EMERGENCY!!!

My friend came over to my house, and I though I'd show him mr.BN, who lives in a cave....

Now being the dippy I am, got mr BN out the cave, and my friends like "Hey, he's a mean [Censor]"

I'm putting the cave back in the water, when I see some little round things flying out of it...WRIGGLERS WITH EGG SACS ATTATCHED!!!

Theres still a load in the cave, I put them in a breeding trap with an airstone.

If I put it back in the tank, will Mr.BN reinhabit the cave or should I leave it as it is?


Feel free to call me any name under the sun, but I assure you, I've beat you all to it.

Don't worry, I take things out of my tanks all the time and the baby bristlenoses fall out and get eaten. It thins their numbers. If you put it back in the tank, the male should go back to it. I have raised plenty of pleco fry in breeding nets with airstones as well so it's up to you. I haven't had the greatest success with guppy traps, but that may be something else.

lol youre not hte first mate.
i would leave the fry in the trap now mate but turn the air stone down they dont need lots of water movement.
put the cave back and the male should go back without any problems.
and any fry in the tank can some times go back to the cave.
keep a eye on the tank corners as they will more than likely end up their. then just syphon them out the tank and put them in the trap.
once free swimming with no egg sack let them back into the tank or move them to a rearing tank youre choice

Seems like a normal thing for you guys...but I still feel like a pillock.

I'm probably just going to leave them in the trap for now, seen a few fry hanging in a corner, the male seems to be tripping out, not happy with the new cave I put in for him!

give him is old one back mate.
just remove the fry from his cave into the trap they dont need the cave.

Cool, Done



The other females been looking fat too - not food, I feed once every 3 days these days (not got much time...) so I presume more eggs.
I haven't water changed in - 'a while' so this came as a total surprise.

Released some eggs into the fry net, others are still in the cave, Mr.BN still hasn't gone back to it.

The ones in the net are looking well, so far counted about 40 minimum.

he,s just a little peeved at the mo he'll go back to is cave ive never had a male that as not gone back yet.

Seems to be back in his cave already.

Thanks for all the advises!

seems to be all good now then.

Just so you know, its not a huge issues at all. I know several breeders who will deliberatly remove the eggs from a male so that he doesnt have the chance to boot them or anything else. And added to that as they are wrigglers now the hard part is over, once they get to the wriggler stage they are usually going to be ok

adam,
good luck on your new found family....

as explained it is a shock at first but not much of a mistake.... the male always goes out of his shell in my tank after a few wrigglers escape....

I sometimes empty the wrigglers from his shell into a fry tank just so i have a high percentage of BN....

he quickly jumps back in to finish fanning the remainder........

I genearally leave my wrigglers in the fry tank for the first week then release them back to torment the dad...lol..

it is quite funny since as week speak there are a couple piggy backing on him right now....lol...

congratulations and happy breeding

Thanks

Quite an experience so far!

How long till they're egg sacless and I need to start feeding?
What do I feed them? Wafers or Grown algae?

Nice one, are these the ones you got from me?

feeding wise I feed mine wafers, brineshrimp flake, frozen bloodworm and courgette.

With the courgette you may find it better to blanche it first to soften it up. Sometimes you dont need to. I had a batch that fed on it raw and a batch that it is just too hard for them

How are they doing? Do you have good news?

Jagtazman wrote:

Nice one, are these the ones you got from me?

Yep! Again, Thanks!

Seem to be doing well, look like they've grown over night too, can actually see the eyes on some of them. :cyclops:

Going to setup some tubs with sponge filters to rear them in once they're a bit bigger, not keen on releasing them into the 60l tank with the fluval 4 plus......

Adam,

I have a fluval 4 plus and a 3 plus in my 26 gallon breeding tank, and never lost a fish yet.

If you wanna play safe then put a ladies stocking over the inlet on the fluval and that should work ok.
We used to do this on our pond when we were breeding koi and other fish and it worked ok...

Some other may have a better suggestion, alternatively you could reduce the power on the fluval with the blue flow adjuster until they are a couple of weeks old...

good luck...

Fry are super senstive to ammonia so the more filtration the better. This is esspecially true with BN babies as they will begin to eat for themselves at about 15-20 days old. They will eat a lot! and they will poo a lot! so a good filter is essential to take care of this increase in bioload. If you are setiign up tubs then make sure they can cycle before you move the fry across. I used to use a 120ltr tub with a big canister filter, but with a sponge over the intake, to both protect the young fry and increase the filtration capasity

That said, i dont move mine before they are about 2cms and at they size they can normally deal with the flow from the intake. My growout tank now doenst have any protection apart from the standard cage over the intake and the fish love cleaning it, and the tuft of xmas moss that has taken hold on it.

I would also suggest getting some small little internal filters for the tubs as they provide a bit of extra filteration as well as create current which BN love and the current forces the poo into a pile for quick removal win win win if you ask me

Adam ive reared fry in floating tubs in the main tank. i also know a lot of people do this with L NUMBERS.
Here's a couple of pics of how you can go about setting them up only mine is with a fry trap
.

Hmm....Decisions, decisions!

LFS guy said he'll take them off me after they're about an inch. I'm not even sure how many I've got

If (and I think it will very soon) a second batch comes along, will the parents be fine sharing the tank with this batch?

i leave mine with the parents without any probs

I leave mine with the parents until they are about 2cms long and then move them into a grow out tank. I do this for two main reasons. Firstly, when the fry are young they tend to be sensitive to tank changes so i like to give them a bit of time before i start shifting their world. Secondly, the parents are less likely to spawn again with fry in the tank. Now, i know that sounds a bit counter productive for a breeder to stop his fish from breeding but if they breed too often the fish can become malnourished and/or stressed and that leads to poor paternal skills in terms of booting the eggs, low numbers of offspring and in the worst, but not least common case, death of the breeders

There is no issue leaving them in there longer either, as long as they dont get so big as they begin to overload the tank or worse, begin to mature and start fighting. but if you are selling them at 1 inch then you will have no worries

Good luck

I'll probably leave them in with the parents then, gotta get rid of them danios first though...

Some of them have nearly finished their egg sacks and started to grey up a bit.

Oh they sound fine then, I wouldn't worry, Just keep the water clean, they grow fast...

Adam wrote:

I'll probably leave them in with the parents then, gotta get rid of them danios first though...

Some of them have nearly finished their egg sacks and started to grey up a bit.

I would get rid of them... ..

If poeple want to be successful with the breeding of BN's then you have to put there interests first...i only keep BN's in the same tank so i get 100% success rate always...

100% success rate

Must be over run with fry.

I've got at a guess 60 fry, at least 40 which have almost finished the egg sacs, one death.

Some of them are looking more active, going to drop a little bit of courgette in tonight.