Trap or leave?

[Mark]

My first zebra brood is 12 days old and I've reached a common dilemna of should I remove the young to a seperate rearing tank, or leave them in the cave with Dad and let them forage for food in the main tank. The spawns of L066's have done fine, it seems, in the main tank, but I don't want to risk the zebras unnecessarily.

So the big question is, should I move them or leave them be?

Without prejudicing the response, my gut instinct is to leave them be! They look very happy in their cave. BTW, they are in a 2 foot cube with 5 adult zebs in total, no other fish with 2 big external powerfilters and kickass aeration.

Looking foward to your responses!
Mark.

 

[FF MkII]

Hmm tricky one. You could leave them with dad until they go on their own then transfer them. that way they wont have to compete for food against the adults.

 

[st24rsap]

i persoanlly transfer all of my fry to a trap and feed them for around 2 weeks before releasing them into the adults tank again

 

[Mark]

Cheers for the quick responses guys. I realise there is no right answer but experience does speak volumes. I don't know if they'll struggle with the competition from the others, my main concern is the filtration pulling any available food! The cave seems a very barren place for food availability.

I may well pull them tomorrow!

Mark.

 

[thegeeman]

If I pull fry after a few days with the male and rear them in a trap for a few weeks then they are almost 50% bigger and stronger than ones that get left behind.

Cheers

thegeeman

 

[Rabbit]

I agree with gee, my biggest problem with raising fry with the parents is food, the fry aren't the best at finding it, while confined to a fry trap its so much easier to monitor the feeding and there is generally only 10cm between anyone fry and what ever your feeding.

 

[cup]

I try and keep the fry in with the males as long until after they lose their eggsacs.

 

[Irene0100]

well many congrats on the fry!!
I have not bred zebs yet so not qualifies to answer, my other plecs I leave in the tank but put powder food so it scatteres every where and feed several times aday. Also less current than in zeb tank. but I guess i would not know if one or two had not made it. So you may want to put in trap to be sure with airstone or something.

 

[Mark]

Well I couldn't leave alone and removed the fry to a trap suspended in the main tank and fed by one of the external filter outlets (relatively slow flow).

I was surprised to find 15 fry, quite a result for a first spawn from F1 parents at around 2 and a half years old.

I'm feeding with the earthworm sticks I've been importing from the US, excellent food for loricariid fry - hope they're as acceptable to zebra babies.

I've also got a hatch of around 30-40 L066's which I'll turf out in a similar way in maybe 5 days time, when they've exhausted their egg sacs, thankfully the dad is brooding nicely this time, after three failed attempts when I had to intervene.

Thanks again for your advice, I'll keep you posted on their development.

BTW, how do you post pics in the gallery!

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Irene0100]

fine, will keep fingers crossed.
go to gallery on top menu bar and click upload....
how big are the parents?
my f1 are about that age so hope they might breed soon!

 

[Mark]

The zebs are relatively small, probably 5-6cm SL (without tail).

I thought they probably needed another 6 months, so was surprised to find them trapping.

Thanks for the link to uploading pics, I'll have another go tonight.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Irene0100]

good, I must do more cold water chanegs !
look forward to pics

what temp do you keep the tank and did you do anything to help trigger them?

 

[Mark]

Hi Irene,
The temp is 84.2F - edit: I meant 28.2C. Sounds a bit precise, but that's because its got a digital thermometer, linked to an eheim thermofilter, so temp is very stable. I actually got the thermofilter about a month ago, along with a second smaller external eheim (both from a car boot fair for £15!!!!). Previously I had an old external powered by an internal pond pump, which I suspect was a bit noisy for the zebras and led to unstable temperatures in the tank. Does anyone else every worry about the noise of some internal power filters and the effects on the fish?!? No lighting on the tank.

I hadn't done anything special with them, they typically get weekly 40% water changes, using half tap/half rain water. Food is anything in the fish house - doromin, prima and frozen bloodworm. Lots of hidey holes and a range of caves, no plants, a piece of wood and not much sand. I think I've got 2 males and 3 females in the group, and suspect the breeding male is 6 months older than the rest (and unrelated).

Thanks for the help on pic posting I'll try and upload a pic of the male in his cave, a day before I kicked him out!

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[John]

Nice, congrats :yes:

 

[FF MkII]

very nice

 

[lealea]

great photo and congratulations. lealea

 

[Irene0100]

brilliant ,thanks for that.
i was worried that as people say they like tight caves and my alpha is guarding a cave that is not very tight, but looks like yous is fairly roomy too.
the young look brill.
I have not thought about noise upsetting them, i dont think my filters are very noisy but there is a slight hum. I have3 x the filtration the tank size needs.

 

[SmithRC]

Looking good

How are the young doing?
Myself and many others experienced quite a hefty die off from the first spawn... I too had 15 fry from our first spawn but after about a month we only had 2 left

 

[Mark]

Update

Yes, about time I did a little update!

I removed the cave with Dad and fry and put them in a 5 litre pespex tub suspended in the tank, with perforations for through flow. I then positioned the outlet from one of the external filters to flow into the tub, so theres a good throughflow of clean water - much better than a foam filter trickling in.

I couldn't get the fry to let go of the cave, so the cave and babies are in the trap now. It's been a good week since I moved them and they appear to be doing fine. I can't remember if I stated how many, but I've got 15 - which is pretty good I think for a first spawn.

I've been feeding at least twice a day on earthworm sticks and aquarian fry food. They appear to have nice rounded bellies and are very active. I remove all old food before feeding with new.

I'm also using the exact same system for the latest batch of L066, which also wouldn't let go of their cave! They're doing fine also.

My main concern is getting the empty cave back into the main tank for the male to reoccupy, but I can't get the little buggers out! I picked up a few more caves from the Yorkshire Show yesterday so I'll see if he likes them. There are, of course, plenty of other caves in the tank too.

I'll get some more pics when they emerge from the cave, if that ever happens!

Thanks for the interest,
Mark.

 

[Mark]

fry trap

Here's a few pics of the floating fry traps, first is zebra one, second is for L066. Zebra has an eheim 2215 (600l/h) outlet throughflow. The L066 has an 800l/h external filter outlet, but diffused and reduced down to about 200l/h using a spray bar.
L046

L066

As you can see, both traps have the caves with the babies, after a week of putting them in, they seem happy in the security of the cave.

Cheers,
Mark.