BABIES!!!!! i need help

[christo420]

a found a new load of fry this morning!(A. cacatuoides), and i need help. i have seperated the father from the rest. and the mother is "showing them around" i have started hatching brine shrimp here at home for them. is this right? its the only thing small enough for them to eat! i am also wondering about java moss and how much light it needs. is it a good idea to put java moss in there? there are no other fish in this tank. besides the mother. the reason i seperated them is because in my 90 gal i had two males and four females in there and one of them had babies, but something was picking them off little by little, now there are none left. will a plecos eat the young if they are in his way while he is "vaccuming"?! how long will i need to feed the brine to them and are there any other foods for them? sorry for so many questions, i would like to raise some of this litter correctly.

thank you for your time,
chris

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Chris,

Plecos will definitely eat fry. Especially at night when plecos are most active and apistos are not.

Java Moss is great for fry. It provides a place they can hide, as well as some food. Infusoria live in the Java Moss. I don't think Java Moss needs much light. Matter of fact, I've found that too much light causes it to become matted with algae. Thanks to advice I received here on this forum, mollies make great Java Moss groomers.

I've got a 30 gallon long that has a ball of Java Moss the size of a basket ball and a couple clumps bigger than a grapefruit. Anyhow, a couple days ago, I discovered the viejita had spawned in there and I never noticed! Judging by their size, I think they were at least 3-4 weeks old! All they had to eat during this time was the infusoria in the Java Moss and any scraps of flake food. Perhaps mother brought some of the flake food to them. I've seen mother apistos spit out a cloud of chewed up flakes before. I don't know if this was intentional or if it was just a coincidental stroke of luck for the fry.

I feed BBS until the fry are at least 3/4 to 1 inch long, then I supplement with vitamin enriched flakes. Sometimes by this time I often have to stop feeding BBS completely for a couple weeks due to hydra infestation. Hydras love BBS.

Michael