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I thought for a minute that we feed my rainbows too much... then I went on vacation and got an email from my roommate asking if We had added fish to the tank prior to my departure and when I replied no... she stated that there was a baby fishy in there. I returned my from my trip about a week later, and lo and behold. . . A NEW BABY FISH!! (Yes, I know there is a technical term, but it's 5 in the morning at work.. people don't think here.)

Anyway, I was unable to seperate the baby properly because I didn't have "a cup".
I attempted the next morning to seperate the baby before going out to treat myself to some new Bleeding Heart Tetra's and the baby was AWOL!. . .

The point the story. . . well. . . I am not sure that I really have one. But it was a nice story anyway, wasn't it?


(OH... and when I went to get the Tetras, I also bought "a cup". So I will be prepared for the next time.)

(And yes - even at 5:30 in the morning, I know "The Cup" is a breeding net.) -- well . . . I kinda new. . . I had to double check. Thank God the smart one is also working at this time. Although, he gave me the wrong information the first time. --

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

Floating plants can help fry to survive in a tank where the others are likely to munch them up.

Sorry you lost the little fishie but atleast you know your fish are happy enough to breed in your tank. A breeding net (my tech term for them is 'floating thingy') is a good thing to have on hand. Catching fry can be tough though. Not something to try at 5:30am.

PS at this time of day/night there are usually people in the chat who do the o/n shift so stop in and say hi sometime.

Last edited by Lindy at 06-Aug-2005 04:50

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Thanks!! There are a million security blocks on the computers... I am pretty surprised I can even get into the forums. I don't have a night off until the 13th though, so I shall try it tomorrow.

We added a few plants to the tank the other day too. I hope it helps. It just kinda stinks that I was away when it happened. And, my roommate was home for a total of 20 minutes so she didn't get a chance to take care of the fishy either. (Thanks for "Fry"... I was starting to cramp on that.)

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

in my experience no addition to a tank will save baby fish or eggs in a rainbowfish tank, rainbows are excellent predators of eggs and fry of both thier own and other fishes, if you want your fry to survive you will have to start another brooding tank.

Even a baby rainbowfish will be vulneral to its parents for many months so the only answer is to remove them as during that period they have typically zero chance of survival in a community tank with medium to large size fish.The only rainbowfish i have raised is when i have witnessed spawnings and gathered the eggs with a net before they are eaten.

Rainbows typically spawn eggs in batches of 20 to 50 and many tetras do the same, so the lone survivor you had was probably one of 40- 100 eggs and even rarer the last remaining fry, and as you said yourself it did not survive. If youre serious about breeding any fish, set up a breeding tank and either seperate the gravid parent and a suitable male for the spawning alone in that tank, or closely observe the breeding and rescue the eggs immediately.
rainbows and many other fish are more likely to spawn in the morning so watch them when when you think the time is nigh and be ready with a net.
You could (when you know breeding has occurred) tranfer some of the gravel or sand from the tank into a ready aquarium gently, and often fry will begin to emerge in the coming days secure from their parents. If you have bottom feeding scavengers like corys and loaches this method may not be especially successful as hardly an egg will be missed by hungry fish.

All this is more practical than it sounds, as a brood tank can be very small, and therefore cheap.

Lastly most fry will require micro foods, which can be readily dispersed by the swimming motion of the parents before the fry get a chance to feed, and its likely the powerful filter will simply sweep the nutrients away. So feeding fry is much better done away from the community tank with minimal filtration and carefully controlled amounts of food.It also makes it much easier to monitor how their doing in a sparsely decorated tank.

Only in extraordinarily huge and well decorated tanks , populated largely by purely vegetarian fish do fry generally survive without the help of mouthbrooding parents.

Try to make the effort to raise the fry seperately, its so worth it- even if you cant keep them all, you can trade with local aquarists and some shops will either give you cash (granted a measly amount) or trade for goods.

I was away when this happened so I didn't even know that anything happened. When I came home, there was one fry in the tank and when we went to seperate it, it was gone. If I was home, I would have seperated it right away.

I have a few Raibows, some baby red platos(?) and some cardinal testra's in the tank now. So far, all is well.

Next is the small catfish, I think.

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

aww bless, i had a tiny boesmans rainbow i didnt even know was in the tank- till an angel ate it if front of me- i totally sympathise dude . It happens.

Nope.... I lied... not all is well. :#( I am back to my original 4 fish. Everyone else, . . .well. . . they . . .. they went to a better place.

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

Gutted, what did they die of? Eaten?

I think I got a bad batch of Cardinal Tetra's from the Pet store. One died within a few days and I didn't catch it in time so it sat in the tank overnight. I think the others just followed suit. I put some fishy-meds in the tank now and it looks like the 3 remaining are in good condition. I will do a water change and test the water before I add anything or make other changes.

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

Thats a shame. A lot of folks get problems with cardinals though, often theyre not as good at handling the changes in water quality after a move like neons can be. Theyre touted as easy but really belong in the "advanced" section. Despite being the bigger fish theyre much more delicate. Hard water can kill them and they appreciate blackwater conditions.

Last edited by longhairedgit at 03-Sep-2005 07:38

I don't think that cardinals are as delicate as you describe. It's true that they aren't the toughest of tetras, but they are fairly easy to care for once they've been in a new tank for at least three weeks. I did well with cardinals despite keeping them in a tank with hard water and a pH of 7.8, and the tank had only plastic plants for the first few months I owned the fish. The store tank I took them from had a pH of 6.8 or 6.9, so my cardinals went through a pretty big pH and gH change in a very short time. I feel that cardinal tetras are hardier than neon tetras; at least the ones from that store's distributor are.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I know what you mean- i think captive breeding goes some way to explaining it, some are more used to captive water qualities due to it- others have become more sensitive because of breeding depression. Goes both ways. The wild ones are pretty sensitive. Try to gradually change ones from hardwater conditions to softer water for optimum success.Generally mirroring the wild environment is the way forward.

Again neons suffer the same issues so you can get different batches of fish. I was taking the "overview" outlook.



Last edited by longhairedgit at 06-Sep-2005 07:58

Last edited by longhairedgit at 06-Sep-2005 07:59

Well we treated the water and i will get it tested before added anything. the 3 that are still in there are the original fish that I got... 2 rainbows and 1 red wag. I need to do a water change and clean eveything up before rebuilding my fishyworld.

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."