First Shellie Fry

[Josh_S]

Hi all, I've just discovered my fist lot of shellie fry. :happy1: Just wondering what all you experts out there feed yours? Do you leave them in tank with adults? If you do leave them in there, how do you feed them? Pipette food into their shell maybe? Would be awesome to hear what has and hasnt worked for everyone. Cheers.

[ryanjury]

Awesome once they pop they wont stop I take mine away from the parents because they are in a mixed tropheus tank and the tropheus will eat them all, but recently have stopped taking the fry because they are just too prolific and I have had quite a few fry surviving so they are good parents. People with them in species tanks leave them with the parents I believe. As for food they eat anything

[Jennifer]

I use a pipette to deposit whiteworms and BBS near the shell. Regular feeding is key to success with these guys.

If the female has several shells around, the fry will branch out into those adjacent shells naturally and the parents will gradually stop caring for them but will still let them live in the territory - the fry are very good at hiding and staying out of trouble. When the fry are 2-3 weeks old, the parents will kick them out of the main shells so the female can start nesting again. The parents become less tolerant then and the fry often end up chased all over the tank but the other shellies (if there are others) will not mind too much if fry are in their territory. The adults will never eat the fry although they may kill the fry if the female is protecting eggs/fry.

I tried keeping them all in the same tank and it mostly worked well but the females that tried to lay again always got mobbed by the youngsters who ate the new fry. I also would lose fry occasionally as the pairs got broody and aggressive to intruders. Now I remove the fry after 2-3 weeks - just as soon as I see the fry are starting to spread out to the margins of the parent's territory.

[Matto]

nice work any pics :lol:

[Josh_S]

nice work any pics :lol:

Haha my photography skills leave alot to be desired. Plus, the tank is newish and going through a slight brown algae stage. So not really up to the standard i would like. Im not liking the silica sand either, its getting a bit of algae on its surface and kind of clumping up. Im usually a gravel/grit kind of guy so not used to the finer grain, i wish i could just dig the gravel siphon in their but wouldn't leave much in the way of substrate.

Also where would one get white worms? Would HFF have them? Ive got bbs on the go as of this afternoon but im guessing white worms would be good as they wont swim away.

[acara]

I target feed with a pipette as mentioned.Bbs once a day,and crushed flake.Micro-worms at first,then grindal worms.I would be very careful feeding them whiteworms,as with any fish species,as they are very fatty.I dont feed whiteworms more than once or twice a week to any species.My whiteworms are fed only on flake,a great way to get rid of out of date flake.Grindals would be my choice.

The small tubs of bbs you keep in the fridge are dead handy,think they're Ocean Nutrition brand.