Severum Eggs

[firemike]

Hi Guys

This time I'm forced to bring up the severum fry without the parents (the parents were sold over the weekend - on the day of pickup they decided to lay eggs).

Firstly, to my surprise - the eggs started to hatch very early (after 2 days - previously with the parents it was day 3 or 4) I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

The eggs were layed on the side (not inside) of a pot and a few were falling to the gravel. I decided the best thing was to try and get the hatching eggs into a breeding net. I siphoned 80% of them them into a net and removed as many dead eggs and fungus as possible (an eye dropper was perfect for this).

There is an air stone nearby to get as much current as possible around them. Does anyone have advice on what to do at this point. They still have the egg attached but they eyes are out one end, and the tail the other so it wont be long until they are bouncing/wriggling solo.

At what stage would I start feeding them?

Can I keep them in a small breeding net for a week or so - the gravel is quite thick and I'm worried I'll lose many of the fry in the nether regoins of the substrate.

Any other advice on parentless raising would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike

[Batty]

Sounds like you are doing just fine

[dobbin4]

As said your doing fine.

I'd try a frysaver but if just them in the tank what your doing is fine, crushed flake or anyother food crushed, brine srimp,keep up the airstone.Fed now as the eggsack goes.You can keep them in the net ok as long as no other fish in tank as they would peck at the fry through the net killing them.

Best

[firemike]

So far so good. They are starting to free swim a bit but they keep getting stuck in the breeding net. Either on the side, or on the bottom - they stay there until I free them with my handy eye dropper.

I siphoned them into a container today to clean out all the dead fry/fungus and just about all of them were swimming around without issues... so I'm worried the breeding net might lead to their demise. It makes you realise how much work the parents really do!

Hopefully in a couple more days they will be strong enough to get themselves off the net.

I have a spare 200w heater and sponge filters available to use, would it be viable to move them into a plastic container?

Or would:

a. the plastic container melt?

b. he 200w would be too powerful and inconsistant for the fry?

[proformer]

Hi,

I had to separate an aglefish overnight a while ago that i got as a "present". I used a big 30l plastic container with a 200W heater, a sponge filter and an airstone.

As i mentioned I only did that for 1 night but what i would bear in mind if you want to do this on the long run: The filter has to be up and running(cycled in an existing tank) already to keep a stable environment and water quality. The water should come out of the existing tank.

I personally wouldn't do it just because the whole system might collapse which means that nitrites and ammonia will spike and your fry will suffer.

After my "overnight incident" i bought a little 25l aquaone tank which is running continuously now inside my main tank's stand. ATM i have fry in there but i will also use it as a hospital tank in the future should something happen.

hope that helps, Dom

[dobbin4]

Dont need a heater in the fry floating tank as long as the top is closed.

And if anything goes wrong with a heater in a small tank like a frysaver etc your fry are cooking in no time. not worth it.

Just drop the water 5cm and it will push up againist the top brace in tank or lids.

Airstone is enough.

[likes americans]

Dont need a heater in the fry floating tank as long as the top is closed.

And if anything goes wrong with a heater in a small tank like a frysaver etc your fry are cooking in no time. not worth it.

Just drop the water 5cm and it will push up againist the top brace in tank or lids.

Airstone is enough.

exactly, float your smaller tank inside the large one, partially fill with tank water, push it down and trap it under the bracing where it will lock in, splash of methylene blue, an airstone to keep things circulating and frequent partial water changes with the main tank water, feed on powdered flake you turn into a cloud between thumb and forefinger and/or brine shrimp 4 times a day to make em grow fassst and Bob's your uncle

[dobbin4]

How they doing mow, If you got them this far they should be fine.

[firemike]

They are still going well actually, a good 100+ still left (it's not like you can count swimming fry though).

I made a fry saver (similar to matt's DIY) and it was working well last night until my 4 test fry decided it was time to fit through the fly screen. I found 3 of them but still any casualty at this stage makes me rather sad since I've practically hand raised them. They'll have to get a bit bigger before my DIY fry saver is put back in.

In the process of testing my DIY fry saver I left my breeding net on the side (divided tank) with the bristlenoses... bad me!! the lights went off at 9pm, I checked on them 30mins later and 2 of the BN were trying to suck the sleeping fry out of the breeding net. This killed about 10 or so, I was really upset with myself for forgetting about my nocturnal BNs.

I've been feeding them frozen bbs twice daily, but it sounds like I should up that a bit, smaller more frequent doses as most of the bbs just goes out of the net to the gravel anyway.

Thanks for the feedback

[firemike]

Sadly most of them have made a turn for the worst.

Not many left now, 10 maybe... Not sure what killed them, I'll admit a bit of neglect (just had our second baby 2 days ago so I'm only feeding them morning and evening) but I'm shocked they have gone downhill so quickly.

My bbs (frozen) had a pretty bad stench when I first opened it. This was a little surprising - and I'm not thinking, could it be bad food? I'm really clutching at straws but I thought they were eating well. The past two days have seen the casualties sky rocket. It looks as though their eyes just expand and their bodies turn white. I don't really have time to nurture them but I've been feeding them morning and evening.

Water changes have been frequent - and I'm confident it's quite good. The only other thing I did start doing last week was feeding zucchinni to my BNs on the other half of the tank, could this be toxic to fry? This did stop before the mass casualties and the baby.

If there is any advice on saving the remaining fry, please let me know. My successful breeding attempts are still battleing to reach 1

Otherwise I'll assume the big man just wants me to put all my attention to my human babies (which will always take priority)

[Batty]

I had a similar experience with my convicts, only 1 (about 1" now) survived, I have no idea why they died.