black orchid spawn II

my last babies were black - these are pale with the black stripe.

The last baby out of the last spawn was black as the ace of spades!

awww aint they lush!

Hows the kids

lol my two brats??

Nah theyre doing well, still a good number. Am feeding three times a day atm on frozen BBS (couldnt see the live beggars lol) and will be starting vinegar eel soon too

2 brats

Good to hear there doing well

Cool pics,

Didnt realise 2 dark fish would produce pale one's, that's cool!

Sometimes they can be slow to colour up and often it's only around jarring time before you see their full colour

sometimes you can spot differences in the fry when little or just catch the metallic sheen but it's very early days

my mg x royal blue bf spawn.. some look red/orange, some are def going blue and I've one that currently looks white lol

Will be a good month + before mine start to show full depth of colour they will have as adults.

The colour is also built up in layers so as it's developing sometimes you will see a colour developing most then the next layer will deepen and completely change the hue!

what age do you jar then kel ?

it really is hit or miss depending on the development rate.. around 10-11 weeks but last male could be as much as 16 weeks old

just jar as the agression increases. You'll probably start with one jarred, then two or three more will get rowdy in a few days, just remove them as it happens

Uk bred fry usually aren't up to selling size until they're about 4-6 months old

well, did a massive water change today as I am having the probs with nitrates and nitrites.

Took 50%+ out and added 10l - I took around 5l out

Upon doing so I sucked up aload of babies - after eyeing up the tub for ages I managed to get all back but am not throwing the water til I am 100% I got them all.

I have found the biggest baby and what a difference!

Baby 8 days old





I must have sucked up between 10-15 and there was still some in the tank so not a bad job!

water tests:

Ammonia - 0.25ppm
nitrate - 5.0ppm
nitrite - 1.0ppm

its coming down but very slowly - did I read somewhere that salt will naturally bring down the levels?

Awww cool hay i think you just have to keep on top of water changes, although im not sure about the salt hun sorry.

I'd do another water change. that ammonia will kill faster than nitrites. Nitrates are the ones we remove with water changes.

The tank isn't cycled by the look of readings.

Don't know about salt bring down the levels...never heard that in all my years of fishkeeping.

Need to get that ammonia reading to 0ppm hun and keep it there.

it was a member who said it on here (I found the post)

The ammonia isnt high just not perfect.

The nitrate and nitrite was what concerned me as the other day it was through the roof. I had cherry shrimp in the tank too that kept multiplying and pooping EVERYWHERE so I have removed a massive amount of them

It should have helped removing the shrimp, less poop , less ammonia.

Water changes is the key Haych till readings settle.

I am persisitng - the mount of poop they did was hurrendous! But they had multiplied lol

The babies seem ok and are doing well though

That big one keeps getting bigger and your head count will start going down. They will eat their siblings. If the Cherry Shrimp are in with the fry they will eat them also. Any kind of crustacean will eat fish. They have even been known to hang on the tails of adult Betta's previously thought to be tail biters only to catch the shrimp being the culprits.

Don't use salt with the fry

They can tolerate tiny tiny amounts only and at this amount it won't make any difference to your water stats.

You'll just have to persevere with the water changes, might also be worth getting some safe start or similar to help break down the ammonia and nitrites while the filter is cycling and causing the peaks.

How is your readings today Haych?

How are the babies doing ?

I was told having cherry shrimp would be ok with the babies

Will remove them later on, theyre not easy to catch

I didnt know babies would eat each other - is it something I should do something about or is it something I cant do anything about?

Am doing another water change later, will do readings after too

Cant understand why my filter is doing this now, all was ok before I spawned. The only thing I can think of is the multiplying shrimp have put more pressure on the sponge filter

As far as the cannibalism goes I separate and keep same sized fry in a different tank. Sorting by size helps keep down the aggression on the little ones. I feed the bigger ones bigger food and you can try to catch the smaller ones up by still feeding them baby brine shrimp without the big ones hogging all the food.

Bettanut wrote:How is your readings today Haych?

How are the babies doing ?

the babies are ok - doing well

readings are:

Ammonia - 0.25ppm
Nitrate - ~ 5.0ppm
Nitrire - ~ 0.25ppm

The nitrate/ite are lowering - but their colour are in between the lowest and next colour so have wrote the larger with the ~ to show less than

a quick update:

Things arent going too well atm

As I have had a massive spike which I can only asume is because of more food than one betta worth going into the filter its too much for it to cope with, I have done some large water changes which seem to have made things worse.

Its daft - I had eight days of not noticing any issues, no baby losses, as soon as I intervened and did water changes I lost more babies.

I have seven left, but I have tried to look today and I am sure I can see some dead babies on the bottom

I cannot understand it, I try to make things easier on the little beggars and they die off more. I have heard of people raising fry without filters with less issues than I have

I dont seem to be having any luck with my fish atm

How are the little ones?

bumpy lol