Help with feeding peppermint fry.

[1Opsophagos]

Hi everyone, very new to the Internet and I have never posted in a forum before so please be patient.
However i have had over 25 years experience in keeping fish, all useless to me at this point in time. I have previously had a massive obsession with lake Tanganyika......but recently have shifted my obsession to The Peppermint.
I picked up a group of 6 about 2 to 3cm. Amazing black with the crystal blue/white spots and trailing edges. It had begun!
After a difficult search i had found myself 3 amazing mature peppermints.
One male and 2 female.
The set up.
4 x 60l tanks in a tier.
2 up top 2 down low and 60l sump. First black/soft water setup i had ever done, besides some native Aussi stuff.
So the top 2 tanks have fair lighting and are feed by 1200lph powerhead lifting approx 2m. kinda low for my liking but anyway i placed the trio in the top LH tank with few plants on wood a slate cave box i made with 3 caves he could chose from. No gravel. For 2 months he would go from one cave to the other back and fourth and never settle down utill a got a D cave from lfs and he picked that.
I left the slate box in the tank for the female's. A couple of months went by and i was starting to doubt my abilities, but suspected it was just to HOT 29-30deg Celsius untill a recent tropical cyclone Debbie started to approach the coast. I thought this is all it will take. I opened the valves on the ibc tanks to fill em up with rain water and waited it out with the backup generator ready, fortunately we didn't need it because she hit the coast just south of us. but it had the same effect, cooled the tanks down to 27 and did a 30% rain water change and the next night he had a ball of eggs fanning away.
I did tests straight up.
Ph 6 - 5.5
A - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3- 40
Gh kh range was 4 drops about 75ppm.
I was expecting 4 days to hatch but actually more like 5. Daily 10% tapwater changes. It was 12 days after spawn and had noticed 2 fry hanging on the glass and though I need to strip them but have never done it befour with cave dwellers. Lucky i was hesitant because that night he had a female knocking on his door she harassed him for nearly 3 hours trying to get in, it was amazing, he had surcum to her advances and let her in. I didn't know what to do so left them alone. The next morning he had kicked out half of the fry and still had the other half in the cave with an even larger clump of eggs in his cave. I quietly syphoned out 35 fry over the next 2 days from the tank into a fry saver floating in the 60l tank below. It has the same specs as top tank, exactly the same water specs its running the same 1200lpm powerhead BUT its only lifting about 1m so has more current and comes from the same sump water as the parents, also run an air powerd corner filter in each tank by the way and run an air stone in the fry saver, the second batch hatched again 5 days later not 4. So after all this rambling on and what not im not happy with food intake of the fry. I try zucchini, split peas, Cucumber and alge wafers, they reject it all but to date have not lost one fry . they suck the walls like crazy but completely ignore the food i seriously have had better luck feeding them on the crap coming out of the parents tank during the syphoning. they must be eating something .but the 5 or so fry i haven't been able to get out of the tank do look slightly larger. Brings me to the next step do i strip the fry from the male or let him kick them out and syphon them out. it makes me nervous interfering. Also is it possible that its only one female breeding, can one female have 2 spawns in 12 days.
Any tips on raising fry ... !
May have been easer to say and read.
I tried adding picks not sure if it worked

[1Opsophagos]

Hmmm sorry 2 outa 3 pics aint bad.

[Jobro]

Hello,

welcome to planetcatfish and the internet

they might be too small to start eating, yet. Most will start at around 7-10 days after hatching.

I feed with chlorella powder and decapsulated artemia eggs (brine shrimp eggs without a shell). 2-3 times a day. sipphone out the remaing foods before I add new food.
your breeder might not support such small foods, as they might get washed out of the breeder right away.

The marina hang on breeding box is well suited for that.

Cheers Johannes

[1Opsophagos]

Thank you for your prompt and useful response, I see what you mean about the holes in the breeder. I will definitely try sheld artemia eggs.

[Jobro]

Good Luck. Vegetables like cucumber and zucchini are a nice addition. But they are really low in nutritional value. And they will just keep them bussy eating but not actually sustain a proper growth rate on them. Chlorella powder is high in protein and my ancistrus and peckoltia babies like to eat it as they poop a lot of green afterwards. They grow at acceptable speeds I guess and the feeding is nice and easy to handle. Just add some chlorella and sheld artemia eggs in a little cup with aquarium water. Mix it well up and pour it into the breeder box. The water will be all green afterwards but that's not a problem at all.

[Fundulopanchax76]

What L number are these peppermint ?

[1Opsophagos]

Thanks Jobro, I did find sheld artemia eggs yesterday but only a sample size amount and they did seem more interested in them than the greens, I will need to do something with the holes in the breeder. I also had success with a high protein sinking pellet for carnivores, I can only find chlorella powder at the chemist, kinda like a protein shake ...is that what I should use?
As far as what L# they are im not 100%. They all have trailing white edges on tail and dorsal fins untill around 12 months then they start to loose them. From what I've read it seems our Aussi peppermint may be a mystery.

[Jobro]

Yes it is a powder. It's meant to be taken into a shake or something.

https://www.sevenhillswholefoods.com/or ... lla-powder

this is what I use. There should be plenty others around, though.

[flatfish]

I have what I think are the same species and I have reared a couple of batches of young. I reared them initially in a home made breeder box on mainly a 50:50 mix of Repashy Soilent Green/Bottom Scratcher. I also used JBL NovoTab and NovoFect and that was readily accepted. Good luck

[Jools]

What L number are these peppermint ?

Ancistrus dolichopterus

or similar.

Jools

[flatfish]

I think I have the same. Maybe L071?

[raycam01_au]

The link is my channel, you will find a heap of pepp breeding videos and bubs eating
I am on rainwater and ph about 4.8 to 5 at a push, breeding like wild fire,
i feed the bubs on a variety of foods from fresh vegies to a mussel, prawn and pea\spirulina mix.
I have a recipe on the channel for my Discus, take out the Beefheart and add more mussel and prawns for the win
easy fish to get going



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMZY1 ... fUC7AWvjQA