Ellioti breeding tank

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If you buy brineshrimp eggs online, check the prices of a big container of eggs and compare it to small containers. Keep the eggs in the fridge/ freezer in an airtight container so they last longer. Small containers cost more. Obviously if you are not sure about whether you want to use them, try a small container first and see how it goes.

BRINESHRIMP
Brine shrimp eggs are readily available from pet shops and can be hatched out in salt water to provide a valuable source of food for young fish. Most nutritional value from brine shrimp is obtained during the first two days after hatching while they still have their yolk sac.

Dry brineshrimp eggs should be kept dry and in an air tight container in the fridge or freezer to maximise their shelf life.

A simply brineshrimp hatchery can be made out of a 2 litre plastic drink bottle. Cut the top off the bottle and throw the top bit away. Half fill the bottle with sea water or salt water made to the same salinity as sea water. You can buy a hydrometer from any pet shop to measure salinity in water. You can use rock salt, sea salt, or swimming pool salt for this. Put an airstone in the container and add 1/4 of a level teaspoon of dry brineshrimp eggs to the salt water. Put the container somewhere warm, I had mine on top of an aquarium. The eggs are brown and take 24-48 hours to hatch, depending on temperature. In warmer water (28-30C) they hatch faster than in cooler water (20C). When you see orange dots in the water, the eggs have hatched. The orange dots are the baby brineshrimp called nauplii.
Plastic multi coloured airstones are the best airstones to use because they can be taken apart and the salt and old egg shells can be removed. Many brands of these airstones also have a small lead weight in the bottom that helps hold the airstone at the bottom of the container.

To harvest the baby brineshrimp, you remove the airstone, wait 5 minutes for the eggs and nauplii to separate, and then use an eye dropper to suck the nauplii out and feed them to the fish. The nauplii are attracted to light, so having a light on one side of the culture will encourage the baby shrimp to gather in one spot and makes them easier to syphon out.

Try not to put the brown eggs into the rearing tanks because fry can choke on them.

A plastic plant mister can be filled with freshwater and used to wash the salt and eggs off the sides of the hatchery throughout the day.

After you have fed the nauplii to the fish fry, put the airstone back in the culture and wait until the fry need feeding again before removing the airstone and sucking out more nauplii.

A couple of days after the eggs have hatched the culture will start to go off due to the egg shells rotting in the water. When this happens you tip out the remaining culture onto the garden and wash the container and airstone/ airline and make them nice and clean. Then you can re-use the container to start a new culture.

You should start a new culture every day or every second day and use up all the nauplii within 48 hours of the eggs hatching because that is when they have the most nutritional value. You can feed surplus nauplii to adult guppies, dwarf gouramis, tetras, barbs, rainbowfish, virtually any fish less than 5 inches long will eat newly hatched brineshrimp.

DECAPSULATED BRINESHRIMP EGGS
You can get decapsulated brineshrimp eggs and these don’t rot in the water. Decapsulated eggs have had the shell removed and you can either hatch them out normally in salt water, or feed the eggs directly to the fish.

If you want to decapuslate your own brineshrimp eggs you can do it quite easily. You add some dry eggs to a bottle or container of fresh water, and add some bleach or granular chlorine. You swirl this solution around until the brown eggs go orange. The bleach dissolves the brown egg shell leaving behind the orange egg. At which point you gently pour the orange eggs into a fine mesh net and rinse under some tap water. After a few minutes rinsing you put them in a container of freshwater and add a double dose of dechlorinator and swirl around for a couple more minutes. Then one more rinse under the tap before adding the eggs to some salt water to hatch.

This takes a bit of practice and if you leave the eggs in bleach for too long you kill them. If you don't leave the eggs in the bleach for long enough you have white egg shells in the hatching container.

You can use different concentrations of bleach and find one that works for you. Stronger bleach solutions will dissolve the egg shell faster so you have to watch the eggs for the changing colour.
 
