We feed the fry with egg yolk - breeding stages. Aquarium fish fry Food for aquarium fish fry

Many lovers dream breed fish in aquarium. And sooner or later everyone has a question: how to properly feed fry in the first days of life in a home aquarium?

Feeding the fry must be approached with all responsibility, because... The marketing of fry poses a big problem. You need to decide in advance how many fry you can sell, and it’s better to raise a few high-quality and healthy ones than a lot of bad ones.

Forming a pair for breeding is not difficult; often the fish choose their own partner. Spawning can be achieved by raising the temperature and making more frequent water changes. Parents usually protect their nest from those who like to feast on eggs. But the main feeding concerns will begin after they hatch and swim fry. It is necessary to prepare the starting food in advance in order to obtain healthy fry. The newly hatched fry feeds on the yolk bladder for several more days. As soon as it disappears, you need to start feeding. Improper feeding of fry in the first days of life will lead to the fact that the fish will not be able to reach their natural size, and many of them will not be able to reproduce.

Starter feeds should be appropriate for the size of the fry. If, for example, in chromis or acar the fry can immediately take the nauplii of artemia, then in the labyrinth fry it is too small and the starting food will be ciliates and only after 5 days it will grow to become an artemia. Rotifers and vinegar nematodes are also starter food. Then you can move on to brine shrimp, enchitraea or grindal worm.

Feed the fry It is necessary as often as possible; sedentary babies should constantly have something moving in front of their nose. For this reason, it is better to feed with live food, because dry food and egg yolk simply settle to the bottom and, if not eaten, begin to become overgrown with fungus or mucus, which should not be allowed. The larvae often become stuck to the mucus or become entangled in clumps of sediment at the bottom. As a result, the gills and body of the fry become covered with mucus, it cannot breathe and dies.

Because feeding the fry It is done frequently (5-7 times a day), it is necessary to carefully remove the remaining food after each feeding. To do this, put a piece of air hose on a cocktail straw and collect all the remaining feed from the bottom. The water must be changed every day for the first three weeks, replacing 1/4 of the water in the jar with aquarium water. It is necessary to ensure that a bacterial film does not form on the surface. A compressor usually copes with this task. But the air pressure should not carry the fry throughout the entire aquarium.

With constant availability of food, correct temperature conditions and frequent water changes, the juveniles grow quickly. Most species are characterized by cannibalism, so it is often necessary to sort by size. If all measures for raising fry are carried out correctly, you will receive young ornamental fish that fully comply with the breed standards, with rich colors and the absence of any health problems.

Beginning aquarists have many questions about keeping fish, especially when it comes to spawning. The appearance of fry is an important stage in fish breeding, because they require careful care and suitable conditions to survive and grow into full-fledged inhabitants of the aquarium.

Is it possible to keep fry in a community aquarium?

A dilemma often arises as to whether the fry need a separate home where there will be no adults. A separate container is not required if the following requirements are met:

• the aquarium is quite large and spacious;
• the population of the aquarium is not too dense;
• among the inhabitants there are no aggressive fish species capable of destroying young animals;
• There are secluded places in the aquarium where the fry can hide.

Important! Water in community aquarium will have to be changed very often, since small fish are very sensitive immediately after their appearance and can be poisoned by the waste products of their relatives.

It is better to place spawning fish in a separate tank for spawning, since the inhabitants of the main aquarium can eat the laid eggs.

Basic conditions for fry

Fry, like any babies, are very sensitive and demanding of their living conditions, so preparation must be taken seriously.

Aquarium volume

You need to select housing for baby fish based on the breed, size and growth rate of the babies. If development occurs at a rapid pace and the fish are large, it is better to take a 40-liter container. If the fry are more small breeds, a 20-30 liter aquarium is enough.

