fry in my tank!

[irene]

I was watching my 20 long 2 days ago when I noticed one very tiny (maybe about 2mm) fish swimming about!  The only fish in that tank are a male and a female red eye, red tail puffers.  They must have spawned??  Couldn't see little fishy yesterday, but just saw it again now.

What should I do with it?  There is a sponge over the intake of my aquaclear and my powerhead, will it just eat infusoria or should I try to feed it something else.

Irene

[Fishnut]

Congratulations!

The fry will eat infusoria, but is at risk of being eaten by the parents.  If you were to take it out and put it in another tank, just use a small sponge filter and you can feed newly hatched brine shrimp.  Some species of fish are too small to eat the brine shrimp, so they must have enough infusoria in the first couple of weeks. 

[KLKelly]

A hang on the side breeder net is handy too. For a couple fry I used the mesh one with some java moss from their tank.
I did buy the liquid fry food for the first bit.  I don't know what puffer fry eat though.  Once they were a bit bigger I switched my fry to freshly hatched baby brine shrimp and microworms (thanks francine) and hikari first bites.  The mesh breeder net is easy to clean.  I cleaned it with every weekly water change just to ensure that fresh water was able to get in.

I wonder what Dan fed his CPD fry in the first weeks???

[jodes22]

AWESOME!!

[dan2x38]

Irene if you want I got some ice cubes of Baby Brine Shrimp. Can give yeah some to keep the little guy growing... that is way cool Puffers breeding I read it is hard to do because of their agression... nice!

[irene]

As far as I can see there is only 1 baby, so maybe they bred a while ago and I just didn't notice.  Wasn't really expecting that to happen.

So I'll either get a breeder net or I was thinking of moving the baby into my 10g shrimp tank.  Nothing in there that would eat it, and it's MUCH too small to be snacking on shrimp for now.  My 10g has an established sponge filter that is probably full of infusoria.

Irene

[dan2x38]

As far as I can see there is only 1 baby, so maybe they bred a while ago and I just didn't notice.  Wasn't really expecting that to happen.

So I'll either get a breeder net or I was thinking of moving the baby into my 10g shrimp tank.  Nothing in there that would eat it, and it's MUCH too small to be snacking on shrimp for now.  My 10g has an established sponge filter that is probably full of infusoria.

Irene

KEWL... let me it always have some on hand... would be a hassle & hard to hatch BBS for 1 little guy... this is still so interesting!

[irene]

Ok, I can see 2 babies now!!!    The tank is so heavily planted I don't know that I'll be able to catch them.  How big do fry have to be before I need to start offering baby brine shrimp or microworms? 

Irene

[dan2x38]

Guess it is hard to tell how old yours are. Depending on the speies about 2 weeks. The dwarf puffer is small to begin with. If they lived this long they most have been living on infusoria. Maybe they are out looking for food now?

[irene]

It's not the dp's that spawned, it's my c. irrubesco pair!  I've added some floss from other established filters to hopefully add more infusoria.

Irene

[dan2x38]

It's not the dp's that spawned, it's my c. irrubesco pair!  I've added some floss from other established filters to hopefully add more infusoria.

Irene

Are those Red Eye Puffers?

[irene]

Yep, red eye, red tails.

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Freshwater/C_Irrubesco/

Irene