• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Breeding CPDs - food stages

JacksonL

Member
Joined
27 May 2015
Messages
120
when doing my weekly tank maintenance last week I found some fish eggs amongst the S. repens and transferred them to a breeders net in my quarantine tank.
They hatched during the week and as of yesterday I have about 5 free swimming fry and a few more still clinging to the moss in the net.
I assume they are CPDs due to their prolific breeding and the other egg scatterers in the tank being neon tetras and ottos.
My question to experienced breeders is what I should be feeding and at what day they are ready for larger foods.
I gave them some Sera Micron last night, stirred into some water before pippetting it in, because the first pinch I put in just sat on the surface. I assume they have eaten that, or something else in the moss, as they have tiny rounded bellies this morning and are still swimming around.
Is there anything better to feed at this stage?
I have vinegar eels ready to go, but they look way too small to eat them right now. Any ideas on when to feed them? And roughly how long until they are ready for fresh hatched artemia?

Thanks for any help!
Here are some blurry top down photo of the “swimming eyes on sticks”
98E38993-7E38-4BC9-99B4-C514999DFF4B.jpeg
FE13EE38-7245-4E36-A55F-6F17D9216645.jpeg
 
Green water is my go to for starting off the smallest of fry,full of microscopic life such as rotifers for them to feed on the on.
I keep a few tubs out in the garden which I'll fill with old tank water and mulm then chuck a handful of hay into and leave to "ferment" as it were.
Never used vinegar eels so not sure how large they are but the fry might be able to take microworms now.
 
Hi all,
Green water is my go to for starting off the smallest of fry,full of microscopic life such as rotifers for them to feed on the on.
I keep a few tubs out in the garden which I'll fill with old tank water and mulm then chuck a handful of hay into and leave to "ferment" as it were.
Same for me .
Never used vinegar eels so not sure how large they are but the fry might be able to take microworms now.
They are about the same size. Vinegar Eels can get longer, but they are thinner. The advantage of Vinegar Eels (Turbatrix aceti) is they they swim well up in the water column.
Micro worm ..... P. redivivus is about 50 μm in diameter and just over 1 mm in length
"Banana Worms" (P. nepenthicola) are a bit smaller then Micro worms and even more productive.

cheers Darrel
 
Is there a guide one can find for getting a green water culture/micro fry cultures going? Green water as a term gets me nothing but “how do I get rid of” posts.

I raised my galaxies in a very mature shrimp tank that received powdered jbl gala/insect based flakes and various shrimp foods daily. So not the most useful advice.
 
Green water is my go to for starting off the smallest of fry,full of microscopic life such as rotifers for them to feed on the on.
I keep a few tubs out in the garden which I'll fill with old tank water and mulm then chuck a handful of hay into and leave to "ferment" as it were.
Never used vinegar eels so not sure how large they are but the fry might be able to take microworms now.
Thanks for that. I will get some tubs started this week for the next batch of eggs I find. How long does it generally take for the tubs to ‘ferment’ enough to draw from?
 
I normally take a handful of moss from my main tank and add it to my grow out tank. Then every few days/week I'll put it back in my main tank and replace with another handful of moss from my main tank. That way the micro fauna / aufwuchs can recolonise the moss and it stops too much debris accumulating in the moss.
If you have any structural leaf litter in the tank, that is a great source of aufwuchs.
When the fry are slightly larger I use a high protein formula from TA aquaculture, which is probably similar to Sera micron. It's already like dust but I put it in a pestle and mortar as it was still to big for the fry I was rearing.
Next I banana worms and try to then move the fry on to freshly hatched brineshrimp as soon as possible.
I've been trialling using moina and freeze dried decapsulated brineshrimp as an alternative to hatching brineshrimp as I find it a pain to hatch brineshrimp, frequently to ensure they provide maximum nutrition.
 
Thanks everyone. I haven’t been able to source hay for the green water so they are getting Sera Micron for now. They seem to be doing well on it, bellies look nice and full.
I tried some vinegar eels, but they still look to be too big for the fry.
Up to 7 free swimming fry now. Really hoping I can get them through until they can eat BBS. I have never managed to raise non-livebearer or mouthbrooders before so giving this my all.
 
My first galaxies just turned up one day as circa 1cm long fish without me noticing prior. I think as long as you can do this first 2 weeks you should be good.
 
Update: I have moved them out of the in tank mesh net and into a hang on/external breeder box. The net was looking a bit gross after feeding the powdered food and was a nightmare to clean, so the fry get an upgrade. Much easier to see them too.
They are chasing vinegar eels, and I have seen a fry grab a vinegar eel, but release it when it wriggled. I assume if they are continuously chasing and grabbing they are either of size to eat them, or will be in a day or so.

2E7A0D5A-FE57-4B5D-82A3-F96CF6F1D4B2.jpeg
Their new, much roomier, and cleaner pad

B41EE679-772A-48A9-9975-FAC245889655.png

This( blurry) shot shows the fry and vinegar eels for size comparison.
 
987B48F8-3DB5-4430-8B87-97E535A0C295.png

And they are on to fresh hatched artemia, as can be seen by this little guys orange belly.
The second the bbs hit the water this morning all seven were up out of the moss and hunting madly for them. Definitely didn’t get the same response with any of the previous foods (Sera Micron, ground up pellets, vinegar eels and micro worms).
 
View attachment 190013
And they are on to fresh hatched artemia, as can be seen by this little guys orange belly.
The second the bbs hit the water this morning all seven were up out of the moss and hunting madly for them. Definitely didn’t get the same response with any of the previous foods (Sera Micron, ground up pellets, vinegar eels and micro worms).

I've not kept a fish that didn't go mad for BBS - I can only assume they are the bacon sandwich of the fish world!
 
50B763B5-ACE4-4D38-A313-A21A27371433.jpeg

CPD fry are still chugging along nicely, filling their little bellies with brine shrimp. Interestingly there is now 8 of them, not just 7, with one being significantly smaller than the rest. It is at least half the size of the others. I assume the eggs I collected were from two spawns, one just about the hatch and then one egg from a fresh spawn.

I collected another 4 eggs from the jungle tank today that were up against the front glass. I have put them in with the other fry, going to see if they go ok just feeding vinegar eels, without using the messy fry powder.
 
Back
Top