Apisto Fry Food
Contents:
- Apisto Pediatrics
by Pete Johnson <petej/tlg.net> (Tue, 17 Sep 96)
- Nutrition
by "Darren J. Hanson" <djhanson/calweb.com> (Sun, 28 Sep 1997)
- Not fed fry
by Donald Nute <dnute/ai.uga.edu> (Mon, 9 Feb 1998)
- Fry Survival
by Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise/bewellnet.com> (Mon, 12 Oct 1998)
- f1 spawning
by IDMiamiBob/aol.com (Sat, 13 Mar 1999)
- f1 spawning
by Frauley/Elson <fraulels/minet.ca> (Sat, 13 Mar 1999)
- f1 spawning
by Charles Ray <raychah/auburn.campuscwix.net> (Sat, 13 Mar 1999)
- Unfed fry
by IDMiamiBob/aol.com (Fri, 23 Jul 1999)
by Pete Johnson <petej/tlg.net>
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 96
To: "Erik Olson" (e-mail)
I have yet to see any Apisto fry too small to eat baby brine shrimp.
OTOH, I couldn't raise Laeatacara dorsiger fry until I supplied them with
microscopic food via java moss and floating plants, along with Liquifry
and Tetra's baby egglayer powder. I'm not sure which of these did the
trick, but the newborn fry were too small to eat baby brine shrimp.
----------------------------------------------------
If wishes were fishes we'd all have ponds.
Pete Johnson San Jose, CA petej-at-tlg.net
----------------------------------------------------
by "Darren J. Hanson" <djhanson/calweb.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997
To: apisto/majordomo.pobox.com
Hi Ed;
I've been raising tropical catfish for the past 10 years and have had no
problem with raising or survival rate with my fry. I feed them newly hatched
baby brine from the time they are freeswimming until they are about 3-4
weeks of age and then adding finely ground flakes to this diet until they
are approximately 1/2" in lenth and then I start feeding them live tubifex
worms.
I don't know about this other diet but, this seems to work quite well.
When I first started breeding corys in the early 80's I would start them out
on finely ground flake food and had a horrendous mortality rate. It seemed
they were not interested in this food as a starter food. I would go back to
starting them on the newly hatched baby brine and had no problem. I was
constantly trying to find other foods to start them out on but I always had
the same result. High mortality rates. I quit trying to find another starter
food and just simply kept feeding the newly hatched baby brine.
I have found with my corys, apistos, angels, killies and other species that
I breed, that if I try to start the fry out on anything other than the newly
hatched baby brine I end up with the same results as before. High mortality.
I'm not against trying new foods but with all my years of breeding I've
decided to stick with what I know works for me. That doesn't mean these
other foods wouldn't work for other people who are breeding fish. It would
be nice to see if others are trying other combinations and finding out their
results. What may work for one person may not work for another.
Kaycy
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by Donald Nute <dnute/ai.uga.edu>
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998
To: apisto/majordomo.pobox.com
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Pierluigi e Simone Vicini wrote:
> I was doing an experiment living two apisto borellii fry alone in a well
> planted tank without giving them anything to eat. Let me tell you that the
> growth rate is the same of the growth rate of lightly fed fry. No deformed
> growth no strange colors. 3 months old now. They are feeding on something
> that is not visible. But they are doing great.
>
> Anyone did the same?
>
I don't use bare tanks for breeding or for raising fry for exactly this
reason. With killies, I like to remove the fish from a well-established
tank with a sponge filter, gravel, and plants, then plunk the killie fry
in that tank as they hatch. They seem to do much better than in bare
containers even when I feed brine shrimp nauplii to both. And I can leave
town for a weekend (or even a week!) and my fish-sitter doesn't have to
feed those tanks.
Don
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Donald Nute
Professor and Head, Department of Philosophy (706) 542-2823
Director, Artificial Intelligence Center (706) 542-0358
The University of Georgia FAX (706) 542-2839
Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A http://ai.uga.edu/~dnute
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by Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise/bewellnet.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998
To: apisto/majordomo.pobox.com
Gareth,
After reading your letter, I can only scratch my head and wonder. I commonly
breed and raise fry in tanks as small as 10 gallons. I recently raised a 75 fry
of A. sp. Red-tail Rio Xingu in a 12 gallon (14 X 18") tank to 3/8" TL size
without any problem. They got a 25% water change once a week, if they were lucky.
I fed them 1 or 2X each day with live baby brine and powdered flakes. I kept the
female with the fry but removed the male after he got tired of playing second
fiddle to the fry by the female. In the past I had as much success with using
commercial & frozen fry foods as I do with live foods - well, maybe they did grow
slower. I rarely changed more than 25%, 1 each week. Obviously, you do something
different or your water is really strange.
