New to raising fry...help

dink

dink

Members
Hello everyone

Im new to raising fry and my acei just spawned. I had some questions about what to do because my demonsi spawned twice and they were all eaten. I want to try my hand at raising fry.
Questions:
1) when should i take the acei out of the take and put it into the other tank ??
2) when should i put the acei adult back in the regular tank??
3) what do i feed the fry ??
4) can any one give me any other suggesstions.

thanks agian
 
verbal

verbal

CCA Members
I think the easiest way to raise African cichlid fry is to strip the females when they have fry and to feed them golden pearls.

Stripping can be a bit tricky, so definitely get some pointers from some experienced African Cichlid keepers.
 
Jefft

Jefft

Members
Here is what I have done.. 3 weeks into my females showing I pulled them from my main tank and put them in a 10 gallon. I waited till the females spit the fry out and then removed the females. I will be stripping the females I have holding from now on because of the following issue. I keep a nice chunk of lava rock in the tank the small fry hide in the holes of the rock kind of like a little fish apartment. However when I would remove the rock to recapture the females to put them in the main tank once again they would literally chase down their fry .. pin the fry (with their chin?) the fry would become still and then the female would suck them back up. They didnt eat them they just pinned and took em back into their mouth. So I would ultimately lose a few of the fry because the female would carry a few back into the big tank. This whole process would take like 3 seconds for the female to find chase down, pin her young and finally suck them back up. Those fry not caught remained in the 10 gallon and are doing well. I have pictures posted in my albums. I have a 30 gallon AquaClear filter in the baby tank which is 10 gallons and two heaters to keep my temp a constant 80 degree. I spoke with Bill from yourfishstuff.com and I purchased "cichlid cravers" fish food from them in the .05 mm size. It took about 3 days to receive my order from yourfishstuff.com. The fry eat it up! Some will pop out of the lava rock and snatch the food as it floats the yellow lab fry seem to like to pick it from the bottom after it settles like grazing if you will. I did lose a few of my Cynotilapia Afra Cobwe Orange and Black fry.. but the rusties and yellow labs have flourished. I still have 3 of the Cobwe fry in the tank. Tomorrow I will be stripping a female yellow lab and a female Red Fin Borl. I use "safe" from seachem in the water with 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 10 gallon water change. The "safe" is a highly condensed version of Prime in a powdered form and difficult to use (at least for me) as I relate to table spoon teaspoon etc the old Imperial measurement of volume and not the new gram, miligram measurement of weight. Instructions read to use 10 miligrams per.. so I have bought a digital scale for weighing powder prior to putting it in my tanks. Best breakdown so far I can figure. 1 teaspoon is roughly 5 grams 1 gram of this stuff is enough to handle over 100 gallons of water. So when I say highly concentrated I mean super potent. Anyway 1/4 teaspoon is enough to dechlorinate 90 gallons. For the 10 gallon water changes I use as close as I can to 1/4 of a 1/4 teaspoon. That is still more than I should I am sure but the fry are growing like weeds. Will be posting pictures of stripping tomorrow and the subsequent fry in the 10 gallon. Those in the tank now cobwe and yellow labs are about ready to be transferred to the 40 gallon breeder to grow out a little. Yourfishstuff.com also has super grow and a few others I will be thinking on using as I begin to try to breed for trade and auction. But the 1/2 lbs package I purchased hasnt even had a dent put in it yet. I feed 3 xs for the fry per day using the smallest of pinch between thumb and forefinger. I water change 2xs a week, so like every 3 to 4 days or so. I claim no knowledge of how "real" breeders do it this is my first batch of fry spawned in my tanks. Good luck with yours. I have been having fun with mine thus far. Ohhh and for a treat 2 to 3 times a week I will break a baby brine shrimp cube in half and toss it in the tank they chase that stuff pretty good too.
 
W

WendyFish

Members
We also prefer stripping. The way I see it, there's always some risk of taking a fish out of the group hierarchy for a period of time. Given the necessary sex ratios for Africans, I don't like to take risks with my females, in case they are out of the tank for a couple weeks and then have trouble reintroducing -- especially given that at that point they will not have eaten for 3+ weeks and are more vulnerable to stress.

I've also had really stubborn moms who, once provided with their own resort tank, just aren't very interested in spitting.

Stripping takes some practice to get good at, but generally isn't challenging once you're comfortable with it. You'll run into some stubborn moms and some stubborn fry, but in general it's easy once you learn. There are some good articles on cichlid-forum.com about how to do it.

In terms of food, we use a variety of things. In their first few days, mbuna fry are generally still getting the hang of the world, and they tend to huddle up and stay in a small area. During this time, we mix NLS fry starter into a cup of tank water and shoot it at them with a syringe. After 4-5 days, you can see the fry are more comfortable moving around their tank. They start to get curious and more independent. At this point, I just crumble regular flake food very finely so that it will sink quickly into the tank. Somewhere around this time, we also start using Repashy Spawn and Grow with them, although frankly they're usually still a little slow to figure out what it is until day 10-14 or so, when they absolutely know what it is and are all over it. They do eat some of it from that early point, though. We use a combination of Repashy and crumbled flake from then on until they're an inch or so and go on a regular diet.
 
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