a rain-barrel or any sort of outdoor container where leaves and twigs have fallen in and started to decay in the water, scoop up some leaf litter, carefully remove any dragonfly or diving beetle larvae, then place in tank with fry. It shouild have rotifers, paramecium, other tiny inverts suitable as fry food.

 

[Christople]

don't have any outside container, but I feed live brine and they seemed to go for it, feed eggs and they were interested, not that much though. I set up a infusoria kit thing with my potato cubes and tank water. I am about to feed first bites, the parents are doing great so far, it's their fourth spawn.

 

[Christople]

My filter just destroyed my spawn, went from hundreds to maybe 20, added a thing that would save the other fry

 

[viejo]

I have found that the 'Golden Pearls' diet to be a great starter food for fry a little too small for brine shrimp initially. Available from http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com -as well as other sources, I suspect.

 

[Christople]

well my ram fry are still there! I think they went through the filter and now the parents are sheparding them around the tank

 

[wethumbs]

You may want to consider culturing paramecium. The fry are too small to take newly hatched BBS which are around 425 to 455 micron in size. Paramecium ranges from 110 to 350 micron instead. Without the proper food, you will lose most of the fry in the first few days.

Here is an EBR fry day1 freeswimmer. The scale is 100micron for each large increment. BBS is clearly just too big.

Day2 freeswimmer. Still not eating BBS.

Day3 freeswimmer. 1st day eating BBS. Notice the orange color in its stomach content.

 

[Christople]

I went camping and came back to fry but I normally do, I have one now sitting on my windosil

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

One reason I use foam/sponge filters is that I can squeeze them and release a lot of micro-organisms for super-small fry. Such fry often 'feed' on the filter. This is where they can find food that is the right size for them.

and

f you have a rain-barrel or any sort of outdoor container where leaves and twigs have fallen in and started to decay in the water, scoop up some leaf litter, carefully remove any dragonfly or diving beetle larvae, then place in tank with fry. It shouild have rotifers, paramecium, other tiny inverts suitable as fry food.

I do both of these you get a lot of rotifers particulalry and these are good fry food, I also like a large wodge of Java moss in the tank with all little fry, it provides a lot of growing surface for "biofilm" and it also snags passing microworms (if you feed these, and I do). I like to have a microworm culture running, they are incredibly low maintenance and smaller then BBS. Banana or Walter worms are smaller nematodes and equally easy to keep.

cheers Darrel

 

[Apistomaster]

Ram larvae and fry are extraordinarily sensitive to ammonia and nitrites. In fact, they have almost no tolerance for these. However, when any food goes uneaten the ammonia and nitrite spikes and results in losing the majority of the fry.
Begin infusoria cultures well in advance of when you expect to need them because the first stage in the ecological succession is the bacterial blooms upon which ultimately feeds the Paramecia, other Protists and Rotifers.
It is a challenge to strike the right balance between feeding the fry enough infusoria and polluting the water.
The advice to use small worms like microworms, vinegar eels or banana worms is good because these food animals are small enough for most of the fry to take as a first food.
I like San Francisco Bay brand Brine shrimp eggs because they hatch out smaller nauplii than Utah eggs and make a good transition food for the couple of days growth the fry need before they can easily eat the cheaper Utah brine shrimp nauplii.
I always keep one of the SF brand smaller tins that are a few ounces as a transition food for fish which start out needing small foods. If you get everything to come together just right it is often possible to raise as many as 400 fry from a single spawn of M. ramirezi.

 

[tjudy]

I culture paramecium, which is very easy to do. My experience with rams, however, is that they can eat bbs as soon as the are free swimming.... at least they can choke them down in a pinch. San Francisco Bay shrimp are a little smaller than Great Salt Lake shrimp, so use the SFB cysts if you can find them.

 

[wethumbs]

Average size of the newly hatched Artemia from SF is 425 micron as compare to the Salt Lake of 455 micron. Paramecia is 100 to 350 micron. Bodo which is another protist (a flagellated instead of ciliated) is 20 micron and can be cultured in the same manner as paramecium.

 

[Apistomaster]

In my experience if the pair takes care of the brood then San Francisco bay brine shrimp are all you need. I had a pair of Gold Rams spawn in a 10 gallon tank and raised about 400 fry from one spawn. The parents must help macerate the brine shrimp and when they feed the shreds to their fry the fry accept the shrimp and grow just fine.

If I use artificial egg hatching and take over the fry care then I find I need smaller foods. There are always some fry that are able to take brine shrimp so if high production is not your goal you should still be able to save about 25% of the fry on brine shrimp only.