feeding/raising fry.

[blackmoors]

I've had multiple batches of goldfish fry but in varying success.....

I've read on numerous threads and forums an multiple Google searches with all different conflicting ideas.

So I figured I would ask a few of you here.

I've been feeding mine on a few various types of food. Baby brine shrimp. Frozen baby brine shrimp. First bites etc.

I feed them small amounts every 2 hrs or so.

And I have a reasonable amount of natural light throughout the day through the window.

I also use an led light at times...

Now here's my questions.

How much light should they receive? Is 8 to 10 hrs a day to much?

And when feeding do you all have a cut off time for feeding? Ie. 5pm or 8 pm or do you set it up with auto feeders etc to feed every 2 hrs regardless of time? (All through the night??)

I do approx 50% wc daily and have a seeded sponge filter in the tank.

I siphon the bottom and remove any dead or malformed fry from the tank ASAP.

I also have a small amount of parrots feather plant (fox tail?) floating in the tank for them to graze on the algae etc.

I've tried multiple ideas and methods but generally struggle to raise more than 3-5 to a decent size.

And they tend to be slow growers??

I have raised comets, dragon eyes, ranchu, orandas and a failed batch of waiken.

So some ideas would be great.

Cheers

[bodoba]

My first thought is the temp and the second thought is the water changes and the third is the batch size per tub.

From what I know feedings are 4-6 times daily, water changes 100%, batch split up into three groups based on growth rate and size. Culling at two, four, and eight weeks.

Are you remineralizing your water with aragonite or crushed coral? If I remember your temp is not an issue but can't remember how consistent it is. There are also growth rate factors based on the temp of water eggs grow in.

The only other thing I can think of is the age of the parents. Bigger and stronger spawns being provided in the first three years for most breeds (BEP's and a few others can take longer to develop)

I don't know where you could possibly get a hold of hermanto but I think that would be the breeder you are looking for since Indonesia and Australia have similar issues when raising fry.

[blackmoors]

Yeah temps I keep at 23°c.

I use a water conditioning salt by aquaponics.

100% ? that would make catching the fry interesting.

I generally siphon via an air stone to avoid sucking up any fry. Then carefully remove the stone to clean the bottom of tank.

Do you airate the water from day dot. Using an air stone? Or leave the water still until they hatch??

I just had another spawn this morning. This time from my panda moors.

first spawn from Them. So another attempt lol.

[Hinfin]

Hi Blackmoors,

Sorry to read you have not yet been successfull raising fry. Basically i think most fry will do well in the same husbandry routine as you keep their parents in, they just need more WC. Daily 50% sounds allright if they have enough room for the fry, twice would be preferrable. I feed fry 3 times per day, BBS exclusively during first month and then begin to add other foodsources slowly as i cull the numbers. BBS is a very clean and healthy foodsource for fry.

There are a couple of things i notice when i see inexperienced goldfish keepers raising fry. (Please note i am not trying to criticize and i know most of this is due to being insecure about what is best for the babies!):

- Changing too much all the time, feeding too much/too often and wanting too grow out the fry too fast, culling too few(and overstocking) so generally not maintaining good and stable waterquality. This constant waterquality in fry stage is most important, you need a very strict routine in maintaining this.

- Not treating for flukes, you can keep goldfish fry on a bit of salt in the beginning but when the fry are bigger (few weeks old) they need to be treated for (gill)flukes. Flukes are enemy number one for goldfish fry.

If you can give me more info on where you think all seems to go wrong and fish start dying off i might be able to help you out. Is there anything specific you see on dead fry or did you examin them?

[blackmoors]

Cheers for any info.

Atm it's all been trial and error

I'm ordering a different brand of bbs cysts as I think the ones I have aren't any good. A very poor hatch rate...

I have had to rely on Hikari frozen bbs and ocean nutrition instant bbs. As my hatch rate of bbs would starve the fry.

I tend to loose quite a few within the first few days. Then all goes well for a while.

They get to around 1cm long and of reasonable size where you can see the features and shape etc to cull easier. But them one by one they drop off for no known reason????.

I did a prazipro treatment on one batch of fry and within a few hours of treatment I'd lost the entire tank of fry????

