African Cichlid Fry Dying One By One

I Started with about 25 baby nyerereI fry about 16 days ago. I have them in a 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter where ive been doing 10-20% water changes a day or every couple days. Keep the tank at 80 degree's. Ive been trying to feed them baby brine, crushed up flake powder but I never seen them eat it. Starting a few days ago I keep losing them one by one. With them schooling in the corner behind the sponge filter and only ever seeing not more then 1 or 2 swimming about the tank even when I'm not near it. I Lost 1 or 2 the first day then a few the next and now today waking up with around 5 dead losing around 10 in total so far. I can't seem to figure out why they are dying, they seem weak and not in control of themselves, darting around the tank very fast randomly which ive only seen a few times and also eventually just floating around the tank until they die. I never seen them eat so are they just starving themselves to death?

 

African cichlid fry are not picky eaters IME. I feed my new fry crushed flakes, pellets, and micro worms with no problem. Is the sponge filter seasoned? I suggest you try doing daily 50% and start adding a bit of salt. If they are dying off it could be because of a protozoan infection like velvet. Salt and daily water changes may help if that is the case. What’s the temp?

 

African cichlid fry are not picky eaters IME. I feed my new fry crushed flakes, pellets, and micro worms with no problem. Is the sponge filter seasoned? I suggest you try doing daily 50% and start adding a bit of salt. If they are dying off it could be because of a protozoan infection like velvet. Salt and daily water changes may help if that is the case. What’s the temp?

I Dont know what you mean by seasoned sponge filter, but ive been avoiding high water changes because I heard it could be bad for them with quick water parameter changes, but il try doing bigger water changes. I keep the tank at 80.

 

"seasoned" is the filter cycled?

 

Seasoned meaning is it cycled? If you can, test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate if possible.

Large water changes are perfectly fine for fry tanks. It is actually extremely beneficial to be doing 50-90% daily water changes to promote rapid growth in fry tanks. The only thing you need to worry about is accidentally sucking up fry, but with African cichlids they are pretty good at avoiding the siphon. Just did a 50% water change in my OB peacock fry tote and they’re about 3 weeks old right now.

 

Seasoned meaning is it cycled? If you can, test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate if possible.

Large water changes are perfectly fine for fry tanks. It is actually extremely beneficial to be doing 50-90% daily water changes to promote rapid growth in fry tanks. The only thing you need to worry about is accidentally sucking up fry, but with African cichlids they are pretty good at avoiding the siphon. Just did a 50% water change in my OB peacock fry tote and they’re about 3 weeks old right now.

Yes the sponge filter is cycled, I took one of the sponge filters out of the parents tank so it should be perfectly fine. But I did do a few 50% water changes.