Water requirements

The fry must be kept in an environment protected from bacteria and toxins, so it is important to prepare not only the water, but also the aquarium. The walls of the tank must be washed with salt or soda to disinfect. The water must be clean and as close in composition to natural water as possible, and must be settled. To maintain the sterility of the liquid at the proper level, you need to replace at least 10% of the water in the container with clean water every day.
Unlike their adult relatives, fry are, as a rule, not too sensitive to temperature changes, so it would be wise to stick to the average optimal temperature for aquarium fish, which is +24-26 degrees. At the same time, try to keep the aquarium away from heating devices, as overheating can lead to the death of the offspring.

Did you know? Swordtail fry do not have sex chromosomes and, depending on the conditions of detention, can become males or females. It is noteworthy that in good conditions more males develop.

Soil and plants

The aquarium for breeding must be extremely clean and convenient for daily cleaning, so the soil in it will be superfluous, because waste products and food particles must be removed as they appear, so that the babies do not get poisoned, and residues settled in the soil can cause water contamination .

There should not be too many plants; they should be placed taking into account the fact that they will require daily washing.

Will additional equipment be needed?

In addition to a thermometer that will allow you to monitor the water temperature in a children's aquarium, you may need a medium-power filter to properly purify the water. You cannot install a device that is too powerful, because the fry will be drawn into the filter. It also wouldn’t hurt to install an aerator that will saturate the water with oxygen.

What to feed the fry

Fry, unlike adult fish, have a very hard time with a lack of food or a violation of the feeding schedule; this can lead to a stop in development or even death from exhaustion. In the first days of life, the fry can feed on microorganisms that are found on algae. However, you should not expect that the plaque on the plants will provide sufficient nutrition for the babies; it is usually consumed quite quickly, so the fry need to be fed little by little.

Live food is ideal for fry. Food for adult fish, although acceptable for use, can be large for young fish. It is better to postpone its use until the fish grow up. The size of the food particles should approximately match the size of the fish's eye.

The fry are fed frequently, so excess food that has settled to the bottom of the aquarium must be removed 2 hours after feeding to prevent water contamination.

Did you know? If you perform the same ritual for several weeks before feeding, for example, knocking on the wall of the aquarium with your finger, the fish will quickly develop a reflex and soon they can be called in this way to feed.

VIDEO: HOW FINGIES ARE BORN

Spawning fish

Larvae hatched from eggs continue to feed for some time from the yolk sac, but when they finally hatch and become fry, their nutrition must be approached very responsibly, since the slightest lack of food can be dangerous.

Until 30 days of age, fry are fed every 3-4 hours, but in small portions, adhering to the following rules:

1. It is better to start feeding the fry of spawning fish with fine “live dust” (tiny organisms) and ciliates; sometimes boiled egg yolk or egg powder is used.
2. On the 3-4th day, you can introduce “live dust” of ordinary size, nematodes and young artemia into the diet. The period of adaptation to this food takes about a week, after which the introduction of ordinary brine shrimp and chopped bloodworms is allowed.
3. After introducing “adult” elements of the diet, there is no need to rush; it takes 2-3 weeks for the fish to adapt to the food.
4. The next step is to introduce regular feed and by 30 days of age the fish are transferred to regular or small feed for adults.

Viviparous fish

Livebearer fry, as a rule, are more adapted to life immediately after birth, therefore their feeding schedule is more accelerated than that of spawning fry, although the diet itself does not differ significantly:

1. For the first 3-4 days they are also fed with fine “live dust”, but it is already possible to give 2-3 day old brine shrimp and even mixed feed of the finest fraction (to the state of dust).
2. The next stage includes the introduction of conventional feed, nematodes and crushed bloodworms.
3. After 3-4 days, small bloodworms or tubifex can be given without cutting, along with ordinary feed.
4. Then, until 30 days of age, the fry can eat fine-grained food for adults, and upon reaching 1 month they can be switched to adult food of regular grinding.

