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Peppermint BN genetic or hereditary problems?


Teamsherman

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Hi guys,

In the last two batches of fry I've had I have been having huge losses of fry. The first batch I lost about 50% in the first two weeks of them being free swimming and this latest batch it's been within a week of free swimming. 

The only two symptoms that are noticeable is that the ones that are about to perish swim in frantic circles all around the fry saver and they are also quite narrower in size to the ones that seem fine. 

It looks like some sort of central nervous system problem hence the circle swimming. 

I have about 45 from the previous batch that are growing well in my other grow out tank and about he same amount still in the fry saver. In a week or two once they are eating crushed flake well enough I will move them too but for now I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue?

Im totally aware that in nature their would be high losses but I'm thinking hat would be more due to predators than physical disorders. 

Anyway, any replies appreciated. 

Cheers,

Alan. 

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The water parameters are good. 

Looking closely at the ones that perish they are noticeably smaller than the ones that are eating and active. I'm thinking they are simply runts of the batch and were destined to die all along. 

I have moved 2 into a smaller fry saver in the grow out tank and usually if they are still good after 1-2 days I then move the lot of them so I can give the adults some space and quiet again. 

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In normal BN you get much better survival rates if you leave them with their parents.  They supposedly need to ingest some kind of beneficial gut flora from the parents waste during the first couple of months where their own digestive system is not 100% functional.
I don't know if the reason is 100% true, but I definitely had way better survival with normal BN when I was not moving fry til they were 2cm or so.  If they are in fry savers I imagine they are much smaller than that?

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Hey Ducksta,

Yep, ive been putting them into the saver which is in the main tank a few days after they are free swimming only cause I don't want them getting out throughout the main tank. 

With the next batch I'll leave the male in the cave within the saver for a few more days than usual and see how that batch goes. 

The first batch I had of which out of about 80 fry were all fine and I've only got about ten of them left that are all 4-5cm now and I did the exact same thing with them as the last two batches. 

I keep telling myself that the next batch I get I'll just let them go freely on their own time into the main tank but I just can't bring myself to do it each time I get more eggs! I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and take a chance next time! Atleast I know now I've got a good 70-80 that are going well so should have some more up for sale in a couple of months. 

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20 hours ago, Link2Hell said:

so why move them to a fry saver ?

To keep tabs on them and their progress. Much easier to monitor them as the tank is a big area for such small fish. 

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Personally I think you are making it harder for yourself. 

I would ditch the idea of sinking crushed flake to them as well. Stick with sinking vege pellet and cut veges. Then they can graze on it over the whole day and any less dominant fish can get in to it and get their strength up as well. 

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Don't take this the wrong way but water parameters are good is no a valid

answer so can you advise water parameters

 

What is filtration and do you run sponge filters in the breeding tank ?

For many years a friend supplied most of the Peps to the Sydney market

he had them in a 6x2x2 never removed the fry till they were of size this gave

them more stable water conditions and a large amount of bactofauna to feed off

zucchini, pumpkin and sinking pellets were the diet

 

I suggest you leave them in the breeding tank the worst would be you get the same

results and the best would be you cure the problem

you would need to put sponge prefilters over any canister intakes

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I've always been told with bristlenose that if you have large numbers of fry growing in with the parents that they will stop (slow down) breeding. I've never tested the theory and its likely wrong (not sure). What I have always done breeding BN is when I see a parent fanning then I pop the whole bamboo section (cave) into a fry saver (edit- in the same tank) and I don't remove the parent until I see free swimming fry in the fry saver. Never had a problem ever doing it that way.

 

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1 hour ago, Chuckmeister said:

I've always been told with bristlenose that if you have large numbers of fry growing in with the parents that they will stop (slow down) breeding. I've never tested the theory and its likely wrong (not sure). What I have always done breeding BN is when I see a parent fanning then I pop the whole bamboo section (cave) into a fry saver (edit- in the same tank) and I don't remove the parent until I see free swimming fry in the fry saver. Never had a problem ever doing it that way.

 

This is what I do also. 

The losses have stopped and out of about 80 I'm left with about 40 healthy fry. 

Ill give them another week in the saver then move them to the grow out tank. 

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Chuck - I'm not sure if I ever witnessed a slow down in breeding due to volume of fry growing out.  So I'm not sure how crowded the tanks would need to be to see it, but I suspect clean water and food are the bigger issue.
Back when I was "pumping them out" (by my standards but certainly not by the standards of guys with serious wholesale setups) my setup was as follows.
(And to be honest I might have been having 50% losses in early days as I have no idea how I would have tracked that.  But I never saw losses.)
4x2' footprint tank (18" high I think)
3x large air driven sponge filters.
Basically no substrate.  Caves, PVC pipes, and driftwood.
7 x adults - have forgotten ratio.  3 males 4 females I think...
I had literally hundreds of fry in there at any given time at various stages.
I'd drop coke bottle traps in there and catch a hundred at a time per trap, then sort them out and put anything roughly under 2cm back.  Stuff over 2cm I would move to a different tank where I could net out the right sizes and numbers as required.
These fish literally required the least intervention to successfully produce saleable numbers than any other fish I ever bred. Including convincts, and livebearers of all types!!

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yeah the implied point to me at least (when told) was that fish breed to maintain a line, survival etc and all that nature stuff but if the parents are surrounded  by alot of fry or multiple spawns then the natural instinct diminishes from a lack of need to breed.

I've always moved fish from fry saver to fry tanks (more from ease of catching them) but its still an interesting concept that is not theoretically way off the mark. Practically probably makes no difference.

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So I moved the remaining fry that have survived to this stage and out of just over 80 free swimming babies I now only have about 25 healthy remaining. 

The main breeding tank needs a clean which I'll do today and hopefully the recent storms ect will get them going again. My main female breeder is hanging out near the males favourite cave so maybe the water change will be just the right thing for them to go again. 

Currently I've got about 100 fry growing out which I'm happy about. 

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