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I have a question hopefully you guys can help me. This time around my the eggs hatched and the parents have been able to take care of the wigglers up until free swimming stage. What I'm noticing though is the wigglers swimming everywhere around the tank. Some of the are still on the cone and others on the side of the glass near surface. is this normal? should the wigglers find their parents right away? Whats the right lighting to keep on the tank(brightness)?
First of all, congratulations of getting to the wriggler stage. It means you have a confirmed fertile pair, and they are not prone to egg eating. That's quite an achievement on it's own.
The tiny fry really need to find their parents within 12 to 24 hours after free swimming. Much longer than that, they they will have used up their egg yolk reserves and starve. Ideally the parents should be gathering up the scattered fry, and spitting them back onto the cone. They do that till all the fry are free swimming, and they can no longer keep them together on the cone.
I notice in one of your previous posts that you have pigeon blood fish. "The red and yellow base fish seem to have more difficulty with the fry attaching because the parents don't darken sufficiently to attract the fry.
Tiny fry are 'programmed' to head for the darkest thing in the tank. This should be their parents, but with red and yellow base fish, it's not always the case.
You can help the fry to attach by lowering the level of the water so that the parents just have enough water to stay upright, dim the lights a little, so they still have lignt on 24/7 but it's not too bright. That will make the parents look darker.
Remove any dark objects from the tank, such as filter intakes or heaters, or wrap them in white filter wool. If the sides and back of the tank aren't painted, cover them with pale blue or white paper. All this is designed to make the parents appear darker than anything else that the fry can see.
Needless to say, your water quality must be pristine. The slightest amount of ammonia or nitrite will kill fry, and a higher than normal reading of nitrate will confuse them.
Good luck. We're all thinking of you.:P
Thank you for the info.... it was very helpful, the fish are all now free swimming. before the eggs hatched i made sure to take my filter head out since it was black...and also wrapped my sponge filter in white filter cloth since it was a bit dark....i lowered the water and the babies are all bunched up in a corner swimming around and the parents next to them....they attach to the parents eat a little and swim away....i believe they found their parents (or are they supposed to at all times be attached to their parents?)....
hi mate i am unsure where this idea has come from the fry attatch themselves to the parent they actualy just eat off the sides of the parents and then swim happily they are like a sheep grazing on grass eat some walk eat some walk they eat some swim eat some swim.
As to the time they need to find the parents in if they have been on the pole for the 120 aprox hours from egg to free swim then if they dont seem to find the parents within 4 hours you tend to not be able to find any swimming after that time frame hope all goes well.
At day 3 you should start your brine shrimp egg batch going as that way by day 5 you will have newly hatched brine shrimp to start adding to your fry as food top ups and as they start to eat more then you can increase the amount of feeds.
hope the info helps.
and well done on getting free swimmers