E. zonatum fry...HELP

I recently purchased a small group of E. zonatum, wild caught. Included were two obvioiusly egg loaded females. Unfortunately all were infected with multiple diseases, includng something that was eating away at their fins. Despite this, the males began beating the tar out of each other and at least one (the least torn up of the group) began displaying for the females. I couldn't save the group of adults in the end, but to my surprise as I was getting ready to clean out and sterilize the tank I noticed 50 or so absolutely minute fry clinging to the glass and hornwort. These are the smallest fry I've ever had to deal with and I'm looking for advice as to how to keep them alive. I've dumped green water in the tank, which also has some Daphnia magna swiming around in it, but clearly these little things are going to need something else. The only other live food I have around are vinegar eels, which I'm thinking are still much to large for the fry to handle. I'm starting some brine shrimp tonight but am concerned that not only will these still be too big but they'll pollute the tank if not consumed.

Water is soft and about 6 Ph.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Assuming they survive I'll post some photos.

You are doing good. Greenwater is good.

Yes, add some vinegar eels, or even better, microworms if you have them.

Make sure the brine shrimp is only hours old after hatching.

Sometimes daphnia can eat the same food as the fry and turn out to be detrimental.

Clean the tank by siphoning the bottom with air line tubing. 25% change with aged water every 3 days is not too much.

Steal a sponge filter from another tank and run just fast enough to disturb the water surface.

Clean the tank by siphoning the bottom with air line tubing. 25% change with aged water every 3 days is not too much.

I wouldn't recommend that. The fry are probably on the bottom, or at least my Elassoma gilberti fry tend to concentrate there. If you're concerned about water quality, you can buy a test kit and measure ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate concentration. If any get too high, do a water change from up high in the water column and out in the open. Don't siphon off of the bottom because you'll suck up the fry.

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Unfortunately I don't have any micro eels - maintained them for years and never used them much...shows you how vigilant one needs to be and just keep cultures going even if you get sick of the smell and mess and the fact that I had trouble with them fouling smaller tanks - just couldn't keep the growing medium/food separate from the worms. I'm trying to remove the daphnia, but interestingly these fry are actively swimming around in the floating plants or sticking close to the side of the tank that has the most light and some brown algal growth and I need to get a baster or some large pipettes to remove the daphnia without sacrificing any of the fish I'm so anxious to save. Perhaps they're finding something edible there like rotifers that I can't see...in any case, they're not hanging out at the bottom at all.

Should I also remove snails from the tank? There are some "pond snails" of an unknown species in the tank as well, and they're quite active in cleaning surfaces that might have sessile rotifers and other food items that I'd rather the fry have access to, but they also clean up the bottom of the tank. Perhaps the better idea is to get rid of the snails and do my own very careful cleanup, and test the water every day...
Does anybody have some microworms they can spare? Will trade for other cultures later - I'm determined to start culturing free-swimming rotifers (I've heard the colonial species are unpalatable to fish) and some other food organisims....

In your experience, how quickly do Elassoma fry grow? How long can I expect to have to provide them with such tiny prey items?
Thanks again for your sage advice..

Perhaps they're finding something edible there like rotifers that I can't see...in any case, they're not hanging out at the bottom at all.

Fry act differently when there aren't any larger fish present. My Elassoma gilberti fry were also out in the open a lot more when I removed the parents and raised them in a fry - only tank. But if you startle them they'll hide in the plants and on the bottom, which is why it's a good idea to siphon from the upper water column. My siphon has a fry-catcher on the end so that even if a tiny fish tried to swim up it, the grate would get in the way and it wouldn't be able to. You can use a nylon panty hose rubber banded on the end of your siphon, and it would do the same thing.

Should I also remove snails from the tank?

No, Elassoma eat snails.
I also really doubt you're going to have any issues with water quality. Growing plants eat nitrogenous waste. The amount of waste produced from feeding Elassoma is often only barely enough to keep the plants growing, let alone enough to poison the water. You mentioned having hornwort in the tank? Yeah, I would be more worried about that melting down from lack of nitrogen than I would worry about the water getting too nitrogen laden. If ammonia and nitrite are 0 ppm and nitrate is around 10 ppm, add some fish flakes every day to prevent the plants from starving. That's what happened in my 10 gallon Elassoma tank with hornwort; the plant starved and melted and died. Ceratophyllum demersum has a really intense need for nitrogen, more so than plants who are rooted and able to dig into the substrate if the water column is deprived.

Does anybody have some microworms they can spare?

They're like $4 including shipping on aquabid.com in the live foods section. I couldn't get them to you for that cheap.

In your experience, how quickly do Elassoma fry grow? How long can I expect to have to provide them with such tiny prey items?

Mine get to a half inch in 4 months or so. At that point they'll eat frozen cubes of bloodworms, especially if you cut the worms in half. You might want to order a culture of grindal worms off aquabid when you're there. The Elassoma prefer live wiggly worms over dead, stationary ones. They'll also accept them from an earlier age than they do bloodworms.

Edited by EricaWieser, 08 March 2012 - 07:59 AM.

Agree with Erica. Snails and/or blackworms on the bottom of a fry tank are good for converting uneaten food and decaying matter into bacteria that will in turn feed the rotifers and large protozoa that Elassoma fry can eat. Greenwater is iffy - sometimes it contains suitable fry-food bugs and sometimes it doesnt. For me, indoor-grown greenwater tends to get overrun with very tiny, fast protozoa that fry dont eat, rather than the big slow bugs you need like Paramecium and Rotifers. I have better luck growing those in dim light using peas, rice, goldfish pellets, etc rather than greenwater algae.

Edited by gerald, 08 March 2012 - 10:36 AM.

Of course, siphon off the bottom of the tank into a bucket, so you can recover any fry.

Snails are good.

Yes, I use paramecium instead of greenwater. You can boil a good pinch of lawn thatch in a jar of water for 3 minutes. After 4 days, the stink should be gone and you probably have paramecium.

The biggest problem, which is tough to avoid, is accidentally over-feeding the fish, which is why I change water and clean the tank bottom.

Well fed fry are usually hiding because they don't need to eat.