The main causes of death of fry in an aquarium and methods for eliminating them

Of course, when breeding aquarium fish Loss of offspring cannot be ruled out. This may be due not only to the inexperience of the owner, but also to a number of other reasons:

• The most common cause of death of fry is banal underfeeding. Newborn fish need food in the first hours; if this time is missed, they may die. To avoid this, you must always have a small supply of food for the fry on hand;
• poor quality or expired food. This reason follows from the previous one, many people purchase food without paying attention to expiration dates, which results in poisoning of young animals;
• overpopulation of the aquarium. Many fish die in the first hours or days as a result of poisoning from water contaminated with waste products of their relatives and food residues. In order to avoid this situation, you need to place the females in advance to lay eggs in a separate aquarium or transplant pregnant livebearers into it, as well as regularly clean and change the water and rinse the plants.

Important! When feeding young animals with “adult” food, try to grind it thoroughly, since fry often die due to an attempt to swallow too large particles of food.

We looked at the main stages of breeding aquarium fish fry and the features of caring for them. This is an important and responsible process that requires attention and time, but if simple rules are followed, it will not bring excessive trouble to the owner and very soon the new grown-up individuals will delight the eye in the common aquarium.

In this article, we'll talk about starter feeds for fish fry. Nowadays, raising the fry of any aquarium fish is not difficult. The range includes excellent dry food for young fish. For example, TetraMinBaby- complete food in the form of microflakes, combining high quality and functional ingredients. A complete diet for daily nutrition of ornamental fish fry up to 1 cm in length, which allows you to provide healthy growth on early stages development.

We also note that virtually any “adult” food, ground into dust with your fingers, is suitable for feeding fry.

At the same time, if you have the opportunity or you are raising fry of elite fish, then it is best to feed them with live food. This is due to the fact that the fry of many fish species eat only live prey, mainly because they do not perceive stationary food as food at all, according to at least, at first. However, in some cases, the fry can learn to associate the approach of the aquarist with food and then they will try everything that is offered to them. Suitable small live foods for raising fry include ciliates, Artemia nauplii and microworms.

Ciliates(microorganisms) are necessary as the very first food for tiny fry. Old aquariums that are overgrown with algae may contain a significant number of naturally occurring microorganisms. But in spawning grounds, where conditions are usually more sterile, there are no ciliates and they have to be bred artificially. To do this, place some plant material (usually crushed lettuce leaves) in a jar of water and place it in a warm, sunny place, such as a windowsill. Water for ciliate culture needs to be dechlorinated, it can be water from an aquarium, otherwise it is dangerous for the life of ciliates. When the water becomes cloudy, it should be added in small portions to the aquarium with the fry using a pipette. Read more about this in the article

Artemia nauplii- a completely suitable first food for many fry or a second food for teenage fry, which at the first stage are able to feed only on microorganisms. Artemia have the dual advantage of being mobile in open water, highly visible and attractive, and their orange coloration usually shows through the transparent abdomen of the fry that eat them, indicating that these fry are getting enough food.

Aquarists usually hatch Artemia nauplii themselves from eggs that can be purchased at pet stores. This process takes place in a container of salt water - this can be a large jar, plastic bottle from a lemonade bottle or a specially purchased incubator. The required salt concentration may vary depending on the origin of the population (see package instructions). The culture requires intensive aeration for constant circulation of larvae. The container must be kept in a warm place at a temperature of 18.5-26.0 °C. The period for nauplii to emerge from eggs depends on temperature, but usually it is 36-72 hours.

To collect nauplii, turn off the aeration and place the light source as close as possible to the container, about half its height. Shrimp will gather closer to the light, while eggs from which nauplii have not yet emerged and shed shells usually float on the surface of the water or sink and sink to the bottom. Thanks to this, the shrimp can be separated using a pipette or simply strained. Otherwise, some fry may swallow the shell or eggs and die. Water with nauplii should be filtered using a special sieve for live food or a small net with small mesh, and then rinse the nauplii in clean water. Never pour shrimp into the aquarium along with the water in which they were bred, as salt water can kill the fry. After harvesting the shrimp, the aeration should be turned back on. The brine shrimp culture will provide food for two to five days, depending on how much is needed. A continuous sequence of crops is necessary to ensure sufficient feed.

On a note: Some aquarists suggest feeding the fry fish from a frozen cube of adult brine shrimp.

