Will They Be Ok

[juliehainsworth]

Ok not happy this morning! Got up to find out that my brine shrimp hatchery had failed! I only had a few brine shrimp survive the night which was no way enough to feed my fry! I've added some finely ground flake to the tank and some daphnia both adult and baby, and a piece of live plant with some algae growing on (don't ask why I have no idea)! Will they be ok til I get home at about 5.15pm? I'm really worried about them right now! I don't want to lose these fry as well as these are nearly at the two wk stage and that is when I lost my last batch of fry! Also another reason I'm worried is because they are being treated for ich also!

 

[Joby]

Sounds like you did all you could for now but the live daphnia is a good move as they should take the little ones and maybe the bigger ones will have some more babies through the day. Make sure you clean out the bottom of the tank when you get home for any food that they didn't eat. I'm thinking they will probably have turned up their noses at the ground flake but you never know.

I hate it when hatcheries fail

 

[juliehainsworth]

Well the daphnia certainly looked really pregnant and I put in around 20! The fry were kinda trying to hunt them down which was funny but they have no chance as the daphnia are pretty large in comparison! A couple were kinda intrigued by the crushed food but didnt see them take it! The bottom will be cleaned as soon as I get in! Hopefully the brine shrimp will have hatched when I get home! I now have two lots going (better to be safe than sorry now and if both fail I'll tear my hair out stupid things)

I noticed that my fry look slightly different in colour some are dark and have like a red colouring and a couple are pale and have a really light colour head/hood its strange! I know its too early to determine what colours they'll be but I quite like the ones with the light heads they look cute

 

[Synirr]

You could try feeding boiled egg yolk in a pinch, a lot of Thai breeders use it as a cheap fry food

 

[juliehainsworth]

I forgot all about that! Thanks I'll have to remember that or maybe even try them on it tonight! Stupid brine shrimp hadnt hatched out of the reset up but had started to show signs! But on the plus side When I got home there were about 80 brine shrimp hatched from the batch that had failed (I left it running) so I fed them on that! Then left the unhatched eggs in tank water over night got up this morning and the stupid eggs had hatched so luckily they got another feed (stupid BBS not hatching on time grrr)

I lost 3 fry yesterday but they were the smallest of the lot so that was to be expected! The rest of the fry were hunting down the bbs as soon as it went in bless them they're like little cats stalking a bird!

GOt a question though my fry are now two wks old today and I noticed that some had a green sheen to them (the parents are blue or they could be from the red parents had two batches hatch in my little experiment) I thought they werent meant to show any colour for quite a while! Also they all have a stipe going from their nose to the back of the head does this mean they are stressed or is this normal too? The blue mum has a similar stripe which also stops in the same place the only time that disappeared was when she was courting with the male then her entire colour changed! I've seen her when she's totally stressed out she gets the full bar and loses all of her colour (I remember from when I transported her home) otherwise she has always been this colour right from the first time I saw her!

 

[Joby]

Good to hear your bbs finally hatched. I quite often chuck a few eggs into the tank so they can hatch whenever as I use shell-less ones. Can you get frozen bbs? might be worth keeping that in just in case your hatchery fails again.l

I find colour comes in quite early on my fry. Its usually the iridesence you see first and mine mostly show green although they then turn out blue. The line across them is usually a sign that its going to be a dark fry and yes, its their stress-stripe. You can tell by the day they hatch which will be dark and which will be light fry by the line just visible from the eye. It usually goes away and you get full colour at around 5-6 week or definately when they are jarred.

 

[juliehainsworth]

Thanks Joby! I think mine are the shell-less ones! They are in a bottle full of liquid! (presume salt)! Is it true that the fry can eat the shell less eggs too? I've not been keen to try them on it but the packaging says they can! I think I will get some frozen ones for them to try!

I think most of my fry are going to be dark even though there are a couple of light ones left but the three little ones that died were the really light ones! The green is irridecent as you described I never expected to see it on them yet though!

Another question Sorry! How big should the fry be (roughly) at this age? Mine are various sizes but none much bigger than a cm in length and maybe a couple mm wide is this normal or are they too small for theyre age?

 

[grahamsokel]

I would check that the brine has salt in.I use the waterlife Artimeashell-less brine shrimp eggs and they are in a bottle with water but when i add this to the hatcher i still have to add salt.It could be the lack of salt that is giving you hatching problems

 

[juliehainsworth]

Yeah thats the one I use! I do add salt I've not had problems until yesterday I think it could be because I changed my heater settings on the tank I have my hatchery in! I also moved the heater from being next to the hatchery (could be the reason) Not sure if I have a faulty heater or if my thermometer is faulty its one of the two!

I thought the eggs were kept in a really strong salt soloution I don't think it is just water because if you put a drop of the stuff in normal water you can see it is thicker than the normal water I could be wrong though

 

[grahamsokel]

sorry i missread your post i thought you meant the salt was in the brine and i took it thats all you where using )

 

[juliehainsworth]

It's ok! I didnt take offence! I'm not the brightest of sparks lol!

 

[grahamsokel]

me neither but i have never had a problem hatching these and they nearly always start within 24hrs but i hatch mine at mid 80s for the axolotols

 

[juliehainsworth]

Yeah it's normally just under 24 hours that they start hatching! I think it must be the temp difference! I'll just up the temp again and hopefully that will work!

 

[Pugbrat]

No matter how hard I try to strain the BBS, unhatched eggs still come when I siphon them to a basin. Since there's no way to separate the unhatched eggs with the swimming BBS, I just rinse it with tank water and swish the straining cloth in the tank.

Oddly, the fry also eat the unhatched eggs and fill their tummies up with them. I don't know if it will have an effect on them later, but at 6 weeks they seem fine. They were doing that since early on too.

When my hatchery fails... or when I can only get very few live BBS, I just let them eat the eggs! )

I hope your fry has is over the ich?

 

[juliehainsworth]

Unfortunately they are still covered in the ich even though starting to wonder if it is that!

Yeah my other fry that died off at the two wk stage ate the eggs (which is prob why I'm nervous bout it) Some eggs do get into the tank as I use a pipette to catch the bbs and to stop it going everywhere in the tank I drop it so it lands in a bottle top (saves on some cleaning) the bbs then swim out into the tank and the eggs stay put!