Hi Everyone,

After 2 unsuccessful attempts at breading my BN pair has finally pulled it off. The male seems to have realised that leaving his eggs will result in them getting eaten and so he is now viscously guarding them.

The babies were born yesterday, I have not disturbed them to take pictures as my male is a little shy so I don’t want to freak him out, sorry.

My questions are as follows really.

- When will they leave the cave they currently inhabit?
- Can I move them into a hatchery or will they die?
- How long will the male guard them? He has not moved for 7 days so far!
- How long until they are around the 10-15mm mark, currently they are about 6mm!
- Do I need to feed them anything special?
- If they survive, does anyone want some BN Babies!!

Any advice will be gratefully received.

Thanks

Simon

Hi,
Firstly congrats!
The male will stay and guard the babies for a while - another week or so, then will gradually come out more and more for food.
The wrigglers will come out when they are ready - some will venture out soon, others take a bit longer!
I feed mine algae wafers and cucumber/courgette - they eat all fine!
They grow slowly to begin, then the next thing you know, they'll be an inch long (at about 1month)!
Sorry not more specific, but each batch is individual!

I've never moved mine, and no other fish bother them.
they are hard to catch though until you have the knack! - the smaller they are, the faster!!

Good luck with it all
laura

Thanks for the reply Laura.

I'm over the moon they have hatched, just hope they survive the next few weeks ok.

The male has now killed two fish that have tried to get into the cave. First to go was a Blue tetra and now an Orange lyretail has been 'removed' by the male!

The lyretail had it coming as he eat the last two batches of eggs mind!

Bn fry in a community tank will not last long in most community tanks. They are lunch to most fish. I have watched a few 2 inch apistos devour 75+ bn fry off the glass in a few days.

I usually pull the cave, often with dad, to a 10 or 15 gal growout tank. I feed the dad well in there for 5-7 days and then return the cave and dad to the home tank.

This post has been edited by TwoTankAmin: May 20 2008, 05:22 AM

Will they survive in a hatchery???