Apistogramma Fry

[mikster]

I am raising some apisto fry in a 15 gallon tank and they arent doing that well, i must have lost about half of them in a week, they dont seem overly active and dont see that bothered about the bbs half the time, the tank is filtered and there are no water quality problems as i test the water regularly and do water changes and it also have live plants. temp is around 26 degrees. Im guessing the water hardness is the problem? its something like 17 degrees, its about the same as the main tank but my pair of apistos live happily in and it are breeding in it but they fry just dont seem to be staying alive in it, maybe this is because they are more sensitive?

Is there any way i can lower my water hardness enough without using an RO system?i dont fancy wasting all the extra water and such just for these babies, i would consider just leaving them in the main tank and using this tank for something else.

 

[thegnu]

what kind of apisto's are they mikster. What temp is the tank. Any ammonia or nitrite at all. how much nitrate

 

[mikster]

Its a mature filter but the tank itself hasnt been running for very long but now its starting to build up a nice population of small organisms, it may have been the BBS was too big for them or something i dont know, ive got about 2 fry left, one is quite massive and looks very full now, they are apistogramma cacatuoides, i heard they are more adaptable to the hard water, i think its just my tank not being matured enough though, i will try again with the next batch and just keep doing alot of water changes and see what happens. Also do you think small amounts of salt would harm them as i didnt always flush the bbs into fresh water because i didnt have time before i left the house sometimes, i just squirted them straight in.

 

[thegnu]

yeah i would say thats very bad for them being so small. When i do my BBS i do them in a litre of water and i put two big tablespoons of sea salt in it. It can't do them a lot of good

 

[mikster]

I do it in about 400mls of water with about a third of a tea spoon of salt and they hatch in about 18 hours or so so theres not really a massive amount of salt being used, in the next batch i will just flush them with fresh water when i do it and see how it goes, im just waiting for my apistos to get at it again.

EDIT theres 3 alive that i know of, 2 of them are fairly big and one is small, looks like at least the big ones might survive, hopefully the next lot will fair a little better.

 

[kribensis12]

Take leaves and put them in the back of your filter, natures way of reducing ph. Also, you need to test your water becasue there can be a build up of somthing, Best of luck.

 

[mikster]

Dont worry i have a test kit and i test all my tanks regularly, my nitrates never usually exceed 15ppm as i do 30% water changes once per week every week and i dont over feed. Just got to find time to do them every day or couple of days for the fry tank i guess. I think i will have more luck with the next lot as theres alot of litle organisms in there now and its looking a lot better. Thanks for the advice everyone and i will make another post for the next lot and let you know how im doing.

EDIT water change day, water stats for the fry tank were ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and nitrate 5-10ppm.