I am a MOM again! Need some parenting advice.

Andyandsue

So nice to have babies with no labor!

I have 7 albino cory babies, and wow are they cute and SMALL!

I now have a one gallon tank that I was going to use for them but PetSmart didn't have a sponge filter (!), nor did the department employee know what one was (!!)

They are so small they looked like they'd be able to slip right through the plastic breeder slots, so I bought a net breeder to put them in. I guess I'm going that route. Any tips, suggestions, or advice?

I have commercial fry food that I saw them snacking on earlier, which gave me some hope that I did something right.

Falina

Congrats!

When I had the fry I used a plastic breeder. Mine didnt have large slots however so this wasn't a problem. I found it better because with the net breeder there is always the chance that fish can try and suck them through. Obviously they won't actually get them through but they can hurt them trying. Depending on what fish you have however this may not be a problem. Id you're really worried you could possibly put the net breeder inside the plastic breeder, or vice versa and just keep a really close eye on them. I'm not sure how this would work with sizes thoguh as I've never had a net breeder myself.

If you do deicde to use the plastic one, maybe in a few days when they're a bit bigger, just remember to "change the water" daily. I just slowly lifted the breeder out of the water until there wasn't much left (very slowly and gently so as not to disturb them) and back down again to let the water come back in. Plastic breeders don't allow for much circulation.

I think you were right not to put them in the other tank. Babies are very sensitive to any params that go off, even though thy might not be harmful, any deviation from their original conditions can be harmful from what I've read. I wouldn't want to take the chance. In a few weeks I would move them if you can get the filter sorted as the more room they have, the better they will grow.

For food I used egg yolk for the first few days and they seemed to enjoy it. Just a tiny pinch in the water, crumbled and then squirted into them with a pipette. After a few days I couldn't find any baby brine shrimp so what I used was a combination of the egg yolk, crushed flakes and freeze dried brineshrimp. It was the sort that came in a sort of jelly and I broke this up along with some water and fed it like it was the egg yolk and they took it very well.

A llink to my post from when I had the fry, which was a real learning experience for me is here: http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6280. A few folk have said they found it quite helpful so I hope you will too.

If you've any other questions just post them, or pm me, whatever and I'll try and help you the best I can.

Andyandsue

Hi Julie,

I read your post when my cory laid her eggs, and it was helpful. I'm wondering though, why did yours die? It looked like you were gone for a short time, and they didn't seem too tiny... what happened?

It's pretty funny how these came to be. I got the plastic breeder and all of the eggs that I could and put them in my tank. I had 19 eggs and it looked like every one of them fungused. I held off on vacuuming my tank an extra few days because I figured if I had any fry they would be newly hatched. I didn't see any fry, so after 9 days I decided to go ahead and vacuum. Sure enough there were fry in the spent water! Some had survived and it wasn't any that I tried to protect!

By the third gallon of water I found there wasn't anymore fry in the water so I stopped looking, but I was so excited to have found 7 lucky swimmers! My 20 minute water change turned into a 2 hour event getting everything set up for them! Right now they are happy in the net breeder having just had their late night snack.

Falina

I was away for a little over a fortnight. I came home to find nothing in the tank alive and massive amounts of uneaten food. The water smelled really bad and was virtually a solid colour - hardly see-through at all! Mum had been putting courgette for the snails in and not removing the old stuff, but putting new stuff in all the time, and feeding huge amounts of flake foods. My bigger tank wasn't a whole lot better but since it was bigger almost all fish survived. I told her numerour times about feeding only very little since I wasn't there to do water changes etc but she was so scared of starving them.

Good luck with them! They really are great to watch grow up.

Andyandsue

A fortnight is two weeks, right?

I had to Google courgette! I call it zucchini. I use commercial food for my snails only because every time I put courgette in my tank it makes such a mess, how do you keep it clean? I know to clean it up the next day but UGH!

What else do you feed your snails?

That's too bad about your tanks. She didn't realize that water like that is a problem?

When I went away I used a daily vitamin dispenser. I put the food in for each day, so all my parents had to do when they stopped by is to open that day's spot and dump it in. But then again, I didn't feed any fresh foods.

Falina

She realised, but was adamant when I left that she wouldn't clean them out. I said this would be fine because as long as they weren't overfed that this wouldn't be a problem. I did a water change the day before I left and althoguh I knew a water change would obviously be overdue on my return, had they not been so overfed it wouldn't have been a great problem.

She has always disliked my having fish but would never deliberately hurt them which is why she was so scared of starving therm, unfortunately she drew the line at water changes. I was very upset and called her for every obscenity that I could think of at the time! LOL! Not entirely her fault I guess.

LOL! A fortnight is 2 weeks aye, and courgette is a zuchini, sorry. It wasn't so long ago I was googling zuchini only to fnd out that it was merely the humble courgette!

I feed the snails courgette (zuchini lol), romaine lettuce and spinich mianly with algae wafers if for a day or so I forget to go to the supermarket to pick up their veg. They take to it very well. I leave it in for a very short time however as they do make a mess otherwise. I give them an hour or so with it and then take it back out. I don't know about yours but mine are greedy and make a good go at it in that short space of time.

How are the cory babies?

Andyandsue

That's too bad about the babies... it sounds like it was just a mess all the way around.

My cory babies are doing good so far. They seem to be doing fine in the net breeder and I put a small dose of melafix in the tank just to keep it clean.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do when it comes time to do a water change with the net breeder though. The water level will definitely go down below the breeder level. hmmm. Any suggestions? I may have to do a 4-handed water change with my husband's help.

Falina

Good question! I've never thoguht about it since it's not an issue with the plastic one. If you could get your husband to hold it for you while you do it that would work so long as everyone is careful. Or if you have a bucket or smaller tank that you could fill with the tank water and then attatch the breeder ontothat for the duration of the water change?

Little-Fizz

I realize this post is probably really late, but if they are still in the breeder net, when I had my fry in there when I had to do a water clean I just scooped them out with my hand and put them in a bowl until I was done.