Food For Unexpected Bolivian Ram Fry?

I'm not prepared... and honestly I thought all the Bolivian eggs were eaten. Today I discovered a nice little nest of wigglers while I was doing a clean. The male Ram came up and took a bite on my finger, it actually startled me! By supper time the wigglers were free swimming. Dad seems to be the better parent, as if they stray he sucks them up and spits them back in the hole! I was surprised when I saw the female go to move an escapee and she didn't spit it out... bad fish.
So I've turned lights out and I'm hoping they are still around tomorrow.

If any are around tomorrow ( parents and fry are in my 29 gallon planted with 5 oto's )
Should I :
1. Move the fry to a 5 gal quarantine with a turkey baster, and how easy would that be with protective parents? I know to use the original tank water for the fry's health and do water changes after feedings 3x day.

2. Move the parents?

I only want to raise up maybe 7-10 of the fry for keeping.
I've no way to obtain fry food at the moment outside of Amazon and that will take a bit of time, but luckily have frozen baby brine shrimp in the freezer.

Found this African Cichlid fry liquid food recipe, will it work for Bolivian fry as well? I have the ingredients and my own powdered kale.

Can I use my mortar and pestle and grind Cichlid Bug bites to make "make do First Bites"?

Liquid Fry Food by Marc Elieson

• 
  BASIC INGREDIENTS:
• 3 tablespoons powdered whole egg
  
• 2 tablespoons powdered nutritional yeast
  
• 1 tablespoon chick-pea flour (or any other kind of legume)
  
• Water (distilled or filtered)

• 
  OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS:
• A few drops of fish liver oil
  
• Crushed flake food
  
• ZucchinI or Spinach

First combine all of the dry ingredients and mix well. Then add the wet ingredients, like the vegetables and oil. Now add � cup water and blend well using either a blender or an electrical mixer. After blending it well, stop to check the consistency. You will want your mixture to pour like whipping cream. You will probably need to add more water. If so, continue adding water and mixing in very small increments until the desired consistency is obtained. If you accidentally add too much water such that it disperses immediately upon contact with the water in your tank, add a little extra pea flour. When done, refrigerate your liquid fry food immediately. If kept refrigerated, it will last for a couple of weeks. Be sure and shake the mixture well each time before feeding.

This is an excellent staple for your fry. You can feed this to your fish while you are waiting to harvest your live foods, like or . Liquid fry food is also wonderful because it can be modified to meet the changing nutritional needs of your fry as the mature and develop. For example, for really young fry, you will want to make the mixture rather thin so that it disperses quickly into the water. This is important because very young fry don�t often venture to the top of the water in search of food. They only tend to go after things that are suspended in the water. And you�ll be surprised; even though you won�t be able to see the particles of food, you will see the fry chasing after some "invisible" objects. As your fry mature, you will want to thicken the mix, use the fish liver oil, and gradually introduce crushed flake food and /or vegetable matter.

Now, where can you find all these things? You can find the powdered eggs at commercial bakery supply outlets or you can purchase them from camping supplies retailers. The only problem with this particular ingredient is that it is nearly impossible to find it in a size that is less than 10-lbs. The good news is that it's cheap. Nutritional yeast is easily obtained at . The Torula variety has worked well for me because it is finely powdered. The chick-pea flour can be purchased at any store that sells East Indian foods. And I find the fish liver oil at a pharmacy in town.

[A note of caution: only add a few drops of oil. In small amounts, the oil will add nutritional value and increase the size of the clumps of liquid suspended in the water. If you add too much, however, you will end up with a slimy mess floating on top of your water.]

 

Must be doing something right.. an estimate close to 50 plus free swimming fry now. The male is doing a wonderful job of keeping them rounded up. The parents have moved them to a new nest hole as well.
In the meantime I've used my mortar and pestle to grind cichlid bug bites, a piece of Sera O-Nip tab and powered egg to make a powder feed that I add a couple of drops of tank water to and drop over the nest by pipette. Will do this several times a day and make small water changes to the 29 gallon. Any thoughts?

 

Must be doing something right.. an estimate close to 50 plus free swimming fry now. The male is doing a wonderful job of keeping them rounded up. The parents have moved them to a new nest hole as well.
In the meantime I've used my mortar and pestle to grind cichlid bug bites, a piece of Sera O-Nip tab and powered egg to make a powder feed that I add a couple of drops of tank water to and drop over the nest by pipette. Will do this several times a day and make small water changes to the 29 gallon. Any thoughts?

Congrats! Unexpected fry are so fun!

I don't worry about doing small water changes with fry in the tank myself, I just do things as normal. Maybe you mean smaller daily water changes? That Is a good idea I think. I will say my 46g bowfront got pretty messy when my pair of angelfish kept having spawns. Feeding the babies was difficult for me and maybe I tend to overfeed the babies, but it was difficult to keep it clean with all the feedings in a regular tank with gravel and babies everywhere. So maybe at one point, you'd want to remove the fry, but I'll let someone else with more ram experience you help you there.

All I can tell you is I remove fry I want to raise and put them in a nursery tank. The fish parents hate me when I do this and make a big fuss. It's not fun. But I usually leave some for them to care for and they seem to quickly forget what happened as they care for the remaining. coralbandit says he removes the parents first, then the fry and returns the pair to the tank. Maybe I'll try that the next time.

As for the food, if you only plan to raise a few (like 7-10), you're doing what I'd do. I know what they mean about eating invisible objects, so it works. But I've had more success feeding hatchling rams microworms in a bare bottom tank. I've personally not hatched BBS yet as I'm allergic. I did find the ram babies to be very tiny and I was unsure whether they'd be able to eat BBS right away.

I feed powdered fry food, but I'd say I'd probably have better success with live foods. I had enough success for myself, just saying.

 

Thank you Kat eventually I will move about 10 of the fry into a quarantine tank to raise out for myself.. the rest I will leave with the parents to normally do what happens before they want to spawn again and by then I will have moved some tetra's and pepper cory's back into the tank. I'm not in the position to start a brine shrimp colony or get a microworm starter unfortunately, hopefully I can some success with the powdered food.

 

Thank you Kat eventually I will move about 10 of the fry into a quarantine tank to raise out for myself.. the rest I will leave with the parents to normally do what happens before they want to spawn again and by then I will have moved some tetra's and pepper cory's back into the tank. I'm not in the position to start a brine shrimp colony or get a microworm starter unfortunately, hopefully I can some success with the powdered food.

I think you'll enough success with powered foods, but I might take a few more than you optimally want, because my EB ram fry presented quite a challenge for me. But that makes me want to succeed even more haha! I'm not one to give up and they will likely spawn again in a couple weeks to three.

 

angelcraze I'm amazed at how strong they can swim on the 1st day of free swimming. They go like little devils! I'll up the number for the keepers in case I run into challenges as you suggest. The parents seem to be bickering with each other about who runs the house now getting a little pecky. I'd be that way though if I had a gazillion kids running around me!

Pic not too clear, it's hard to shoot moving things with a macro and still be close enough.