Do you think daphnia would be ok now?I was thinking of ordering some of them or maybe microworms. Do the microworms stay in the water column or do the sink? The fry seem to stay near the surface and don't know if they would feed from the bottom.It looks as if they are ambushing the copepods...waiting for one to swim by then eating it.It doesn't look as if they are searching for food.So I was thinking of more copepods or daphnia or something else that will swim around.
Grass pickerel Spawning
Started by
Guest_MrCatfish_*
, Feb 24 2011 02:16 PM
51 replies to this topic
#22
Guest_gzeiger_*
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Posted 09 March 2011 - 08:09 PM
Daphnia are likely an ideal food. Pickerel aren't active hunters as you probably know. I think they would starve before they went swimming about searching for food. I had good luck with grass shrimp and damselfly nymphs, as well as fry of small livebearers like Gambusia and Heterandria. I watched a young one that still had a bit of yolk sack eat a Gambusia fry in my observation bucket once. It is a lot of work separating out small enough fry for them though. If you have a commercial daphnia supplier I would definitely recommend that.
#24
Guest_EricaWieser_*
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Posted 09 March 2011 - 10:46 PM
Microworms sink. You're right, if the fry are at the top, then they need food that's at the top.Do the microworms stay in the water column or do the sink? The fry seem to stay near the surface and don't know if they would feed from the bottom.
You can try crushing a bright red flake food, like the Bettamin® brand carried by Walmart, with a mortar and pestle and dropping it onto the surface. If the fry are top oriented, they'll likely stab at the moving red specks as the flakes dance around in the current. That'll help give them another food source until the daphnia arrive.
#25
Guest_MrCatfish_*
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Posted 10 March 2011 - 01:13 AM
They are eating copepods from the surface.Their should be plenty until I get the daphnia as I can see them everywhere.Everytime I look into the tank I continue to find more fry. I have confirmed 18 different fry so far.I'm gonna try and get some more pics and maybe a video of them eating.
#26
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Posted 10 March 2011 - 04:05 AM
They are eating copepods from the surface.Their should be plenty until I get the daphnia as I can see them everywhere.Everytime I look into the tank I continue to find more fry. I have confirmed 18 different fry so far.I'm gonna try and get some more pics and maybe a video of them eating.
bigger question is what are you gonna do with all those?
#29
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Posted 10 March 2011 - 05:18 PM
Where there's a will there's a way. These make excellent emergency fish homes, so if the babies start beating each other up, they can be housed in these. http://www.walmart.c...ntainers/976939bigger question is what are you gonna do with all those?
Don't worry about what you're going to do with them when they grow up; there's a lot to do to keep them alive and growing at the moment that you should worry about instead.
Edited by EricaWieser, 10 March 2011 - 05:19 PM.
#30
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Posted 10 March 2011 - 06:56 PM
Where there's a will there's a way. These make excellent emergency fish homes, so if the babies start beating each other up, they can be housed in these. http://www.walmart.c...ntainers/976939
Don't worry about what you're going to do with them when they grow up; there's a lot to do to keep them alive and growing at the moment that you should worry about instead.
haha well of course, was more of a joke. Pretty cool they decided to spawn though. You might wanna get a couple of those tubs and be ready to separate the bigger ones as they will probably grow at different rates...They'll 100% eat each other obviously. Natural selection imo but it just depends on how many you want to survive. Where in NW Ohio are you? I'm in Tiffin.
#32
Guest_MrCatfish_*
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Posted 14 March 2011 - 10:22 PM
As of tonight I have 38 fry. I hope that the daphnia I ordered comes in soon as I am noticing less and less copepods everyday. The fry still look healthy.I tried feeding finely crushed flakes and they didn't even bother looking at it.Here is a pic of a group of fry.
Edited by MrCatfish, 14 March 2011 - 10:23 PM.
#35
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Posted 17 March 2011 - 01:30 PM
The daphnia came in today,I had to take some of the smallers out and feed them to the fry. They did not pursue any of the dapnia,but waited to ambush them instead.It's pretty cool to watch them as they notice a daphnia getting close then slowly move towards it them lunge forward and grab it. I was able to count around 50 fry today.
#37
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Posted 18 March 2011 - 12:34 AM
The daphnia came in today,I had to take some of the smallers out and feed them to the fry. They did not pursue any of the dapnia,but waited to ambush them instead.It's pretty cool to watch them as they notice a daphnia getting close then slowly move towards it them lunge forward and grab it. I was able to count around 50 fry today.
oh MAN this is so awesome. A friend of mine is wanting some baby pickerel to stock his 75. I'm not 100% he wants them right this minute but are you wanting to part with a few (3-4)?
#38
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Posted 28 March 2011 - 12:09 PM
Bad news,my fry have went from 50 to only 7 in just a few days.Not sure what has happened,but their is a small possibility that their may still be a small bullhead(about 2 inches) or a mottled sculpin still in tank.Their are alot of rocks and the one end is heavily planted with elodea.So it's possible. I removed the 7 fry and they are in another tank.They are around 3/4 inch long.While I was looking for more fry I also found damselfly nymphs.Is it possible that they could have ate the fry?Anyways the fry are eating daphnia well and the are keeping their stomaches bulging.They also look like pickerel now.Well that's it I'll try to get a pic later.
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