First attempt....

Lol 6 is pretty good going

lol 6 with a 50ml syringe before I gave up, didnt get rid of much of the crud I chickened out

Just checked on them 10 mins ago (Im up and down to the tank like every half hour lol) its fun to watch the little tiny wigglers whizzing around and hiding under the plant leaves. Theres a few lying on the bottom of the tank some of them moving but cant tell if the ones that arent moving are dead or alive down there....is that normal ?

yes, you'd prob find that if you swirled the water near them they'll try to swim again

although do expect a numbers drop in the first week, this is when you will lose fry most.....
by 3-4 weeks very few to none, then panic about how many containers you might need for the males lol

on average how many fry can you expect? and male/female ratio - obviously I know that all the males would have to be split up.. I imagine it would be a nightmare trying to find room for them all!

about 30 fry to adult would be a normal spawn but you do often get the odd spawns that are 100+

in regards to male/female ratio it's anyones guess.
some peeps belive temps ph etc. can all affect the outcome and there was also a study done by Gene Lucas that states the age of the parents makes a difference.
Older male with younger female enhances the chance of more males in spawn and vice versa.

Finding room for fry isn't so hard, it's surprising how you can improvise for those few jarred weeks before selling or moving them on but the time doing water changes and trying to keep them all at the right temp is hard going lol

A YouTube vid that made me laugh was Betta Breeding 4 (or something like that). It showed someones bedroom with literally EVERY surface COVERED in jars. Needless to say, that's not a video to share with your other half...

lmao I think hes gonna kill me

Time-Out wrote:A YouTube vid that made me laugh was Betta Breeding 4 (or something like that). It showed someones bedroom with literally EVERY surface COVERED in jars. Needless to say, that's not a video to share with your other half...

got a link?

I can wait to see chards bedroom again when he jars all these spawns he's got at the minute too!

Just a quick update, I have no idea how many fry I have but for the past 3 days Ive been feeding them mirco worms with a drop of liquifry mixed in and syringed into the tank. I couldnt see them doing much with the worms but today I managed to spot 1 or 2 grabbing and eating them Ive got some plants in there I think the majority of the fry are hiding in there but occasionally they all seem to collect in one corner of the tank. Its like they are having a wee party

Hehe well if dave complains Im gonna show him that and say 'see it could be worse'

lol it gets worse than that on a big spawn

Goodluck with the little ones .

Well another quick update

Im at the 2wk mark now and feeding about 3 - 4 times a day on a mix of BBS, Microworms and a few drops of liquifry all mixed together. Little worried about feeding the BBS when I tried feeding that alone I could see the salt water from the BBS mixture goinginto the water the babies are in, is there an easy way to get the BBS out of the salt water I hatched them in to feed them without adding it to their tank ?

I keep trying to count them and keep loosing count lol last time I tried I lost count at 80.

Also I now have baby malawi's too, had to fish a few out the main tank and moved a holding female into a nursery tank. Not sure how many Im going to get from her as she still isnt giving them up yet lol.

What I did to count mine is, when you do a 100% water change, or move them to another tank, or whenever, just for the hell of it, put them in a small container and take a photo. Upload the photo to your pc and view it full screen. Get a clear plastic sheet, like one of those pockets for bind folders, and stick it to your screen (bluetack or sellotape). Then tick them off as you count

It drives me nuts not knowing lol

Oh thats a great idea, I dont think I'll be moving them for another couple of weeks at least they are still pretty small, but I think if I dont loose many more Im going to have to put them in a much bigger tank for growing them out. I might try that with them then I can get a realistic number of how many I have......atm Im guestimating that I have over 100 in a 20l tank

Was checking them out and some are starting to get a proper tail now (little forked tail), not just the little tadpole style tail. Im wondering if I should put a better healter in to help them grow a bit faster, the one Ive got is a pre set mini heater and its keeping the water just under 80F which is a little lower than I wanted them at.

Oh well looks like I wont be doing that after all.

Did a water change last night around 7pm checked them before bed and gave last feed, woke up this morning to a total wipe out. Whole batch of fry dead

I guess things had just been going too smoothly for me I dont know what killed them all in one go but my only guess is that my buckets of aged and conditioned water have been contaminated with something. Luckily with my other tanks its just a weekly change the fry tank was getting 2 changes, one mid week and one at weekend.

Guess I best have a week or 2 to mope about it and start over again....

So sorry that your fry didn't make it Magzmoir

So sorry hun, it happens to all of us.. Out of 4 spawns so far I have 5 babies!!! Just stick with it hun (hugs)

Thanks guys, I am just really annoyed with myself keep thinking I must have done somthing really stupid to kill them all off but for the life of me I cant think what.

sorry you lost them

a lot of it seems to be luck and fry hardiness

moving/water changes are all a fine line of wipe outs just the same as under or over feeding

spawn a lfs vt and you'd have hundreds! show line are delicate to say the least