Belonesox Belizanus Just Had Babies!

[Sporen]

After many weeks of anticipation my very round female belonesox belizanus has just had babies, think there have been 4 so far, 2 of which she had out of the breeding net I think as I heard splashing around as the others tried to eat something. Just wondered how many I should expect and when should I remove her from the net as I don't want to lose any more of the babies!

SO excited!! (Sad I know)

xx

 

[nmonks]

Congratulations! Expect to see some photos...

Supposedly, you can get anything up to 80 babies in a brood. But that's unlikely, I'm sure. Often livebearers have smaller batches when young. You probably don't want too many anyway, because rearing them (they're very cannibalistic) is going to be tricky.

Cheers, Neale

 

[helterskelter]

Thats great news.

Mine used to produce easily 80-100 fry every month!!!!!
The hard part is rearing them.

The females suppress the feeding for around 24 hours while giving birth.

The fry are not canniblistic with their own age or sized fry but any other fry are fare game though.

To rear them to a breeding sized fish though they need lots of live foods.
I did a small artical here
http/www.livingfish.co.uk/forum/article.asp?art=332
which was over 12 years ago now!!!

 

[nmonks]

The fry are not canniblistic with their own age or sized fry but any other fry are fare game though.

Ah, that's the tricky bit! I've yet to rear any baby fish where they all grew at the same rate, and sooner or later the bigger ones will turn on the smaller ones. Perhaps I'm just a bit slap-dash on feeding my baby fish properly, though!

I do remember reading your article on training Belonesox to take dead foods; well done on that! Interesting that females are less willing to take alternative prey to the males. With halfbeaks, I've found the reverse; it's the females that go for novel prey items, or learn to take food from the bottom of the tank, whereas the males are very set in their ways.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Sporen]

Thanks guys, I am quite lucky, all my adults eat nothing but frozen food and in huge quantities, the female being particularly greedy! Hopefully their fry will learn to do the same. When will they need their first feed? Now or will tommorow morning suffice? There seems to only be around 20 fry but this is mums first brood and she is only round the 4" mark currently so I guess it would be a little much to expect more, lol. They are all a good size though and seem to be happy. They are in a breeding net in the main tank currently but I will move them to a tank of their own in a week or so when they are a little larger. Mum seems a little stressed but I assume this is normal after giving birth? The lights are off so hopefully she will be more settled tommorow. I will post pics as soon as I can (note to self, buy camera )

xx

 

[helterskelter]

Thats good to a 4" fish my female was 10" when producing 100 or so fry.

First foods should be daphina they will live on this for the first few weeks.
Mine then when onto strips of fish quite easily but took a very long time to mature.

 

[Sporen]

I have tried them on some frozen cyclops this moring, a few had a nibble but not all of them so I will go and get copious amounts of live daphnia in the next hour or so. There have been 2 casualties in the night and the others have clearly been chewing on them so they are getting some food at least.
Female seems much better this morning, back swimming with the males and took a bit of bloodworm first thing. I am hoping to raise at least a few females to a good size as I seem to have ended up with 3 males and only one female currently.

xx

 

[Sporen]

Slight problem, none of my local fish shops have any live daphnia. Will they be able to take brine shrimp or are they too big. I have put some in the net with them and although it seems to have stirred them up a bit and they are all swimming around I haven't seen any of them actually take one yet.

Help?!

 

[nmonks]

I'd expect them to take adult brine shrimp just fine (my books say they take day-old guppies!). Certainly worth a shot. I get daphnia for my fish out of my neighbour's garden pond. For some reason her pond has lots of them, but mine never has any.

Cheers, Neale

 

[dunchp]

I'd expect them to take adult brine shrimp just fine (my books say they take day-old guppies!). Certainly worth a shot. I get daphnia for my fish out of my neighbour's garden pond. For some reason her pond has lots of them, but mine never has any.

Cheers, Neale

You could always go and buy some very gravid female guppies. I managed to raise some fry from Lake Peten by feeding guppy fry, but didn't try feeding other things. You could also try some mosquito larvae which is still around at the moment.

The main problem I had was moving them to larger quarters, they seemed to be very difficult to move, obviously yours aren't wild though, so it shouldn't be so hard.

Well done by the way.

 

[Sporen]

It looks like some of them have fat little bellys now so I think the brine shrimp were a success. Shop in St.Albans are getting some daphnia in on Thursday so I will buys loads of them and keep them in a tub of water here so should hopefully provide them with food for the longer term. Sadly none of my neighbours are keen on me so I don't know if they have a pond and I doubt me asking would go down well either!
Can't really get any guppies as I have nowhere to keep them. That coupled with the fact that my boyfriend would disown me at the sight of anymore fish entering the house!
Will keep you guys posted with their process and add some pics of the little'uns when I can

xx

 

[helterskelter]

Fat bellies means their eating something which is a good start at least.

Good luck with rearing them though their a difficult fish to maintain over a long period, just coz they want to eat so much.

 

[Sporen]

Latest baby update! The little fiends have had their first taste of frozen micro bloodworm today and they love it! Looks like they got their taste in food from their parents. I will continue to feed them a mix of live and frozen food at least for the time being. How many times a day would you say they need feeding. Sorry if some of my questions seem a bit daft. The only experience I have with rearing baby fish was a few guppies when I was 13 so 10 years ago now! I remember only one baby survived named popeye as she was born with only 1 eye, lol. I would hope this brood will be more successful

 

[nmonks]

Most baby fish need feeding 4-6 times per day. The aim is to have as many small meals as possible. Because they can't digest much at once, "stuffing them silly" a couple of times a day actually doesn't achieve much. At least with halfbeaks, I just fill the tank with daphnia and let them feed as they want all day. With livebearers, putting lumps of green algae from the pond does the trick. Not sure what the best thing for these little predators would be though!

Cheers, Neale

 

[helterskelter]

i feed mine 2-3 times a day. I feed strips of fish about a quarter the size of the fish, or guppy fry.