Some happy probklem.....

[Kenny Poh]

Hi all,

My borelli frys are barely 3 wks old, and now their parents are at it again!

They've just spawned again today, and the female is jealously guarding her new brood of eggs. When the frys go too close to her nest, she'd chase them away vigorously. So far, no harm seemed to have befallen these frys.

Now, my problem is, the tank is too heavily planted for me to retrieve those 20 odd frys, which are themselves dispersed all over the 20 gal tank. If I leave them inside, I was wandering if the aggression from the mother would escalate towards these frys, which are nearly 1 cm on the average.

Anyone had different spawns co-existing within the same tank, would you like to share your experiences in raising diff. broods together?

Cheers,

Kenny

 

[fishgeek]

I have exactly the same problem with my aggies
large piece of wood fills most of tank and s healthly cover in java moss

adults spawn in one of the 3 free corners and the last lot of youngsters are usually displaced up above the wood and if being harrassed by anyone else , bury down into the moss

seems to work quite well

only probs i have is the wood has swelled in water and i cant get it out to remove any fish easily

last time i had 3rd generation babies at about adult size still in the tank

Andrew

 

[Kenny Poh]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for sharing your experience with me. Yeah, my tank setup is almost as you've described yours : it is traversed by a huge piece of driftwood which had lots of java fern and anubias sp. tied to it, while 1/3 of the ground is covered with Ech. quadricostatus.The last time I had a dead ottocinclus in it, I couldn't remove it at all unless I dismantled some parts of the setup.

The frys so far are unharmed. They were able to dart off when they see the female in a threatening stance. They're all over, making it difficult to catch. Any catch, I think, would be opportunistic then.

I intend to leave it to nature, as I cannot see any other way for now!

Cross my fingers.....


Kenny

 

[Randall]

Removing Fry

Hello Kenny and Andrew,

Sooner or later, many of us run into this situation, I guess; what to do with the older fry when the parents spawn again. As both of you note, when we go out of our way to furnish a well-planted and well-decorated aquarium, it's almost impossible to remove fry!

Some report success by placing some live black worms in a small necked bottle which is then placed in the tank. The fry enter the bottle to get the worms and are trapped. We can then remove the bottle with the fry inside. Others place a net in the tank with some food in it. When the fry move into the net to get at the food, they can be scooped up. Both of these strategies seem laborious, time consuming and not 100% effective to me, but they do enable us to remove at least some of the fry.

For those of us who use smaller aquaria, sometimes it's easier to simply remove the parents before they spawn again and leave the fry in the breeding tank. This method ensures that all the fry are saved but requires some advance planning.

It now dawns on me that I need to remove about 100 2 cm Hemichromis cerasogaster fry that are evenly dispersed throughout a well-planted 55-gallon tank. :? It might be easier to simply set up the parents in a second tank of their own and use the existing tank to grow out the fry.

Good luck!

Randall Kohn

 

[Kenny Poh]

Hi Randall,

Haha, yeah, the kind of Catch 22 situation that we often put ourselves in!

Well, I guess I learnt my lesson. Thus, once the borelli pair raise up their latest spawn, I'll just place them into my main 100 gal tank that has a caca pair and 100+ assorted predatory pencil fishes. Well, if I can't stop them from spawning, at least I've got some population control measure in there. My caca had spawned 4 times, but till today, I've only counted less than 10 surviving juveniles.

Thanks for your input!

Cheers,

Kenny