I didn't even dose to the recommendation I basically gave 1/3 of a normal dose...

So I haven't done so again.

I wasn't sure if I had them in to cold/warm temp or if there was too much/ not enough light?

Only ever did I have one batch of fry with mouth issues... I put it down to possible genetics?

And haven't spawned the two adults together again.

They have had better spawns with different pairings??

[blackmoors]

I'm currently onto approx my 15th spawn of different goldies.

I have two batches on the go right now.

One batch is approx 5-6 days old and the second batch are 4 hour old eggs.

[Hinfin]

I too had trouble with poor BBS hatchrate and also with getting the unhatched eggs out. Ive had some fry that ate the unhatched BBS eggs and died. But there is simply no alternative and once i got the sieves to clean up the hatched BBS and finetuned the hatching process all went fine, so dont give up! Frozen food is not a good choise, better to try first bites or liquid fry if BBS is not an option. Once i got my hatchery running smoothly it cost me 1/2 to 1 hour every evening to do the works, i just upgraded the size of the bottles they were in.

I have had no problem with prazi, but i also salted the fry at 1 level tablespoon per 2,5 gallon, about 1 gram per liter. If Prazi kills the flukes it will make a huge mess in terms of waterquality. WC alot during prazi and keep a bit of salt in there to protect the fish. You do need to keep WC up, and just redose 1/3 of treatment for 3 days after WC as minimum. Then you need to do the second round aswell.

Deformed/locked open mouths are not genetical, gillflukes are to blame.

Yes some parents breed better together, no idea why.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Hinfin

[blackmoors]

Hope this works.

This is the other food I use.

Edited September 24, 2014 by blackmoors

[blackmoors]

[blackmoors]

Sorry having troubles with posting.

[Hinfin]

You could try that, but will run up the bill considerably i imagine.

Maybe someone in Australia can help out with reccommending a supplier of BE with good hatchrate? It really isnt such a big deal once you have everything running....

[blackmoors]

Is 2 weeks of age enough to prazipro ??

[blackmoors]

How much prazipro would you use for 40 litres of water?

[Hinfin]

I'm sorry i cant help you there, i use prazi 100% powder. I do use it at 1/3 of the advised dosage and WC every day 75%+ for 3 days. So i am used to different medication. Prazi is actually the only medication i use so its best if someone else chimes in.

The right time to treat with prazi, at least i think it is, is when their gillplates have hardend, so at about 3 weeks i think. If obvious signs of flukes, better to treat earlier.

Do not forget the salt 1gr/liter so 4 level tablespoons for 40l

Edited September 24, 2014 by Hinfin

[blackmoors]

Cheers.

I went for a lower dosage than std adults.

I've already done the salt.

[bodoba]

The adult dosage for prazi pro is 1/4 tsp per 40L I am guessing halfing that dose would be easiest at 1/8tsp but I just use standard dosing. However I don't get my fry from eggs mine are pond spawned gathered once or twice a season. Depending on maintenance work. Winter spawns I allow to be consumed.

[blackmoors]

I did a prazi treatment last night and this morning the water is VERY murky etc.

So doing a wc right now.

Do I re-add more prazi? Or wait?

[bodoba]

The water will be murky. The prazi can cause a foam or cloudiness to the water but as long as the params are fine there is no need for concern

[fantailfan1]

I prazied my fry at one week. I used PraziPro and had very gentle aeration with an airstone during the treatment.

I believe Lis used the product you posted a pic of above and her fry did very well with it. But I would guess it is quite a bit pricier.

What temp is your brine shrimp hatchery?

[blackmoors]

Ok.

Well I pulled the trigger early maybe and I've siphoned 50% of water out.

Should I re-add prazipro to suit what I removed? ?

My hatchery for bbs were at diff temps. To see if I could find what worked.

26°c upto 30°c

In various batches...

I've just ordered some NT labs bbs eggs so I'll try them soon.

[blackmoors]

Some of the 2 week old (today) ranchu fry.

The straw is on the outside of some airline tubing I use to siphon water in and out of the tank.

Helps hold it in place.

I put an air stone on bit when siphoning out and remove it when siphoning in.

Edited September 25, 2014 by blackmoors