Rearing Fry

As i have not had to raise any fry for a long time i cant remember wether i should leave the light on with the ones i have right now.My pb pair have been eating there eggs so this time around a thought i would remove the parants frorm the remaining few eggs of which around 40 went freeswimming today.The brineshrimp are bubbleing away & the fry are having a swim about so all seem ok.They are currently on the floor of the tank in two groups for the moment & appear content but should i leave the light on or should it be ok to turn it off?

Paul

If the parents arn't with them then you can switch off lights safely

Cheers Lise just as i thought.I realy wanted to raise a few from this pair as the male has superb finnage as does the female when she opens her dorsal it is quite wide so i have high hopes for the young. Thanks for putting them both on the portal for me youre a star.

Bulldog, this is a good post and we should be expanding. In terms of leaving the light on this can settle the parents however I have my lights on a timer and still get good results, this means that my lights go completely of and on again a few hours later. The other issue with leaving the light on is that it can affect the colouration of your fish.

I would like to find out a bit more from other members how they go about raising their fry i.e. if we broke it down from days 0-7, weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 and then months 2, 3, 6, 9 and 12. Everyone has their secrets but there must be a pettern that most of us can follow: what do you feed at each stage? do you leave with parents? what meds do you use?

Thanks folks.

In the past I have tried leaving lights on with some success, but only with pairs that seem attentive parents during the day, only to eat their eggs overnight; but only for a night or so around the time the eggs were due to hatch and again for a night or so when the youngsters are due to free swim. Whilst this often works/helps, sometimes it seems to spook the parents making them very nervous and therefore, IMO, more likely to eat the eggs/young.

These days I don't usually bother, instead my lights are on a timer from about 8am to 10pm, the fish seem to adapt to this routine, and I've noticed that parents often try to settle newly free swimming youngsters onto a leaf or similar about an hour before lights out.
I also try not to do water changes too close to lights out, as disruption to the routine, even if I'm only dealing with adjacent tanks, can sometimes cause less experienced parents to take fright and eat their young/eggs.