I have babies. Now what?????

[zeone03]

Hello everyone. I am very new to having an aquarium. I just bought my 5yr old an aquarium about a month ago and have 8 tetra fish in it. Everything has been going great with it so far.

Well I get home late tonight and to my surprise see a baby fish swimming at the top, then I see another and another. At 11 o'clock at night I drove to Wal-Mart and got one of those breeder cages for them to keep them away from the other fish. I found a couple of dead babies which I figured was from the other big fish trying to eat them. I found all that I could hiding in the rocks at the bottom which was about 12 of them. I think there are more though but they are good hiders.

Their all seperated now. My only problem is that I'm only about a month into this hobby and have no idea how to take care of baby fish. Do they need special food or do I need to do something special for them. Please help. Thank you.

[turbomkt]

The quick answer is hard boil an egg. When it's done, eat the egg white. It's good for you. ;)

Then, take just a little itty bit of the egg yolk and crumble it up to very fine pieces and put that in the breeding trap. You'll want to do this a couple times a day trying to take OUT whatever is left after a little bit.

Then, when you have time, you can go to the lfs and see if they have anything for feeding fry (there are a number of commercial options here).

[zeone03]

Thanks for the info.

[kimmers318]

Frozen baby brine shrimp always worked well for my newborn platy fry and after a couple of days they are usually able to take finely crushed flake. I just put some in a ziploc bag and roll it around until it is powdery.

[Lady Hobbs]

Congratulations on motherhood.

[Severus]

My Tetra fry are currently eating finely crushed flake after only 2 weeks, they went nuts for the protein cloud of egg yolk. Good luck and keep teir water clean

[Lady Hobbs]

You didn't mention the size of your tank, I don't believe, but did mention 8 Tetra's. If you have a small tank, you'll have to watch for ammonia and nitrite spikes for a while, as well.

[zeone03]

Its a 10 gallon tank that I have. I didn't know about the ammonia and nitrite till I went online a few days ago. I told my LFS this was my first tank and they didn't mention anything about those. Just told me not to add more than 2-3 fish at a time and do 20% water changes about every 3 weeks.

I bought some books today to read up on and have been reading online. I would like to eventually get a saltwater tank.

[Severus]

I would do a 20% water change once a week. Maybe every other week depending how your water parameters are. I would learn as much as you can before you go saltwater. There is a lot to learn

[Lady Hobbs]

I give my fish an egg yolk now and then for a treat. My balas love it as well as the platies and silver dollars. Kinda makes a mess of the water but it soon filters thru.

[Severus]

Yea, with fry you only need a tiny little bit of yolk to make a cloud for them to swim through and eat

[zeone03]

I've been reading as much as I can. I will probably be a while before I go to saltwater. My 5yr old drives me nuts everytime we go to the lfs. He sees you know who....... Nemo. He was amazed when he seen the baby fish.

[Severus]

yea, lol. Nemo and Dory are two cool saltwater fish