My suggestions are not to over feed the fry. Cut your feedings to only 1/3 of
what you feed now and feed them twice as often. Also check your tapwater for
excess nitrates. Although nitrates don't usually bother adult fish, fry are much
more sensitive to it. Many localities have a high level of nitrates in their tap
water - not high enough to be dangerous to humans, but tough on fry. Changing
water frequently with this kind of water won't help lower the polutants. You
might also check your water for copper. It's best, if you have copper plumbing,
to run the tap for a couple of minutes to flush the lines of any copper leached
from them. Also check the pH of you tap water. If it's 1 pH unit higher than the
tank's pH, and especially if the pH values straddle the neutral line (e.g. 6.5
vs. 7.5), you might be getting rapid pH changes and accompanying ammonia spikes
that are rough on fry. Just some thoughts. I guess not everyone is blest with
water from reservoirs derived from snow melt from the Rocky Mountains like me.
The water department actually raises the pH to prevent acid leaching of the water
pipes. Still my water comes out of the tap at pH 7.5, < 2ºdGH, & <1ºdKH.
Mike Wise
Gareth Casey wrote:
> This subject has most likely been beaten to death but I am having
> problems raising my fry. At present I have 5 schools of fry.
> 1 A. Resticulso-free swimming today
> 1 A. Caucatoides-free swimming today
> 3 A. Borelli- free swimming 3 days
> I have killed off numerous batches of fry and I try something a little
> different each time. This time I have gotten that egg-layer food mush
> that you add to the tank. I mix into a small cup of water and then aim
> it at the fry with an eyedropper. I also have used frozen BBS. I keep
> well-aged sponges in the tanks and even use java moss and java ferns to
> give them something to nibble on. So far all I have managed to raise are
>
> 2 A. Cauc. out of 6 -8 spawns of these fish. I normally do 10-15% water
> changes daily altho I have tried 10% twice daily and also none at all.
> When I feed them the food seems to go to the bottom, usually 2-3 drops
> per school, unless it's a really big school. I leave mom and pop in the
> tank and that doesn't seem to be a problem altho with the Borelli I have
>
> 3 females that all spawned at the same time in a 15G tank. The Cauc. are
>
> in a 20L and the Resticulosa are in a15G also. They are all in species
> tanks with no dithers. will I be better off tryong to separate the fry
> from the parents as I am tired of killing off the little guys. Should I
> switch to microworms or some other type of FW live food that I can
> maintain in the tank ?? I feed the adults heavily on black worms and
> they all are doing great but Iam really disgusted with myself for not
> getting right yet even tho I read all I can and try to apply as much as
> possible. I haven't hatched my own BS yet and that is next on my list of
>
> things to do. I read about feeding them de-encapsulated eggs also,
> opinions on that ?? Will someone plz help.
> Sorry for the long post but I am really getting fustrated as the same is
>
> happening to my Angels and my Cory Cats that I manage to spawn. :(
>
> TIA
> Gareth Casey
>
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by IDMiamiBob/aol.com
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999
To: apisto/admin.listbox.com
Vern writes:
> Has anyone encountered this problem,f1 fish are harder to spawn.I was
> talking to David Soares and we got talking about this.He said that some of
> his wild fish will spawn quite easy and then when the fry are old enough
> they are very difficult or impossible to get a spawn out of them.I have had
> this happen with my uaupesi.I would think it would be the other way
> around.The wild fish are not use to your water and if you got them to spawn
> the fry would grow out in your water and be use to it.So they should spawn
> more readly.I think this happens with the more difficult spieces.Has anyone
> run into this before.Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
In the wild, fry "grow out" on a very broad-spectrum diet. In our tanks, we
tend to feed them BBS and pat ourselves on the back for our good husbandry.
There are too many nutrients necessary for any vertebrate species to flourish
for this to be an effective practice. At the current time I am raising my fry
on BBS, but not making serious efforts toward breeding. I have encountered
this for the first time with my current generation of cacatuoides, which are a
long way from F1, to a small degree. I usually have microworms and/or vinegar
eels available to supplement. Translating this line of thinking to an F1
breeding problem, the few F1s that overcome their deficit pass on whatever
ability to overcome they have on to F2, and the problem diminishes.
Gary had the following thought:
<snip>> Maybe wild males with no territorial/spawning drive get driven out of
desirable habitats, and effectively culled.<snip>
Over the millenia, DNA with no desire to propagate itself will long ago have
been culled. Face it- the only reason we exist {theological justifications
excused) is to duplicate little strands of nucleic acids. Any DNA which
doesn't reproduce extincts itself. A reproductive drive is essential for
survival of the species. Gary's unmotivated fish would have been all but
genetically culled long before modern times. Only one in a zillion fish would
be born with this non-desire gene.
My explantion is only theoretical. YMMV.
Bob Dixon
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by Frauley/Elson <fraulels/minet.ca>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999
To: apisto/admin.listbox.com
IDMiamiBob@aol.com wrote:
> In the wild, fry "grow out" on a very broad-spectrum diet. In our tanks, we
> tend to feed them BBS and pat ourselves on the back for our good husbandry.
> There are too many nutrients necessary for any vertebrate species to flourish
> for this to be an effective practice.
