Fry questions

[nik_n]

Hello
A about 2 months ago I had my first spawn of gourami fry. The babies are doing fine and growing quickly. They are about 2-3 cm now and I was wondering how long until they reach sellable size. I water change 3-4 times per week (30-40%) and feed regularly 3-4 times per day a mixture of brine shrimp, micro worms and even some flake food.

The parents haven't bred since but thats because I kept the air pump on so he can't build the nest because the female was looking pretty beat up. Now they are showing signs of breeding and I'm debating wether I should let them have another spawn. The problem is that if they don't reach sellable size by mid July or even sooner I will have to put them in the main tank for a couple of weeks because I will be in another country. Is there a chance that they will grown until then?

If not I could always get another automatic feeder and they should be fine with a filter, a heater and a bunch of floating plants.

But this brings me to my second question; Could I keep the new spawn with their older siblings or would they get eaten immediately. I doubt that would happen especially if I feed them well enough but there is always a possibility. I could add some kind of a divider where the water would still go through but the fish can't.

Any advice would be appreciated

 

[AbbeysDad]

The growth rates of fry is dependent on many factors (species, food, water quality...) and size is also relative to what any given LFS will accept (and they are the best to answer that question). It can typically take 6 months to a year longer before fry are large enough to sell.
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Big fish eat little fish with some species resisting 'fry food' more than others. The best way to ensure fry survival is to separate from larger fish as often even young adults may prey on new, young fry.
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I hope this helps.

Some other information on breeding fish:

Blog – Breeding – MJV Aquatics

mjvaquatics.com

 

[Colin_T]

Do bigger water changes. I used to do 75-90% water changes and gravel cleaned the substrate on rearing tanks every day.

Feed more and use more variety. Marine mix or Raw/ cooked prawn is good for getting fish growing. Used in conjunction with the other food you have will help speed things up. Feed the dry food first, then marine mix or prawn, bloodworms, daphnia, then microworms and brineshrimp last. Feed them until they are fat and look like pregnant guppies and can't eat anymore.

Make sure the temperature is around 28C for maximum growth rates.

Put the fry in bigger tanks/ containers. The larger volume of water and bigger surface area helps them grow faster.

Under good conditions, most aquarium fish can be saleable at 2-3 months.

 

[nik_n]

Thank you for your advice. I'm still in school and don't have time to do more then a quick water change, but I will definitely try to do more water changes, now that I have a week off. I will try to slowly increase the temp, right now its about 26°C. I'm planning to buy some high quality dry food, and include daphnia into the mix. I there a way how to get daphnia or collect them on my own?

 

[Colin_T]

you get better results using frozen (but defrosted) foods like prawn and marine mix, than you get from the best dry food.