Microworms- a suitable food for fry, it can be fed in parallel with Artemia nauplii or instead of them. Growing microworms is much more profitable than artemia, since this culture is cheap and easy to reproduce, providing an always available supply of food. A starter culture can be obtained from other aquarists. The only drawback of these worms is that they cannot swim and sink, albeit slowly. True, the fry for the most part grab them immediately or swim to the bottom after them. Microworms are more suitable for fry of benthic species than Artemia nauplii.

Microworms are usually bred in a plastic container (a margarine or mayonnaise box will do). A layer is poured into the container oatmeal 1cm thick, then moistened with boiling water to form a thick dough. Do not stir the dough, otherwise it will smear on the walls of the container, and they should be kept clean. When the porridge has cooled, add a microworm starter culture. Cover the container with a lid so that the culture does not dry out, but at the same time air can penetrate inside, and place it in a warm place (for example, on the lid of an aquarium). After a few days, the worms will multiply to such an extent that they will begin to crawl along the plastic walls of the container, not stained with porridge, and they can be collected from there with a finger, a cotton swab or a brush, and then washed off with water into the aquarium.

The microworm culture may remain active for three to six weeks, but after about ten to twelve days it begins to produce bad smell. Therefore, it is better to start a new crop before the old crop reaches the stage of a bad smell, because oats are cheap, but divorce is expensive! This time you can simply use a tablespoon of the old culture as a starter culture. If a lot of fry hatch from the eggs, then it is better to keep two or more cultures of microworms at the same time.

Concluding the article, remember that the fry need to be fed often (some 8-10 times a day), but in small portions. So that there are no food residues in the spawning aquarium and, as a result, growth.

Food for fry video review

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When feeding fry and juveniles of aquarium fish, there is a particular specificity for each species, let us give an example: species such as swordtail, guppies, mollies give birth to their offspring already formed, that is, they can swim and feed small food. But there are, such as cichlids that hatch from eggs at birth, and they cannot be seen with the naked eye, or small ones that also feed, in their first days of life, but on completely different, much smaller food. This is why every aquarist should have some kind of various kinds feed

The first and main one, in my opinion, is:
"living dust"- the best in its class, it contains various kinds of ciliates, rotifers, cyclops nauplii, and what about small daphnia. But there are periods when it consists only of nauplii or daphnia. They catch such goodness in reservoirs using a net, then they sort it through sieves, but you need to look carefully and remove organisms that are dangerous for the fry. Namely small carp eaters and mature cyclops.
« » - it replaces “live dust” well during the first feeding period, and is very well diluted at home.

The technology is very simple: we take three three-liter jars, which are first rinsed with boiling water, then poured boiled water. To use the fertilizer, you can use dried banana peels; they do not give off any odor during fermentation. You can also use carrots, pumpkin, lettuce, and hay, but during fermentation it will produce an unpleasant odor. To avoid getting into the environment pathogenic bacteria The fertilizing is doused with boiling water. Half a banana peel per jar is a completely normal dosage. When everything is prepared, you need to leave it for two weeks so that the peel rots and sinks to the bottom, the water turns into the color of tea. Next, we add a culture of ciliates taken from a clean reservoir or from aquarists. Place the jar in a dark place at room temperature, and the number of shoes will increase.
They are taken in turn from each jar of liquid, and boiled water is added as a replacement and milk is dripped about two drops onto the vessel. Pour the shoes along with water into the spawning tank, or filter through filter paper.

"Pot Worms"- also suitable for feeding fry, these are white anchireus and small Grindal worms, which are found on wet pressed pieces of peat; for feeding, dried, grated pieces of satiate, non-hard varieties and not salted, are used.

