Freaking out--- Cory Fry

[Yajimari21]

Hello everyone! I'm new here, and I'm panicking quite a bit! About a week ago (surprisingly) my albino corys spawned in my community tank, and there were still 50 eggs present by the time I got to them! I had a small breeding tank [5 gal] where my week old guppy fry were staying, so I moved all of the eggs there. Then (a few nights ago) the eggs started hatching, but (horrifically) I watched as one of my guppy fry gulped down one of my baby corys!! I got a breeder box later that day and transferred all of the guppy fry into that (within the community tank-- they are almost big enough to be released into the community tank anyway). I then saw several of the cory fry sucked into the filter (I'm on a roll, aren't I) since I don't have a sponge filter, and have tried to make up for that by covering the intake with leaves [probably terribly ineffective , right?] I've been a bit worried for the past few days (since I hadn't seen any movement within the tank-- I guess they have finished their yolk sacks?), but I have just started to see movement amongst the gravel substrate (I guess I'm not a total failure!)!!--- now I have a big problem though... my local pet store doesn't have any fry food (I've only raised molly and guppy fry before, so I was expecting to just used crushed flakes), and it's too late for me to start an infusoria culture... what should I do?!?! I have been reading a lot about BB, Microworms, etc. but have none to come by!


Right now I've been trying to making a "ghetto" version of Liquifry using flake food [crushing the flakes very finely with a few drops of water to create a suspension of sorts, and then extracting that using a pipette ] -- but the fry still don't seem interested and are still burrowed in between the gravel... is this a good enough alternative to BB or other good fry foods? Is there lack of interest because they are still working off of their yolk reserves [first ones hatched on saturdays, last one [I saw] on monday]? What should I do? I really don't want to lose the entirety of my first batch of corys :(.



**sorry for the long post

[cocoa_pleco]

no problem, ive raised albino cory fry, i can walk you through what to do. its too late for it, but you should have used a anti-fungal med so the eggs didnt get fungus, but sounds like they made it! they hatched, and i didnt use fry food either. i did what you did and crushed up flakes finely. i tried to put the food near the gravel since they are bottom feeders, and most survived. any more questions, just ask!

[Yajimari21]

thanks alot! I'm peering into the tank and seeing a lot of activity (I guess a lot more made it than I initially thought!) As I said before, I have only raised guppy and molly fry before, so this is all new to me! I'm a bit worried because I never got a chance to vacuum the bottom of the tank before they hatched, so there is quite a bit of detritus in the gravel~ will that be problematic? For the past 2 days I've been doing 50 % water changes with water from the community tank to try and "offset" any ill effects from this and the "clouds" of flake suspension I have been putting into the tank--- should I keep this up? When you crushed up the flakes did you add water to them, crush further, and then put that suspension into the water [like I've been trying to do], or did you just place the finely crushed flakes into the tank as is? I'm not sure if my cory fry are finding anything from the suspension (since it isn't settling to the bottom in pieces for them to eat). Thanks again!!

P.S: I'll try to get an anti-fungal in case they spawn again, but I only saw a handful of eggs go white (lucky I guess).

[gm72]

I fed fry crushed flake too. Just put the crushed flake down to the bottom of the aquarium so the corys can get at it. Congrats on your fry!

[RobbieG]

Congrats on the babies - I've done the crushed flake thing too - it works very well

[*Sarah*]

Awww baby Cories! Congrats!

[cocoa_pleco]

i just crushed the flakes and pushed them to the bottom

[Yajimari21]

thanks so much! I can now see so many of them! I'm not seeing the food make it directly to them (just settling onto the bottom), but I'm still feeding a tiny bit (3x a day)~ should I keep up the 50 % water changes with dechlorinated tap water?

+

Does anyone know how quickly the fry grow? I have 2 female mollies that are pretty heavily pregnant (probably due in a week or so), would it be safe for me to put them into the breeder tank (with the cory fry) by then, or should I just put them into the breeder box (guppy fry should be big enough by then)?

[cocoa_pleco]

the cory fry should stay alone i think. they should grow fairly fast, and the more water changes the better

[squirt_12]

Congrats on the fry!!!!!:19:

[Yajimari21]

--Update--


I'm a bit sad at this point. I am pretty sure that I had in excess of 20 living cory fry a few days ago, and now I'm down to 4--- and I have no idea what happened to the others (they just "vanished"). A few days ago I found 2 small molly fry (slightly smaller than the guppy fry) in my community tank and decided to "rescue" them by pointing them with the cories. The cory fry at this point were/are decently sized, and definitely bigger than mouthfuls for the molly fry, so I wasn't worried. Everything seemed fine for the first day or so, but on friday I noticed far less activity in the tank (before I would put the light on and see TONS of wriggling--- I only saw a bit at this point), but I just thought that they were hiding again. Last night I could only find 4 (mostly larger) ones. I took out the molly fry this morning and put them in the breeder box with the 10 guppy fry in the community tank (they will all get their own 5 gallon tank later tonight, especially since one of my female dalmations is heavily pregnant with what are probably 1/4 orange 1/4 black 1/2 dalmation babies!-- I'm really excited to see what they look like!). I'm really not sure what happened though. In my community tank I also found about 6 3-day old guppy fry (they just won't stop coming-- lol) , but only managed to fish out 1 of them [I added more plants to the tank to compensate for the other ones] which I added the same day with the mollies to the cory tank. It's gone as well O___O;. I don't want to think the worst, but it seems like my baby mollies might have gone on a rampage ;_____;... but I don't see how since the cory fry were too big for them [I thought anyway]. Maybe they just ate all of the crushed flakes I put at the bottom [which may not have been fine enough? I don't know :( ] and just ate the bodies of my starved babies? :( The few survivors are now in total isolation and will stay that way until they can join their parents in the community tank. I feel like such a failure-- thanks for all of your help though!

[cocoa_pleco]

--Update--


I feel like such a failure-- thanks for all of your help though!

dont feel that way. fry are hard to take care of and lots of people accidentally kill them. you did the best you could and thats all they could ask for

[nanaglen2001]

Congrats for the fry. Yes keep on the water cahnges, and "overfeed". Fry has actually swim in food, so they grow faster and become healthy fish.