Blue Acara Fry

[freded]

My pair of Blue Acara have been raising their fry that was born on Boxing Day for the last few weeks. I've got the parents and the fry in a 70 litre tank at the moment, having removed the Blue Acara from my main tank after their fry had been eaten several times before by the other greedy inhabitants of the tank.

The question I've got is at what stage should I separate the parents and the fry? If I leave the parents in for too long, will they attack/eat the fry?

I've got friends lined up to take some of the fry once they have reached a decent size and my local LFS expressed interest in having some as well.

 

[Chuka1212]

Congrats!! That's awesome. Wish I could help you with your questions, but I have never had cichlid fry. Do you have pics?

 

[Faythee]

Pics are a must !

 

[freded]

I try to get to take some snaps at the weekend but in the meantime, anybody got any tips on how long I should leave the parents with the fry?

 

[8inary]

having bred acara before, I would consider moving the parents out of the fry's tank. I found all too often that they male would eat the young and then a major fight would start between male and female.

the fry will grow and you will note male from female as the males put a lot more weight on and are much bigger in size.

lovely fish to breed, congrats!

 

[freded]

having bred acara before, I would consider moving the parents out of the fry's tank. I found all too often that they male would eat the young and then a major fight would start between male and female.

they fry will grow and you will note male from female as the males put a lot more weight on and are much bigger in size.

lovely fish to breed, congrats!

Many thanks-just the advice I needed. I'll look to move the parents back to the main tank over the weekend.

 

[8inary]

what are you feeding the fry on.....oh very important bit of advise...

i would get a few fry nests to put in your tank (you know the fry hatches that you hang in side you tank and put the fry in, like boxes but made of netting?)

the reason is, when i managed to breed the acaras, and had the fry growing up, one of the males turned out to be a fishy killer, he would kill off as many as he could, to the point we only had a few left, we (my fiance and I saw the lil bugger killing off the rest) we left it too late and only ended up with him.

i would seperate them according to size, you may already see some that are bigger than the others, i would, even though it is still early, say the bigger ones are males...only time will tell.

 

[freded]

what are you feeding the fry on.....oh very important bit of advise...

i would get a few fry nests to put in your tank (you know the fry hatches that you hang in side you tank and put the fry in, like boxes but made of netting?)

the reason is, when i managed to breed the acaras, and had the fry growing up, one of the males turned out to be a fishy killer, he would kill off as many as he could, to the point we only had a few left, we (my fiance and I saw the lil bugger killing off the rest) we left it too late and only ended up with him.

i would seperate them according to size, you may already see some that are bigger than the others, i would, even though it is still early, say the bigger ones are males...only time will tell.

My LFS sold me this stuff and told me to feed it 3-4 times a day.

http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/catalogue....asp#product581

I've also got some food designed for fry that I picked up from a big pet store. I've been feeding the fry this since Xmas and they seem be growing ok and I've got loads and loads of them in the tank.

I'll take a look at my local LFS at weekend to see if I can pick up any fry hatches.

 

[jayjay]

I've bred blue acara. Personally, I would say remove them when you want to. Parents do a much better job of raising fry than we could do, so I am leaving fry with the adults now a days. The fry I leave with adults grow bigger, quicker, compared to the ones I've removed and try looking after myself. Some pairs however do eat the fry or even eggs, then I would say to remove them, to raise the fry yourself.

As far as aggression between the fry goes, this depends on how much room you are giving them, how many of them there are, how hungry they are and how much decoration there is. My fry tanks are empty apart from a few pieces of floating plant. If you can keep the fry in a large enough number, with no one fish much bigger than the others, then you should see no problem. Keeping the high numbers means no, one individual gets picked on, the aggression if there is any (due to no territories) is spread.

8ianry's case may have just been an exception, or the one fish was substantially bigger?

 

[8inary]

to be fair, it was not really bigger than most, however, there were pretty much two differing sizes, he was just one of the bigger ones. We had the fry in a 2ft tank with no decor, and believed there was enough room for them. this one though just went on a killing spree until he was the only one left.