Centromochlus perugiae fry

[panaque]

My

Centromochlus perugiae

spawned last week and yesterday I pulled 42 fry from the female's cave, leaving her with another 20 or so (hard to tell).
Here are some pics of the fry 6 days after spawning

Here is the female in her bamboo cave.

Not a great shot but gives you an idea of the size. I find that when given a choice they prefer the bigger diameters because it allows them to turn and face the exit/entrance so the eggs end up in the back of the cave and don't get chucked out accidentally.
Now, here is my problem: I am going away for a week on Friday and I don't think those yolk sacks are going to last another 10 days...
Does anyone have any suggestions for a food that I could instruct someone with no idea about fish to feed them? I was thinking frozen bbs or cyclops. Any tips much appreciated!

Frank

[Richard B]

I'm not sure on the fry requiremnets but tetra do a "fresh" vacation block which is quite good - much better than the old fashioned ones, or what about an auto-feeder?

Someone to feed in your absence is good but they'll need to make sure whatever they feed isn't all sucked up by the filter.

Another option is to put in a rock that's from a mature tank which is covered with algae etc as this harbours lots of minute organisms which can feed the fry

[panaque]

Thanks for the suggestions. The fry are in a breeding box in the main tank with a constant flow of water so no danger of food ending up in the filter. I have put a load of java fern in with them which will hopefully have lots of critters living among the roots. These are big fry though so I suspect they will want something more substantial. The adults will only touch frozen and live foods so I don't expect that the fry will go for any prepared foods that I could feed automatically. These fish really need to work on their timing!

[Yann]

Hi!!

Because frozen BBS are hard to find here and setting up a live culture isn't fully approved by my darling (too much inconvenience) I tried to raise my 4 spawn with frozen daphnies and chopped Blood Worms and had some good success with that. I surely would have better result with BBS. But the chopped blood worms are working as fine and they grow well with it. If both Daphnies and chopped blood worms are given, they will prefer the bloodworms.
They prefer as the adult to feed at night most of the time.
Be careful with the hygiena in the tank or/and nurserie...
One important last point, if housed in a nurserie at first, make sure they have hidding place

Cheers
Yann

[Richard B]

From Yann's advice you could grind up frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp daphnia etc in a pestle & mortar...

[panaque]

I might try that, and refreeze it in daily portions.

The fry have ceramic tubes as hiding places in their breeding box:

[Martin S]

I'm going to assume that

Tatia sp(2)

fry should take the same?
My adult sp(2) will feed on any frozen food, i.e. bloodworm, daphnia, mysis, and also take sinking bloodworm pellets, broken up Tabimin etc - they are far less fussy that the C.perugiae, so hope the fry are the same.
Martin

[syno321]

Whatever you decide to use as food, make sure you throw in a bunch of snails to eat any uneaten food, lest your inexperienced feeder overfeeds.