L316 fry. What should I do now?

Mortimer · Post by **Mortimer** » 28 Nov 2005, 08:51

Hello all,
I got my L316 to spawn. The first fry have left the cave are now swimming around in a 45 gallon tank together with some bristlenose fry, and some rhineloricaria fry. Neutral water, temperature is 28-29 degrees Celsius. Quite strong water current.
I have no experience raising hypancistrus, so I wonder what to do next. Should I remove the fry to a separate tank? What should I feed them? Should I reduce the current? Is the temp all right?
Thanks

Post by **Barbie** » 28 Nov 2005, 19:26

The same water that is good for the adults, is good for the fry. L316 are going to want more meat in their diet, so try frozen daphnia, hikari sinking wafers and crushed flake food or meat based pellet foods. They make it pretty obvious which ones they prefer. My Hypancistrus fry LOVE hikari sinking wafers right now. I've had other batches that would barely touch them though, go figure ;). Stay away from meatie foods that would be too large for them to swallow whole. Some species of Hypancistrus fry will choke themselves and don't seem to recognize well just what they can manage to swallow. Congratulations!

Barbie

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 28 Nov 2005, 23:10

WOW, congrats. Barbie, have you ever spawned these. i have asked around, and it seems these aren't spawned that often, is that because they are fairly new to being attempted to breed.

Post by **Barbie** » 28 Nov 2005, 23:15

Nope, I've kept one, but couldn't find more to work with them as a group so I got rid of it for now. I have another group in the works. I do know what the adult preferred will make feeding the fry very similar though, and I'm basing my recommendation on the numerous other Hypancistrus that I've spawned and raised fry from.

Barbie

Mortimer · Post by **Mortimer** » 29 Nov 2005, 09:31

Thanks.
The fry are lovely. Contrasts are clearer and colours are brighter than on the adults. Really charming little fellows. I spawned some rhineloricaria a time ago, and the fry seamed to starve to death until I gave them newly hatched brine shrimp. I feed them some of that to the L316 fry, and they seem to like it. Hope that's safe. At the moment I'm throwing in all kinds of food: Hikari sinking carnivore and algae wafers, Wardley shrimp pellets, microworms and Tetra TabiMin.

Is there some critical point until the fry are â??safeâ?

Post by **Barbie** » 29 Nov 2005, 14:44

BBS is a much loved fry food. I'm usually too lazy to keep it hatching, so mine haven't had that option as more than a treat ;). I honestly lose very few of most of my Hypancistrus fry (L318 to be excluded from that statement). Once they are eating well, they're pretty hardy. Dissolved oxygen levels will be very important for them if you take them from the adults tank. Good luck!

Barbie

nightowl1350 · Post by **nightowl1350** » 29 Nov 2005, 15:09

bbs will work well, but if you don't want to hatch them could you use decapsulated ones (where you take the outter shell of with bleach)? I have Under 1 " brown BN in with free swimming angel fry and blue ram fry and they love microw worms, bbs or decaps. My BN youngsters were about a month old when I put them in, but assume it would apply to any size.

I still provide them with veggies to and it is very funny so see the guppy like angel fry pick on a pea.

Mortimer · Post by **Mortimer** » 02 Dec 2005, 18:50

Hello again.
Today I found the female in the cave with the male again. If they spawn now it will be the third time. They seem to spawn again even before the â??oldâ?? fry has left the cave. This means that the male has been guarding fry constantly for weeks. Is this normal? Should I remove the female so the male gets to rest and eat, or would it solve without my interference?