Losing a lot of fry.

Hi all looking for advise again... My pair are spawning nicely I'm getting large spawns about 200-300 eggs and about 150-200 free swimmers. As the days go on those free swimmers seem to go down to about 20-50 in a matter of 5 days... This is the second time this has happened and I ended up with just 6 angels last time. So I've gone from a decent sized spawn to just 6 fish... Am I doing something wrong? Thanks. Jay.

Hi Jay,
What, how much and how frequently are you feeding them?
Over the years, I've lost thousands of fry due to overfeeding, yet despite this I still find it really difficult not to.
In the first two to three weeks assuming you're feeding newly hatch brine shrimp, strain it, rinse it, then take about 1/10th of a teaspoon of it, add that to a jam jar of water, and add just a 1/4 of that to the tank. After feeding the babies should have pink bellies, but if those bellies are heavily distended - you've fed too much, feed less next time, and only feed again once the bellies have gone down. At about the age of 3 to 4 weeks when they start to change shape to look like proper minature angels, that's the point you can relax and start to be a bit freer with the food.

I'm feeding them instant BBS. I find that hatching BBS is a little bit of a pain. Maybe this the reason I'm losing so many. I mean I don't have a set amount I feed the baby's. sometimes it's 3 times a day sometimes it's twice a day. I don't really do that many water changes anymore as I found I was ending up none. I use a peppet and squeeze very little in the tank. I think I need someone to actualy show me how much to put in lol. Thanks for the answer though ill look into it.

Hi Jay,
If you're using the instant stuff, you have to be doubly careful. With live brineshrimp, if you slightly overfeed, the naupilli can survive for many hours in the fresh water, so one feed in the morning provides plenty of food until the evening feed. With any sort of dead food, such as the instant bbs, any uneaten food will immediately start decomposing, polluting the water. Babies are far more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than their parents are, and as I said elsewhere the movement of the live brine shrimp is a key factor in getting the babies to feed.
What aspect(s) of hatching live brine shrimp do you find a pain? In my opinion, for the first couple of weeks, it really is head & shoulders better than any alternative, and there are some pretty straight forward ways of hatching it.

Can I ask how do you strain the BBS? and with what? are they still alive after rinsing??

I use a "Hobby" (that's the brand name) brine shrimp sieve, but I know some people use coffee filter papers, handkerchief, even a pair of old tight's would probably do.
The main thing is to try to separate the egg shells from the shrimp, by allowing them to stand for a few minutes in a clear jar or bottle, preferably with a light at the bottom (the shrimp are drawn to the light) whilst the shells float, quite how you get the shrimp out depends on the system you use, I'll try to do a post on the system I run, but it won't be for a day or two - unless someone posts a good link, or does their own post before I get there.

and yes, even after rinsing with cold tap water, they are still alive!

i bought a BBS hatchery thing off ebay for pennys and its smaller then i thought. the whole shinging the light under the bottle to draw the shrimp down and air hoeses having to be plugged into it is just a pain for me. i mean on my next spawn im going to try feeding live from day 1 and just use the instant stuff as a back up in cas something goes wrong with the live bbs. can you give me a link as to where you by your eggs from? i bought some eggs that came in a liquid and dont think thats right... i mean they hatched and stuff but i see people using dry eggs... mine came in like a eye drop bottle...

thanks for the advise

ps rob this isnt your pair im talking about by the way this is my other pair. your pair have tons of wrigglers at the moment im 90% confident that this time i will get some babys.

on my next spawn im going to try feeding live from day 1 and just use the instant stuff as a back up in cas something goes wrong with the live bbs.

That seems a good plan, although you'll need more than one hatchery on the go as the eggs can take between 24 and 48 hours to hatch.

can you give me a link as to where you by your eggs from?

We (The Aquatic Habitat) don't have an on line shop, but we sell a 50g pack of San Francisco Bay eggs for £8.50, in the past I've done 2 packs for £15 for forum members, but since postage has gone up, I can't quite do that, but we can do them post free (for however many packs you want) - 1 pack should be more than enough for several batches of youngsters. PM me if you're interested.

your pair have tons of wrigglers at the moment im 90% confident that this time i will get some babys.

That's good news Jay, I was wondering how you were getting on with them.