Striatas make bad baby sitters!! pics included

[kimura]

I was about to feed my fish late a few days ago when my wife alerted me that the striatas were acting strange. they were swarming like a pack of hungry wolves around my 2 bolivian rams. upon further inspection i noticed there were eggs on the rock and rams were valiantly trying to defend them from the striatas. the female would make a pass and lay a row of eggs and the male would quickly come behind her. even some panda cories were trying to get some fresh snacks.

i was just going to leave the eggs but when my wife saw how hard the rams were trying to protect the eggs and failing, she started to cry. so i grabbed my 12 gallon from the garage and filled it with tank water. i removed the rock with eggs and replaced it with a fresh rock. the rams loaded that rock up too, which i also removed. i took a bunch of filter materials from an established tank and laid it in the filter area of the 12 gallon eclipse. i added tons of java moss and java fern from other tanks and put a heater on. after 2 days i started noticing black specs in the eggs. now little tails have protruded and the eggs are wiggling around. i read the parents dig holes for these hatchlings which ive seen my rams do but never knew why. strangly my eclipse has small round divets on the bottum where the legs stands are underneath. like instict the wigglers found their way to these indentations. i've begun preparing food for them when they become free swimming in 5 days. not sure how many eggs were eaten but i saved around 120 with maybe 15-20 not hatching. ill let u guys know what happens.


notice the already buldging stomach



this is the female defending her brood

[palaeodave]

i was just going to leave the eggs but when my wife saw how hard the rams were trying to protect the eggs and failing, she started to cry...... i saved around 120 with maybe 15-20 not hatching. ill let u guys know what happens.

Female sentimentality translating into productivity? How odd! (I joke, I joke!)

Congrats on the babies - hope you manage to keep them going. We've never had much luck with fry in my house

[Mike Ophir]

Thats interesting....a while ago my girlfriend started crying when she saw some caudipunctata botias eating a dead african red eye tetra and nipping their fins...oh well i guess we're in the same boat.

Mike

[kimura]

well its been a few days and the fry seem to be doing fine. they look like small eggs with tails and now i can see two small dots that are probably eyes. they are still very small and wiggling around often bunching in larger groups. i purchased some frozen baby brine shrimp and had a brine shrimp hatchery from a previous barb fry atempt. i havent fed them yet since they are still feeding off their egg sacks. im waiting a few more days for them to become free swimming and then i'll start with the brine shrimp and hopefully i can transition to crushed flake. i tried to photo the fry but its very hard to focus on them because of the size. my wife is estatic and its the first thing she looks at when she gets home.......

[kimura]

Wow i didnt realize how much these fry poop! started carefully vacooming the tank to get as much as i can. i didnt think there was that much sand in the tank. even going slowly i had to "save" two from the water bucket. anyways i noticed they are starting to jump around and maybe swim for an inch or two. some of them are getting big and most have lost the egg yolk that was attached. eyes are clearly visible and the tail is getting stronger. i'm about to hatch some live brine shrimp but have fed them with frozen hikari baby brine shrimp. the shrimp are like specs (and boy do they smell) but its uncertain whether they are eating them or not. just incase i've started doing 25 percent water changes daily to help with the waste. its difficult to count and i believe i've lost a few but there are still over 70 fry in the tank.

i realize this is probably in the wrong forum now, feel free to move it if need be. Here is pic of the original tank they came from. 40 gallon breeder filtered with a fluval 304, 1 30 watt power glo with reflector and 25 % water change every 10 day or so. includes rams, striatas, panda cories, rummy nose tetras and some amano shrimp.


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here are pics of the fry as of today. it was pretty hard to focus on them even with a macro lense.