Why do these babies die?

[STEVIE]

For the 3rd time i've been given some freebie babies.They do ok for a few days then die on me.They are called halfbeaks and a friend breeds them and his seem to do ok.Any ideas why mine keep dieing as they do eat.

 

[LoachLover]

For the 3rd time i've been given some freebie babies.They do ok for a few days then die on me.They are called halfbeaks and a friend breeds them and his seem to do ok.Any ideas why mine keep dieing as they do eat.

They probably just get all stressed out.

 

[paulthegreat]

Compare your water with your freinds it may be difference in temp, pH, nitrate levels ect

 

[vidiots]

Is your tank large enough for them? Has it been cycled? Is there something in your water? How are they transported?

 

[STEVIE]

Thanks for the suggestions.
As i'm only carrying them across the road from his house i think perhaps my tank is too small.His water conditions are the same as mine and i don't have any aggressive or big fish.

 

[paulthegreat]

Even my neons go after my swordtail fry, so they do not need to be very big or agressive to do the dirty on the poor little guys. However if they are not getting hit right from the start it probably is not the tankmates.

 

[bigfish]

I would say properly stress most likely factor.

How did u acclimitise them? did u just chuck them into your tank from your friends your did u float the unopened fish bag and then slowly added some of your tank water every 10 mins for 45mins?

 

[STEVIE]

I slowly acclimatised them by floating the bag and adding water.I've just got another 4 this morning and they look ok at the moment but if these die i'm giving up trying with halfbeaks as they must be for a more advanced hobbyist than me.
I've given him some grown on platy varigatus fry as a swop when i first got some about 3-4 weeks ago and they are thriving in his tank and grown loads more.
Also these baby newborn halfbeaks are quite big when say compared to a guppy fry and are capable of eating them.

 

[3fsh]

I got some free molly fry from the LFS once... I didn't have much time, so I had to acclimate them over a period of thirty minutes. They all ended up dying. Just recently, though, I got some more molly fry (these were in worse shape than the first--I was afraid I was going to have to euthenize them ) and I acclimated these over a period of about an hour using the drip acclimation method.... they are doing amazing!!! Eating and growing like crazy! That extra 30 minutes and drip acclimating made all the difference.

Edit: I have also started feeding my fish Hikari tropical flakes, which are much healthier than other types of flakes, IMO/IME. These are one of the only flakes that I haven't seen my fish "turn their nose up" to.

 

[STEVIE]

I've fed them with little bloodworms that they seem to like.
Thanks for the tip about the Hikari flakes.I've been using Aquarian Tropical flakes not realizing they were crap .I'll throw them out and get some of what you said.