My last fry died yesterday! What went wrong?

Cascudo · Post by **Cascudo** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:14 pm

One week ago I stated that from my batch of fry only two where alive.
This week I found their dead bodies on the bottom of the tank.

I wonder what went wrong.

The things that might have caused a problem:
- I started CO2 injection, but with a very simple setup. Not very powerful. This one that has got only a pressure-can and a clock. Also I measured the parameters and it didn't seem to change a lot to the chemistry of the tank, nor didn't the calculated CO2-level seem dangerous.
- I stopped feeding brine shrimp eggs and started to feed pellets. Because the fry lived scattered through the tank, I couldn't really control if they took it.
- I continued waterchanges of 20% every two weeks. It is a 160 liter tank, so I guessed it would be alright.

This really frustates me! The fry must have been over two months old!

In the weekend I shall meassure the parameters again. I did it yesterday, but I can't see the colours very accurately by false light.

Post by **Barbie** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 6:39 pm

How warm is the tank? How often were you feeding them? Were the fry you lost thin? What else is in the tank? I have mine set up in a tank of their own, and I do twice weekly 30% water changes to keep the nitrate levels down. After my experience with the queen arabesques, I let the male care for the fry and get them almost out of their yolk sac, then I take them and put them in a hanging solid acrylic container, with a hole in one end, with a sponge in it to keep the fry in. Then I run a sponge filter that's air driven so that it runs over the side of the small box. This gives me the buffering capacity of the large tank full of water, with the fish in a small area where I can really pour the food to them. So far I've only lost one zebra fry, and that one wasn't hollow, so I'm not exactly sure what happened there. Hope that helps!

Barbie

Cascudo · Post by **Cascudo** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:07 pm

Temperature: 29 degrees celsius
Feeding: daily
I think they were rather thin, but they survived for two months already and I saw them feeding sometimes
In the tank are:
4 adult zebra's
3 apistogramma cacatoides (dwarf cichlids, show no interest in the babies, too busy with each other

)
2 armano shrimps
1 dermygonus pumilus (surface dweller)
tank volume: 160 liters, I let them in the tank. Exactly for taking profit of the buffering capacity, as you said.

Matrix99 · Post by **Matrix99** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:58 pm

Sorry to heard that Cascudo !

They are so many reasons I dont let go zebra fry alone in the main tank.

I keep them in there own tank too.

Best success I had is by moving the cave (Male & eggs) to a floating container in the main tank. then after Yolk sack consumed return back the Cave & Male to the main and grow up the fry in a 10 gal tank.

I just remmember all my casualties learning the way !

Cascudo · Post by **Cascudo** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:22 pm

At least some good news after some dissapointments this week.

Today I saw one of the fry. Alive and kicking!

So that gives some courage, there shouldn't be something in the tank that kills al fry straight away.

It is the same tank that I commented the algue problem. Today I introduced a little army of Armano shrimp to fight at least the symptons (now 10 in total).

Thanks for the responses