Hi all<
>I have had electric blue fry for 6 months now and they are still about 1.5 cm. They are in a 4, 18,12 tank and getting fed a good pinch of spirulina twice a day. I see articles of people selling them and saying they will have more in a few months. So what can i do to increase their growth rates because its starting to get anoying that they are growing so slow. is there something that i can feed them that will help. I have been doing 25% weekly water changes.<
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>Cheers Adam
i picked up some frozen baby
ine shrimp today to feed my hongi fry (and my elec blue fry when spat).<
>might be worth a try on that. i''m also going to be feeding fry powder.<
>just a suggestion. Steven & Amy<
>Ipswich<
>Email: nemo19_81@hotmail.com<
>Our Photos<
>
Not sure what is going wrong, Adam, in my personal experience most Malawi fry including electric blues would normally be at around 4cm or so at 4-6 months of age. A lot of the Tanganyikan fry are much slower growing, but the malawis are usually fairly quick growing. From your description the water quality is good, the only thing I can think of is that you may need to feed them more. The rule is less and more often with fry, ie feed them small amounts but more often, even a few times a day. A good trick is to put a couple of small
istlenose in the tank with them to clean up anything the fry don''t eat.<
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>Cheers, Doug Edited by: DFishkeeper at: 22/6/05 16:08<
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hmmm, Im no expert but what doug said sounds good.<
>I some e blues that
ed and as it was a display tank just let them end up as feeders cause I didnt have a spare tank.They done this three or four times before I eventually got another tank and seperated them.<
>All I fed them was crushed adult cichlid colour enhancer food from the word go with some
ine shrimp every now and then and they all grew to about 5cm all with the classic irridescent blue colour.<
>Even the females looked like the males you couldnt pik em apart.The guy at the LFS told me they wouldnt
eed due to the males not being able to tell the difference between themselves and the females which was great,so I had about 20 or so eblues living up to there name in my display tank without any aggression.<
>Awesome as a school in a display tank with the right lighting, but yeah less food more often <
>Cheers Ash
Phil (Sigmaphile) has some great fry powder that he sells. my personal experience with it shows that it really increases the growth rate of the fry by a fair margin. ask him about it<
>matt
Make sure the growout tanks not too small as well. fish fish fish fish turkey fish fish gobble
Thanks for all the help guys. <
>Where abouts dose Phil (Sigmaphile) live cause Iam on the Gold Coast and I really on parents for transport. or is there some where else that i can get fry powder from.<
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>Cheers Adam
Adam,<
>I am coming to the coast on Sunday. I can meet you somewhere or drop it off to you.<
>Send me a pm with your phone number and I will call you about it.<
>Thanks<
> Phil<
><
>Beaudesert<
>debphil@ozemail.com.au<
><
>"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."<
>
<
>Test your nitrates, the lower the nitrates the quicker the growth rate. Maybe feed 4 times a day & water change twice a week. <
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>Frenchy "A house full of people is a house full of different points of view"<
>
Hey aashh,<
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>That crushed adult cichlid colour enhancer food wouldn''t be called "white crane" now would it!!!<
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>
yup.......
Adam<
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>On reflection, you should also consider that Electric Blues are actually piscivores, preying on fry of other fish in the lake, not algae eaters, and therefore their growth rate might benefit from a bit more protein in their diet than they are getting from a couple of pinches of spirulina flake a day.<
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>Cheers, Doug
Thanks For all the help guys.<
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>Cheers Adam