> Gary had the following thought:
>
> <snip>> Maybe wild males with no territorial/spawning drive get driven out of
> desirable habitats, and effectively culled.<snip>
>
> Over the millenia, DNA with no desire to propagate itself will long ago have
> been culled. Face it- the only reason we exist {theological justifications
> excused) is to duplicate little strands of nucleic acids. Any DNA which
> doesn't reproduce extincts itself. A reproductive drive is essential for
> survival of the species. Gary's unmotivated fish would have been all but
> genetically culled long before modern times. Only one in a zillion fish would
> be born with this non-desire gene.
>
> My explantion is only theoretical. YMMV.
>
> Bob Dixon
Bob,
So much for thinking online :-)
My only addition is this:
cacatuoides, wild and selected, never gave me a problem, and other than
the easyish taeniatus Moliwe, I haven't seen this problem with
'whitewater' fish. Blackwater - yes, constantly. But, I feed my fry bbs,
microworms, and crushed flake, and I raise them with chunks of wood and
tons of plants in their tanks. It isn't a natural diet, but it works for
'generalist' wild fish and f-1s. It doesn't work for highly specialized
fish from narrow ranges, at least not on the surface. Maybe it's
perfectly adequate, but it's possible what's missing is what we're
missing here.
On the surface, there does seem to be a correlation between adaptive
specialization and difficulties with F-1. With apistos, it would seem
connected to harem spawning specialists. It could also be these fish are
easier to physically stress out. I can only offer questions.
It could be dietary, but if people can remember spawning triggers
they've used for F-1 or more spawnings of highly adapted fish, it might
point us to other explanations as well. Males who don't court, display
or fight among themselves are very common among captive bred
Pelvicachromis. I'm told the pros who 'mass' produce them in Europe dose
them with hormones and have no problem. The DNA may have the info, but
what is it that makes the trigger for it so weak in some captive-bred
dwarfs?
-Gary
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by Charles Ray <raychah/auburn.campuscwix.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999
To: apisto/admin.listbox.com
I have seen this problem to a degree. My cacatuoides weren't doing
anything. They were getting frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp almost
exclusively. I was feeding live food only to whatever fish I had in that
was new and different. I threw 2 pair of cacatuoides into an outdoor
wading pool early last spring and when I pulled them in the fall, they were
magnificiently filled out and have bred like clockwork, every 2 weeks, all
winter. During the summer the fish were never fed anything other than what
was in the pool - daphnia, mosquito larvae, scuds, insect larvae, etc. As
a result, I have tried to increase the amount of live foods to all my fish
over the last 6 months and I think I'm seeing favorable results. The
summer outside truly invigorated the fish and the apparent primary
difference was the food?? These are the same fish that didn't want to seem
to breed. I have fed their offspring live food as much as possible,
approximately 50% of their diet is live daphnia, mosquito larvae, live
bloodworms and other microcrustaceans. They have already began to breed.
I realize this is only anecdotal but I have had these fish for several
generations and thought I was losing vigor - but I've changed my mind. I
think we tend to reserve royal treatment for the newest wild-caught fish we
have and tend to treat our other fish with our average treatment. If we
give our F1s, F2s, or F10's royal treatment, they will probably reward you
with spawnings. By the way, it's been such a mild winter in central
Alabama that I've collected mosquito larvae every single weekend.
Charles Ray
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by IDMiamiBob/aol.com
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999
To: apisto/admin.listbox.com
In a message dated 7/23/1999 6:20:08 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
francinebethea@excite.com writes:
> A few weeks ago I received advice from the list on how to artificially hatch
> a clutch of nijsenni fry. Thank you all for your input.
> I have been feeding the fry microworms and frozen bbs. I also did a partial
> water change everyday. Thankfully this has been the largest fry survival
> rate ever.
> In the 2.5 gallon tank there was a large piece of bogwood with java moss
> attached that made it difficult to clean the debris from the bottom of the
> tank. I removed it and put it directly in a tank that had been filled with
> plants and a sponge. This tank has been running empty for three weeks.
> Tonight I noticed movement in that tank. There were 3 fry in the tank!
> They must have been on the bogwood caught in the moss. These fry were
three
> times the size of the fry that I had been wetnursing.
> Why have these fry done so well being fed nothing?
> Should I now put the other fry in this tank and not feed them?
> Sorry for going on and on, but I wanted to paint the whole picture. Your
> advice is greatly appreciated.
>
These fry have not gone unfed. Between the java moss and the sponge filter,
they have found lots of stuff to eat. Their little eyes are smaller than
yours so they can see the infusoria hanging out in the moss better than you
can. They have had a varied supply of live foods. They also have probably
had lower levels of nitrates and DOCs, being only three of them. They are
probably ready to recieve bigger foods by now.
My best fry survival comes when the tank they are hatched in is loaded with
slimy globby hairy algae. The micro-goodies in these environments provide
better for the fry than I can even with BBS. I don't hatch BBS or feed these
fry for about five days.
Bob Dixon
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Apistogramma/Dwarf Cichlids
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