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What to feed fry and juvenile aquarium fish., 3.8 out of 5 based on 10 ratings

All aquarium fish, except viviparous ones, when born have the appearance of larvae, which, having hatched from eggs, motionlessly attach to algae, stones or aquarium walls. In those species that care for their offspring, the larvae are located in nests or pits. In the first few days, the source of food for the larvae is yolk sac. But over time, it empties, and the fry set off to swim, looking for food. During this period, they must be provided with plenty of nutritious food. The slightest deprivation can cause the death of the larvae. Many novice aquarists are interested inwhat to feed the fry . Juvenile fish must be provided with starter food that they are able to digest. The food must be of appropriate size and travel at a low speed. In size it should not exceed the size of the fry. Almost all fish require live food. Without it, the growth and normal development of aquarium inhabitants slows down and harmful changes occur in their bodies.Fish fry become easy targets for disease. Quite often even further proper nutrition does not allow you to catch up. Young fish are fed frequently, but the portions should be small. It is imperative to ensure that food left uneaten does not accumulate in the aquarium, polluting the water.

Feeding rules

The first week is especially important for further development. essential The second week is also playing. At this time, it is determined how the fish will form as they mature. Fry whose age less than a month, you need to give food after 2-3 hours. After the feeding procedure, be sure to clean the aquarium. Usually food is given at daytime. But some aquarists recommend feeding your pets at night. Upon reaching 1-2 months of age, they switch to 4 feedings a day. In this case, the aquarium is cleaned an hour after eating. It is best to replace a third of the water. The body configuration of your pets will tell you how much food to feed. There is no need to be afraid of overfeeding: fry never become obese. But over time, when the fish reach sexual maturity, the amount of food is reduced. Adult fish are fed twice a day. Aquarium inhabitants should eat food within 20 minutes. Otherwise, its quantity is reduced. The optimal maintenance regime for aquarium fish is: lfrom the beginning of independent feeding until reaching 2 weeks of age, the weight of food should be 15-170% of the fry’s weight; lin the period from two weeks to a month it should be 80-100%; lfrom one to two months - 30%;
lafter reaching 2 months of age - 15%.

One of the methods

Larvae that have a yolk sac are transferred to a separate small and low vessel. Water for it is taken from the spawning ground. The light must be placed at the top: for the larvae filling the bubble with air, the light serves as a guide. A sprayer is also installed. You need to choose the right power of the device so that it does not throw the larvae too much. But at the same time, the sprayer must remove the film of bacteria that forms on the water surface. The water is changed every few weeks during the first three weeks.th day- remove dirt and add a third or fourth of the volume with water from the aquarium. Before replacing the water, turn off the air sprayer and use a thin hose to clear the bottom of sediment. Then 2/3 or 3/4 of the water along with the larvae is poured into a separate container. The vessel is thoroughly washed and the sprayer is cleaned. They begin feeding the larvae even before the sac containing the yolk dissolves.Starter feed - a desalinated rotifer that lives in salt water. A sprayer helps distribute food evenly in the water. The juveniles are fed 4 to 8 times a day. At the same time as the rotifers, the fry are given slipper ciliates. As the larvae begin to grow, vinegar nematode is added to the diet. Gradually, its content in the diet is increased, and over time they completely switch to acetic nematode. When feeding this food, the vessel is tilted and the sprayer is placed down. During this period, juvenile fish are transplanted into a larger vessel. Gradually reduce the content of acetic nematode in the diet, replacing it with Artemia nauplii. Next stage - feeding the fry Daphnia and Enchytraea. In this case, it is enough to change the water every 3-4 days. You can't suddenly switch to new food, which is characterized by larger sizes. The change of food should be gradual.

Varieties of food

As live food for the inhabitants of the aquarium, nematodes, small bloodworms, Artemia eggs without a capsule, moina, Artemia nauplii, cyclops and moina, tubifex, aulophorus, small Grindal worms, as well as “live dust” (this is what aquarists call the smallest organisms that inhabit reservoirs: rotifers, bosminus, slipper ciliates, which are retained by tissues No. 73 and No. 76 during feed sorting). Also available for sale industrial feed for juvenile fish. But you should know that the most complete and useful living food for fry- mined in natural conditions. This is followed by home-grown food, then commercially produced food, completing the list of replacement food.
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