Got 2 batches of fry in my little breeding tank atm from my Ellioti cichlids. The older of the fry are around 6 or 7 weeks and are now looking like fully formed tiny cichlids.
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The second batch are around 3 weeks old :wub: and still looking like tadpoles lol

Anyone know how old fry can start having slightly bigger foods like Cyclops and Daphnia?
 

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Good size compansion between the batches in this photo.
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Older batch now have caudal,anal fins etc. Nice seening their progress.
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You don't want to mix different batches of fry that are different sizes because the bigger ones will eat the smaller ones. This is why breeders sort the fry as they grow. The bigger fry come out so they can't eat the smaller ones and don't get all the food.

It depends on how big the fry are before you offer them different foods. Normally you can try baby Daphnia and or cyclops when the fry are about 1 month old. But it depends on how fast the fry are growing. I have seen rainbowfish fry that were only 10mm long and they were 6 months old. They were not fed well. I have also seen rainbowfish fry that were nearly an inch long at 1 month of age and they were fed well.

You can add microworms to their diet after about 1 week.

There are small species of freshwater Rotifer and these can be eaten by the fry when they are a couple of weeks old.

You can also use a pair of scissors to cut up frozen fish foods (prawn, brineshriimp, mysis shrimp, etc) to feed to the babies.
 
You don't want to mix different batches of fry that are different sizes because the bigger ones will eat the smaller ones. This is why breeders sort the fry as they grow. The bigger fry come out so they can't eat the smaller ones and don't get all the food.

It depends on how big the fry are before you offer them different foods. Normally you can try baby Daphnia and or cyclops when the fry are about 1 month old. But it depends on how fast the fry are growing. I have seen rainbowfish fry that were only 10mm long and they were 6 months old. They were not fed well. I have also seen rainbowfish fry that were nearly an inch long at 1 month of age and they were fed well.

You can add microworms to their diet after about 1 week.

There are small species of freshwater Rotifer and these can be eaten by the fry when they are a couple of weeks old.

You can also use a pair of scissors to cut up frozen fish foods (prawn, brineshriimp, mysis shrimp, etc) to feed to the babies.
Thats great thank you
 
Think im going to have to think about setting up a bigger grow out tank i put the fry in a 5 gallon a week or so ago and they have doubled in size already.

Got a perfect slot for a tank 60x 30x30cm (15g - 54ltr) would that be big enough for them until they are big enough to move on?
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Anyone know how big cichlids need to be to move on to fish stores
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Mine arent ready for that yet but id like to know a target size to aim for? First time at breeding lol
 
When they are recognizable as the species they are, usually 1-2 inches
Ive got a group of around 40/50 atm doing well and really starting to grow nicely now. Hoping my lfs has a fair few off me and i might keep 8 or so myself.

Youve breed plenty of species before @Colin. What would you say a good size grow out tank would be for Ellioti cichlids? I need to upgrade the fry tank soon.
 
I used to grow my fish (mostly rainbows) in 2 ft long tanks. They were mature and 2-3 inches long at 2-3 months of age.

If you can get a bigger tank that helps. Otherwise do huge daily water changes and gravel cleans, and feed them heaps so they look like pregnant guppies.
 
I used to grow my fish (mostly rainbows) in 2 ft long tanks. They were mature and 2-3 inches long at 2-3 months of age.

If you can get a bigger tank that helps. Otherwise do huge daily water changes and gravel cleans, and feed them heaps so they look like pregnant guppies.
Very helpful Colin thank you. Ive been looking at 2ft tanks tbf which will fit in the space id like it to go in. I do have a 3ft tank spare tho so that could be an option too.
 
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Set up the Ellioti frys grow out tank last night and added some more plants and the little beauts today:)

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Tanks 3ft (22g long) so will be plenty big enough to see them through. Got 50/60 fry to fatten up now :flex:

Ive done a scouting mission today and sorted out where the fry will go once grown to around 2 inches. I might keep a small group myself:)
 
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