outlaw

I was going to clean our 46Gal with 3 Female Red Fins, 1 Male Red Fin and 1 Male Yellow Lab. I had the 2 Males and all the decorations out, all 3 females were in the corner and 1 of them spit out about 40 "fry" (is that correct). Not sure if the Yellow lab will mate with the Red Fin, but they are his or the Male Red Fins. They started to eat them, so I did my best to catch them quick. I think my wife and I counted about 35 babies right now which we setup in a couple hours with everything we had around the house. Gravel and filter media were already set since they were in my 46Gal. I just put it all in there. Is there any tips or anything I should now, since I am a noobie at keeping fry/baby fish and didn't expect it(kinda like my 2 children... lol x17).

The setup


Attempted close-up
http://www.fishlore.com/fishpicture/...58/ppuser/5090

About half of them in the bowl as they were being caught in the 46Gal.

COBettaCouple

Cichlid food, crushed to powder or tiny bits might be a good way to feed them a few times a day. If you can get a baby brine shrimp hatchery going, that's excellent food for them.

A sponge filter or filter with fish net netting securely tied over the intake can work for filtration and some caves on a bare bottom tank would be how I'd set it up with an air stone on low.

outlaw

Thanks.

Here is the "cave" I made with a piece of slate and rock.


Here you can see the sponge filter and cave. The white part is because it is part of a filter for my power head. I stuck it in there to keep the fish from swimming into it and getting sucked up. My wife and I were watching them swim right up to the sponge and had no problems swimming away. The air stone is in the far back corner and is about as low as it goes. My wife mentioned the ground up cichlid food which I think we will do. Right now we don't have any room for another tank for the brine shrimp.


Thanks for the fast reply and input!

COBettaCouple

You can do a bbs hatchery with a small box. The kits are at the store and you can find numerous plans for DIY hatcheries.

That looks good and you're responding great to an unplanned fry situation. I wish you the best of luck with them.

outlaw

Thanks, didn't even think of how small it actually is, and I just saw one with a plastic bottle. easy enough.. Plus, one post i found said they will eat some algae too. The green(fake) plant has algae on it, and I think I saw one nibbling at it.. should work till we get some bbs or crushed flakes (will try first).

Thanks again, and thanks for the luck! We're going to need it. The cool thing is, you can already see the yellow in their tails, and the body is transparent. HAHA.. you shoulda seen me when it happend.. I started freaking out and called one of our LFS's.. it was great. lol

Thanks again.

outlaw

update

Fed them when I got home. They had no problems eating crushed Cichlid flakes. Maybe the small current in the tank made it seem like it was living? Either way, they ate it with out hesitation.

COBettaCouple

Great! That's good when they'll take the flakes and sounds like they'll be eating good and growing fast.

outlaw

The only problem with growing is, there is no room. lol We have a 20Gal we were going to use as a terrarium but its not setup yet. That will probably get used for them until I can sell/trade them in. Especially if they are going to be as big as the Male Red Fin (upto 8" long). And I think we got lucky too. They look like they are "fully" developed as they don't have the sac attached to their bellies. They just look like tiny fish.

outlaw

question: Do they grow as fast as it looks like they are? I swear they have grown noticeably since Sunday... Just want to make sure im not crazy... well... as crazy

mlinden84

Hehe they do grow fast!
Looks like you've got a great setup for them right now. One thing that I noticed with my cichlid babies was that if you change the water often, they tend to grow faster and be a lot healthier. Mine LOVED frozen baby brine shrimp when they were a few days old. After a week or two I started giving them regular frozen brine shrimp and they went crazy for it. I also fed crushed cichlid food (crushed very small when they were little, then not so fine once they got bigger)
The pictures of them are so cute!

Allie

Are they hybrids? Hybrids are hard to sell being as most people want pure strains in their tank.

outlaw

Thanks mlinden. I will have to get some brine shrimp once I get paid (stupid bills). They seem to like the flakes just fine and go crazy when I put them in there. I was also able to "modify" the cover to fit my heater, HOB filter and air tube. Also replaced the bulb. Makes it look a lot nicer then the plexi and oversized light. lol

Allie- If they are hybrids, what do I do? lol I don't have enough room for 35+5 larger ones. It looks (I know hard to tell) like they are Red Fins. They have the orangish/yellow fins. The body is kind of grayish but still kinda tansparent.

Here are som pics. Sorry for the close-ups not being clear, its only a 4x optical zoom.










Also.. how can people not expect hybrids? If you mix them in a tank, even at the store.. you have a chance to get a hybrid. I bought the fish with the tank so I had no expectations for them or thought about the breeding. And to answer your question a little more in depth Allie; We/I didn't even know they had spawned. The only reason I think it is POSSIBLE that the Yellow Lab could have done it is he had dug a hole to the glass, and after reading some, they are known to do it, but they also do it to breed. The reason I think it COULD be the Male Red Fin is because the female that we think spit them out is always not to far from the male Red Fin. When I was going to remove them from the 46Gal to clean it and re-arrange the setup, all 3 of the females where in the corner. I went to scoop them up and she pointed towards the gravel and out they came. Looked like they had developed too. There were no sacs on them and had no problems swimming. Thats when I caught them all as quick as I could, put them in a bowl, and setup this little tank for them.

mlinden84

I've got some hybrids right now (Socolofi and i think eb johanni) I haven't found anyone to buy them, but I've found homes for a lot of them by just giving them away. I've also got a yellow lab hybrid.
It seems to me like if people are going to breed them they want nothing to do with hybrids, but if people just want to have a neat tank with cool looking fish with no plans on breeding then they don't really mind if they are hybrid or not. Just my personal opinion.

Allie

Those are definitely red fin babies. Congrats. I'd keep hybrids too but we are going into the fish business where hybrids are a no no.
Hybrids can be sold as long as they are labeled hybrids so the people looking for pure strains don't get them by mistake. LFS store tanks labeled mixed Africans are usually hybrids.
Anytime a fish has spat in the main tank for us, we never have any survivors, you are lucky.
From my experience if a species has at least a female of its own to spawn with the will always chose them 1st. It's those single males that have to watched, they breed with any female.

outlaw

Thanks. I just thought when it says "mixed" that there is just a mixed variety of fish in the tank. lol. I agree mlinden. I guess I just didn't see the big deal.

Allie- I think the only reason I was lucky, is that I was cleaning the tank so there were no decorations at all, just bare gravel, and only 3 females left in the tank. They did start to eat the fry though. I caught them as fast as possible and we were left with 35 fry! Plus my tank is only 46Gal (not 120) and there is only 5 Cichlid at most to begin with, unlike your tank with 100 fish in it, lol. And that is why I wasn't sure if it was with the Male Lab. There are 3 females in the tank.. Maybe the Male didn't choose them to spawn with so they said "whatever...close enough.." lol

Thanks again for the help. I will post updates as they come.

Allie

We actually only have about 30-35 fish in our tank now.
Yeah African moms aren't good moms at all.

outlaw

ONLY, lol

I would have to agree with that if they are going to eat them. lol

outlaw

question- I was looking at the fry (again) and they seem to be getting pretty big pretty fast.. Still pretty small though. But we have a 20Gal that we were going to use for a terrarium but is now on hold. Do you think it would be ok to put them in the 20Gal? That its not too big for them? It just looks like the 2.5Gal or so they are in now is starting to get small. I haven't come across any floaters/sinkers so I am assuming our last count of 35 is still accurate. I would be transferring everything but the gravel to the 20Gal and currently have a fully cycled filter (3pads and sponge) setup on it now (about a day total) cycling the water.