Raising bristlenose fries...

yhbae · Post by **yhbae** » 27 Jul 2004, 02:50

I've had now my second spawn from my albino bristlenose plecos. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time keeping them alive. I kept the original batch in the same tank as where the parents have spawned, thinking the water condition must be good for them to breed in the first place. So far, I have proven to be wrong, as most of 20 fries have not survived. (I can only see few).

For the second batch, I caught them and put it in another tank (5.5g) an established tank with lots of algae on the glass. I did this yesterday, and already today, I see one dead. Am I going to loose most of the fries again?

What is the trick of keeping these guys alive?

davidkozak · Post by **davidkozak** » 27 Jul 2004, 03:20

Change water every day...keep food in front of them all the time...
I've only had one spawn, but I've been raising the fry for several weeks now and have had less than 5% casualties...and most of the casualties happened when I was syphoning the fry to a larger tank...
david
p.s. re:the other thread, I also have driftwood in every tank that has bristlenose in it, be they adults, juvies, or newborn fry...

yhbae · Post by **yhbae** » 27 Jul 2004, 03:23

Thanks for the reply...

What do you feed them?

davidkozak · Post by **davidkozak** » 27 Jul 2004, 03:31

I hatch baby brine shrimp for my angel fry--this doesn't work as well for bristlenose fry, because the live brine shrimp swim, whereas the bristlenose fry are on the bottom and sides...So I freeze the leftovers that I don't use for the angel fry and when I put it in the bristlenose tank it sinks and they can eat it...I also feed algae/spirulina wafers, and microwaved(to soften it up) zuchini and cucumber slices...the fish below are obviously a little older but same idea...zuchini pinned to a piece of driftwood-they go nuts for it..

second pic is my batch of fry attacking a half of a cucumber...

david

yhbae · Post by **yhbae** » 27 Jul 2004, 03:34

For fries, do you blanch your cucumber? Also, I see seeds in those pieces - how do you make sure they don't spread all over the tank?

For my adults, I usually cut out the seeds, blanch them, then keep them in the tank until they are completely gone...

Thanks again!

davidkozak · Post by **davidkozak** » 27 Jul 2004, 03:40

yhbae wrote:For fries, do you blanch your cucumber? Also, I see seeds in those pieces - how do you make sure they don't spread all over the tank?

Once the fry were a few weeks old I stopped blanching the veggies...It doesn't slow them down any eating them raw...as for the seeds, yeah-they pretty much spread all over the tank,

and I syphon them out with the waste..
david