PlanetCatfish.com

Hi,my Albinos have spawened and the fry are 3 weeks old, I was just wondering if there is a high mortality rate with these fish every day i find some dead, checked water quality everything ok. open to any advice this the first time breeding these fish they are in a tank with the parents


Regards Skip206

Fry are really effected by ammonia, so if your ammonia level is even the slightest bit high that could have something to do with it!

There's several possible options:
1. Water quality - smaller fish will be more sensitive to water quality. What is your nitrate, nitrite and ammonia levels in the tank?
2. Food - what are you feeding them and how much? I keep a constant supply of courgette, supplemented with some meaty food like algae wafers. When they are really young, you need to blanch (gently boil for a few seconds) the courgette. [Courgetee == Zucchini if you're at the other side of the atlantic].
3. Poor genetics - albinos are created by inbreeding as a general rule. If your parents came from the same brood, then they are further inbred, and no one will be able to tell you how cosely related the parents were in the first place...

Generally speaking, bristlenose babies are far from sensitive (compared to OTHER fish-babies). But babies of any creature are more sensitive than the adults.

--
Mats

Thanks for your reply's the water quality is perfect tested everything twice, will put it down to genetics there is allways food in the tank ie: cucumber, and they were fed flake/algaewafers/ on allterate days allso small water changes every day, there are 4 fry left from about 25 the last time they spawned I blamed the neones for eating the fry


Skip206

Sometimes the bn males are a little too zealous in keeping their fry inside the cave too long and by the time they are released they have starved too long to easily recover. So that has little to do with their genetic health. They are simply like all fry in their inability to recover from early starvation.
The next time they spawn you may want to intervene and remove the fry to a breeding net so you can tell when they are ready to eat and then make sure they are fed as soon as theyy are ready. I have much better survival rates with this intervention technique than when I rely totally on the males' ideas of when it is time to let them go free.
I like to time it to when the fry just barely still have a little yolk sac left.