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I have 1 day old Rainbow Fry, Boesemani Fry that is. I have them in a Breeders net hanging off my 60 gal tank were there is little water agitation. I just bought some Liquid fry food, but do not know how much to feed. I only have about 13 or so. Can anyone help?

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Place one or two drops of the liquid food into the net with the fry and then watch to see if they are eating. You should be able to see a noticeable bulge or rounded abdomen when they are full. The only problem with the liquid fry food is that when the fry are in a breeding net, the food has a tendency to just fall out the bottom.

With fry it is best to feed several small feedings each day instead of one or two larger feedings. Some specialty breeders will feed their fry, depending on the species as much as 10 times a day.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Thanks Jim,
Wow, 10 x's a day. I don't think I can do that, but I know I can do at least 3 (Morning, Eve, Night) durning the week. On the weekends I can do 10. I just hope now, after hearing this and tring to read up on them that they are still alive. I won't know for another hour. This morning I didn't have any food but flake food which I crushed into fine powder. As far as seeing the bellies of the fish, they are just so tiny and clear looking. hard to see anything. I am surprised I saw them at all.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I'm not saying to do 10 times a day, I was just saying that some breeder's do this. You need to be careful not to overfeed as well and possibly cause a pollution problem. Most breeder's that do this many feedings also change 50% of the tank water daily.

I think your regimen of three times a day would be good

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Thanks again. As soon as I get home I will check on my little guys and make sure they are just fine. I will report back and let you know.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I don't see any dead fry's so they must be all there, just can't tell for sure. I tried the Liquid food, tey didn't seem to want it, so they must be living on something, just don't know what. The tank is too clean.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Here's a link to a site that has many articles on rainbow fish and you may be able to peruse it for additional info. I looked at several sites that stated that finely ground flake food is good for the fry, so I would think that the liquid food would be good also. It may take them a day or so before they start feeding as they still may be absorbing their egg sacks.

[/link]http://user.aol.com/cebrezzie/aquarium/rainbow.htm[/link]

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Thanks, I will have to do some more detailed checking out of there website.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I get over the difficulties of raising them by having a large prefiltered, mature and heavily planted tank free of other fish to put them in. This way there is a certain amount of natural food to scavenge on in between liquid feeds and baby brine shrimp, not much help this time round but maybe some use for next time.

Well, this morning I counted 8 maybe 9 fry. I thought there was at least a dozen, but maybe not. Or, I could have missed some this morning. I didn't see anything that looked like a fry lying on the bottom of the net, but again, it is hard to tell. I have but a couple of plants from the tank into there net for now thinking the same thing as you, they might find something to feed off of on the plant. As for a baby tank, I don't have one, just a sick tank which has my large Male Rainbow in it now. (He goes back into the large tank Sunday) I must ask, about how long will they need to stay in the net, 12 weeks or longer? I never thought I would have babies, just wasn't in my cards for my tank is a commuity tank. I only have 3 Rainbows, 2 males, 1 female.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Rainbows are opportunistic feeders, so they will eat whatever they can get whenever they can get it, so I find it very odd that they aren't interested in the fry food. Did they noticably go after the crushed flake? Also overfeeding them till their bellies burst is entirely possible, because the foolish little things won't stop eating until there is no more food whether it's good for them or not, so several small feedings is best for them.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

frankly, I haven't seen them go after any food. I am just assuming they must be eating something. There bellies don't seem big at all. they look like stringly algea floating at the top of a the water as if it had been sitting for a very long time, and only their backend is wiggling about. Cute I must say, but they were almost missed. There also seems to be old crushed food at the bottom of the net that wasn't eatten. I hope now I am not over feeding. I only added two drops of liquid food this morning and no crushed flake food. Last night I did all both.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Hmm... then it may be that they are still feeding off their yolk sac? If they are not free swimming yet, then that may be the case. Definitely don't let uneaten food litter the bottom of the breeder net.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

They are free swimming. If the breeders net is hanging off of the 60 gal fish tank, why is it bad that some of the food is at the bottom? I know it won't cause any kind of spike, is it because of rot or something of that nature? and if so, how do I get it out? I can't just empty the net, fish are in there.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Well, guess what. I GOT BABIES. I am just so excited. I found 3 more that I am sure I missed the other night, so a total of 12. They are eating the liquid food. I am just so excited. I am not sure what I am going to do with them all if they live but I have babies!!!!!

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

One of these two guys is the dad!

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See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

It sounds like all is going well now. Congratulations. If you were close enough so I could pickup I would be glad to take a couple off of your hands when they get larger, but that's probably not the case. Oh well, I'm sure you'll be able to either find someone who'll want some or one of your LFS will probably be able to.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Yes, you are a bit far. But thank you again for all your help. If you ever come out my way, let me know.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I noticed from your profile that you're in Las Vegas. I assume Nevada, but I guess could be New Mexico. I actually lived in LV, NV way back in the early to mid 70's. There was a great aquarium society there at that time called The Nevada Aquarist Society.

We even use to have an annual competition and show at the LV Convention Center. That was a lot of fun as literally hundreds of people would come by the show to look at the tanks which included many of the headliners that were in town at the time. Anyways, giving away my age again. Good luck with the fry.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

I will have to look it up. I have only moved out here 1 year ago. Finding good fish stores are quit hard. These fish traveled with me from California where I had them for a year prior.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.