poxboy Posted September 26, 2004 Share Posted September 26, 2004 I'm so happy . My gold occies have had babies and I can now see about 15 - 20 pinhead sized fry moving around the tank, from shell to shell. I now have a couple of questions for those of you in the know. Will the parents eat the babies ? I had a pair of J. dickfeldi in with them, but removed them in fear of the fry getting eaten. How long before I need to feed them, and what will they eat ? What is the average spawn size for occelatus ? Can i expect more fry to come out of hiding? Any help will be well apreciated. Thanks. Bretto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dory Posted September 26, 2004 Share Posted September 26, 2004 hey, they will start eating as soon as they can find anything big enough to fit in their mout (baby brine shrimp are ideal), the parents do not eat the fry you need to worry more about bigger fry eating smaller fry, a spwan of 20-25 is good for a first spawn that is probably all of them their spawns can number up to 40. They should grow pretty fast if fed on baby brine and are an absolute joy to watch. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of spawning accies as i do! Cheers Dory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiona Posted September 26, 2004 Share Posted September 26, 2004 Microworms and finely powdered flake or pellet (good quality) are also suitable for occie fry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted September 26, 2004 Share Posted September 26, 2004 The female WILL eat the young, when a new lot of eggs are due to hatch. The males seems to be a great dad, and will try and prevent the female from eating the young, but in the end, she will get most if not all of them. I usually found the best time to remove the young was just before they left the shell, as it was easier to catch one shell than lots of tiny fish. Failing that, go after them with a small net, and try to bring them to the front glass. Having the young out also made feeding easier. I put them into a 10” glass bottomed tank and feed them micro worms, which they could easily find at their leisure. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dory Posted September 27, 2004 Share Posted September 27, 2004 wow, i never knew that my occies have spawned 3 times now and at one point all 3 sets of young were in the smae tank and the mother did not touch any of them. I had read that occie parents never eat their young Oh well, sorry for miss informing if i did Cheers Dory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted September 27, 2004 Share Posted September 27, 2004 As with all cichlids, there is variety between fish of the same species. What you may or may not have realised, when you have a large spawn of really small fish, it is really easy for us to not notice if our numbers drop. What you can look for is the female attacking the young. You won’t possibly realise she is doing it because she is so fast (and they are so small), but what you will see is very fast darting movement. The young themselves try to find shelter under the mother (which is really sad), so you might see several darting movements in succession. You may have a good mother, and she may leave them alone, more or less, but the larger the young become, the more of a threat she will see them to be to the next generation of young coming through, which indeed they are. I have bread hundreds of occelatus, and it has been my experience that sooner or later, the young will be killed off (eaten). Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dory Posted September 27, 2004 Share Posted September 27, 2004 thanks for sharing Craig, now i know in the future not to leave the young in the same tank as the parents after they spawn. Thanks for the info Cheers Dory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.