albino BN babies - leave w/daddy or take them out.

redtail · Post by **redtail** » 13 Dec 2005, 05:18

my pair of albino BN just lay some eggs on 12/7 & today are i see wigglers (20+). dad is in the cave still fanning them. their are in 20 gal tank with 6 clown pleco, 1 female guppy, & 2 zebra loach. i got the zebra loach to control my snail population. my question is will my fry be safe with the zebra loach in the tank. should i take the fry out now or wait couple more days.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 13 Dec 2005, 11:54

Why not take out the zebra loach for a few weeks?

But if you don't want to do that, I'd move the fry, just to be safe. I used a hose to siphon the fry from the bottom of the tankt to a container and then poured the containers content into a breeding net.

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Mats

redtail · Post by **redtail** » 14 Dec 2005, 01:44

i will take the loach out. will the fry be safe with the clown pleco?

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 14 Dec 2005, 10:17

I should think that the pleco's will not touch fry from other (or same) plecos. So far I've never heard of pleco's eating fry of anything, as long as the fry are healthy.

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Mats

Kana3 · Post by **Kana3** » 15 Dec 2005, 21:48

I have a similiar situation. I've just discovered a clutch of BN fry at about 12mm. I'm guessing that puts them at around three weeks old. Dad is still hanging out with them in the tunnel (this being some poly-pipe with gravel siliconed inside and out).

I'm not entirely sure, but I may have seen one of the fry out exploring, and suddenly gobbled up by one of my Hockey Sticks. And just to add insult - I also have Dwarf_Cichlids and Angels in there.

I'm wondering how long the fry stay hidden before they all venture out? I tend to pull my Cory's out as eggs to raise in a different tank. Not sure what to do here with the BN fry - I'm certainly going to plant some more ground cover up that end of the tank. But they're going to be a real prick to get out without them scattering all 'round the tank (250litre).

Cheers,

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 16 Dec 2005, 10:03

They usually come out after about two weeks, so I guess yours aren't three weeks old - but I don't know when your eggs were laid...

If you've seen the first ones out, I'd say it's time to move them noe.

The best way, in my experience, to get the fry out of the tank is to use a hose to siphon them into a bucket, and then pour them from the bucket into the new home (obviously slowly mixing in some water from the new home if you're actually moving them to another tank with different water). This may seem like a "brutish" way to do it, but I've tried catching them with a net, and as you say, they go all over the place...

[Note, it doesn't work to use a gravel cleaner, it's got too big an opening and doesn't suck hard enough to suck up the fry - which I'm sure is why the gravel cleaner is designed the way it is].

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Mats