Gombe Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 My gold occie have seemed to have paired up. Female occie hasn't moved from her shell for 4 days. What do I feed the little ones and when. I have flake , dried bloodworm, freeze dried brime shrimp. this is my first attemp at egg layers. Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted May 24, 2009 Share Posted May 24, 2009 Fry will be very small. I used micro worms others have used newly hatched brine shrimp. Both of these will need to be available as soon as the fry are free swimming. You might try putting NLS Grow through a mortar and pestle, then mix with water and syringe to shell opening. There are various types of commercially available liquid fry foods at LFS. Live food is best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod54 Posted May 25, 2009 Share Posted May 25, 2009 I agree with Craig Micro worms are great first food...not hard to culture Newly hatched brine shrimp...or frozen ones Freeze dried cyclop-eeze....after it sits for a while in water otherwise it floats Micro pellets I've seen parents chewing their food and spitting it out for fry Personally never had to use food as fine as liquid fry food I'd recommend addition of Malaysian trumpet snails to tank to clean up uneaten food Septic food will kill them quickly and it is very difficult to syphon off any uneaten food I also believe snail waste is a good media for infusoria(live first food)....perhaps this is why I've never needed to use liquid foods??? They are shelldwellers and would no doubt live with live snails as well as their old shells in the wild. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gombe Posted May 25, 2009 Author Share Posted May 25, 2009 Thanks for the tip guys, live food it is. i cleaned the gravel yesturday as I don't know when i will be able to do it again. Not to keen on snails Rod as i had an infestation a couple of months back. Now I will never put a plant in that hasn't been washed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted May 25, 2009 Share Posted May 25, 2009 I'd recommend addition of Malaysian trumpet snails to tank to clean up uneaten food Imagine me running screaming from the room Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod54 Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 I realise snails are a very emotive issue for lots of people Any logical reason they are so hated other than aesthetics? I can give lots of reasons why they are beneficial....really like to hear the logic for the negative? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gombe Posted May 26, 2009 Author Share Posted May 26, 2009 Snails work for you Rod. Theres nothing wrong with that. I had a problem with them, different type of snail though. juli Gombe came to my rescue hence the nic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 I realise snails are a very emotive issue for lots of people Any logical reason they are so hated other than aesthetics? I can give lots of reasons why they are beneficial....really like to hear the logic for the negative? I think we have had these discussions before Rod I have no issue with the aesthetics side of things. The problem I have with pretty much all snails (not so much mystery/apple snails) is that sooner or later they always seem to get to plague-like proportions. Being an aquarium keeper, we have to be able to control all aquarium parameters, and snails cannot be controlled to any degree with speed or reliability. Not to mention the extra work (and after all aren't the tanks enough work with usual maintenance?) involved in attempting to control them. How many posts have there been over the years seeking help to control a snail population? And one of the worst snails is the burrowing snail. How many fish rooms have an uncontrolled population of this individual species? Take a poll . In addition to this, the usual habit for a snail population become too large, should your tank have a heavy bioload (fish) that actually need the mechanical aeration to provide enough oxygen, should there be a power outage, either with a blackout (only to become more frequent in the future) or an airpump failure, what will die first - the fish or snails through lack of oxygen? No snail means all available oxygen will be there for fish. I have no aesthetic issues with snails as I say, but I keep FISHtanks. Lastly is the negative impact snails can have with substrate spawners which includes shell dwellers. Snails will/can eat eggs. I have had multiple experience with this with mystery snails (otherwise an okay (and interesting) snail because they are easy to control) eating shell dweller eggs. And have read where cone snails get into the brooding mouths of frontosa and eat the eggs. I personally have had issues with cone snails and clockspring and mystery snails. In addition, pond snails were building to a problem at one stage. Sometimes snails get into a tank and they weren’t put there. My big 2000 litre tank and my 900 litre tank both got pond snails and I am paranoid about their entry and I haven’t a clue how they got in (no plants). The hardest to eradicate were the clockspring which literally took YEARS to get down to the last one. If you want to keep/add snail to any or all your tanks that is totaly your decision to do so and I have absolutely not negative thoughts or opinons to your doing so. However, I believe you simply can't recommend the addition of snails as you can't guarantee that there will be no negative impacts from following this advice at some time in the future. Even if there may be small positive benefits from their inclusion, they will in all likelihood be outweighed in the future when the population increases. If they were easy to eradicate….but they are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod54 Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 You're right Craig.....the discussion continues.... I've never had MTS eat viable eggs....but this only applies to Dwarf cichlids including shelldwellers, killifish and Betta species....perhaps Ramshorns or mystery snails do??? I recommended MTS because they do bury themselves and get in amongst snail shells disposing the uneaten food....In my experience all are removed by occies in breeding shells..... They can get out of control if you overfeed....eradication is a problem....removal of excess population isn't....a bit of vegetable tied to a tin lid will thin numbers Perhaps removal and thinning the snail population is a chore.....but if you believe....as I do....that rotting excess food has the potential to be damaging to raising fry (and adult fish for that matter)then perhaps the effort is worth it.... I'm not suggesting snails for a display tank....I was suggesting snails in a breeding tank for SHELLdwellers to undertake a specific task..... Perhaps the bioload of snails could be a problem in a power failure....don't know how you measure that...and perhaps fish in an overstocked tank will be in trouble anyway....it is a matter of risk management....a balance as to what you believe has the greatest chance of being a threat....uneaten food rotting(I believe the consumption of septic food is one of the biggest killers in aquaria...???but perhaps I'm wrong?) or a power failure??? As you say it's up to the individual to decide how they wish to accommodate and maintain their fish(aesthetics included!!)....you may not change my mind or visa versa but a logical debate stating the logic will give others less dogmatic (that's both of us ) about what works....a chance to view the discussion and make their own choice....or add information that neither of us were aware of??? In the end I've found shellies to be very tough little fish....far more chance of being killed by a partner than any threat I may knowingly or unknowingly pose.... Back to the initial post....Live food minimises the chance of any uneaten food and makes the debate on the value of MTS irrelevant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 It is nice having a debate without fear of abuse. Your main thrust to the advantage to snails is their use to eat excess food, in this case for a specific reason as you outline. While I'm aware that it is a bit necessary to put more food in there for young to make sure they get enough, I would debate further the that if you have enough “rotting excess food with potential to damage fry” you have overfeed. A little bit of excess food is not so detrimental with adequate filtration (biological media) and water changes. I fully concur with your last live food comment. I have not seen MTS eat viable eggs but I have seen mystery snails in tanks were the eggs from brichardi and leleupi both terrors when it comes to defending their eggs, not only lose the lot but the larger fish of the pair killing off the smaller male as a result to what I anthropomorphically assume to being the female blaming the male for the egg loss. Both these pairs were long time breeders well set into an established breeding routine. They can't guard at night when they sleep. Respected breeders on these pages in past threads have informed that MTS get into frontosa brooding females and eat their eggs. Another issue with MTS is their seeming ability to get into other tanks. So to add them to one tank opens up the possibility of their spreading to others. Nice to have the chat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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