# Calvus Incubation Period



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

How long from the time eggs are fertilized until fry appear in the mouth of the shell?

Before/during a water change I noticed a calvus spending a lot of time inside a shell so I isolated fish/shell. I have no idea if there are fertilized eggs in there...how long should I wait to see before giving up?


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

I don't really know the answer as I usually never saw the spawns. My females liked being in their shells. Just a guess, but, I'd say two to three weeks?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

OK good there is still time.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Babies! Gotta go read Russ's article.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

DJRansome said:


> Babies! Gotta go read Russ's article.


Do you have a link mate? I've got the babies as well.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/a ... ry_pt1.php


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

Cheers DJ


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## NYJetfan (Aug 19, 2014)

With all due respect to the article attached, after raising hundreds of Calvus/Comp fry, I've found this to be THE go to instructional....

http://www.laketang.com/showthread.php? ... s+breeding


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

The babies are in their tank and eating. How do you count them? They are all over the place, including on top of their elevated slate tiles, but big congregations in the 4 corners of the tank. When food goes in they swarm, LOL.

The shell is out but Mom is still in there...she can return to the main tank, right?

I have some baby plecos too small to survive with adults...can I mix them? The plecos are less than one inch with tail.

I assume part of the maintenance is to remove any that might die along the way? Nudge them for proof of life? Haven't seen any dead ones yet, but I haven't sorted through the piles yet either.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

I think you need to get the female out asap, before she regains her appetite. I did a quick/rough count of mine and there are between 60-70.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Oh I thought calvus would raise the fry. Thanks!


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## lorax84 (Feb 19, 2013)

Calvus are horrible parents. They remind me of Brevis as parents. Once the fry are out of the shell they are just on there own.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I count 185...crazy!


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## DrgRcr (Jun 23, 2009)

Wow Donna, I had 80+ from my white pair, but 185 is a crazy number! Just be prepared to move them to bigger tanks as they grow. After 9 months, mine are now 1-1/4" and went from breeder box, to 5.5g, 10g, 20 long and 29. There will be some attrition, but if you take good care, you can limit it. Some of it is predation related, IMO. I think I may have lost 6-8 total. Clean water, bare bottom, and nice high protein small particle foods are what I used and had good success with raising them.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

My sister has 2 55G set ups that her kids outgrew so I can get those, but have to think about racks and where I will put them. And what will I DO with them all???  I wanted like six.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

It seems like I have way too many newly hatched BBS for the fish to eat all the BBS live and newly hatched.

As I harvest the newly hatched BBS and feed what the calvus babies will eat 3X daily...can I freeze the rest of the BBS to feed later when the live harvest has dried up for the moment?


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

18 to 21 days incubation IME. I kno I'm late to the party but I can't resist alto talk. You can gauge how close the fry are to being ready to remove from shells etc by observing the female, and to a certain extent, the male. If she is willing to go a foot or more away from the shell to grab food than it is nearing time. More experienced males will be less and less adamant about allowing the female away from the shell as time lapses away from the actual spawn.

Color of the female plays a factor as well imo. (I've never seen a freshwater fish communicate more with coloring than calvus - hit me up if you wanna no more lol). She will tend to look more and more washed out and drab as the release time approach.

All this being said, I rarely, if ever, count the days before removing alto fry. The brave babies tend to peek out of the entrance for a couple days before the whole gang just pours out in the middle of the night. Therefore, if I see one checkin out the world at a visible point in the shell I just go for it and twist the rest out.

My avatar is a pic of one of my black pec calvus pairs with the female showing release colors


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

Yeah, i love brine shrimp of all stages for my fish but I am too lazy to hatch them out so I feed my alto babies frozen bbs, then when they get big enough I feed cyclops, and finally adult BS

Heres a rearing tip to maximize survival rates of your calvus fry: red cherry shrimp. I always have a dozen or more cherry shrimp in all my fry tanks. Reason being that alto fry tend to hold still for long periods of time, and in a sponge filtered tank, say a 20 long, with 185 fry in it they will lay in each others filth which, ime, raises mortality rates. In the lake, fry move from the rocks to the surge portion of the lake and thus the water exchange there won't allow for them to huddled in close stagnant quarters. Cherry shrimp are too small to pose any threat to fry and are constantly on the move and every little calvus they step on is forced to move an inch. This activity forces them not to stagnate.

I don't add current to my fry tanks with small power heads etc. but I have a friend who does and he swears by it for the same reasons I mentioned.

Whatever you do don't use ghost shrimp! they will eat your babies


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I've always missed it before. All 185 still with me. Doing the BBS and PWC with parent tank water so far.


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

nice going on the parent tank water thing.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I'm starting to mix fresh water with the parent tank water for the babies PWC. Do you think well water with no additives is less of an issue to the fry than dechlorinated water?


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

that would be my guess but I don't have well water so I can't speak to that. As long as the parameters are in range I would choose well water over dechlorinator. Alto fry can deceive, you're not really out of the woods for 3 months, after that they are as hardy as their parents.

They seem to be born hard and then 2 or 3 weeks later you wakeup and you are 20 short and it can just domino from their. Sounds like you are babying them though so yer good

PS. I used to have good luck with feeding the newborns frozen rotifers too


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

When you move them to the big tank, how do you mix the water? Half from the parents tank and half fresh?


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

IME, the ratio of water from the parent tank doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the parameters (equal parameters of course) and the temp needs to be dead on whereas adult altos, generally giv u plenty fudge room on temp.

Alto fry all the way up to 1.5" seem to be extremely intolerant of chlorine so make sure you condition that out. The biggest tip I can giv u on alto fry water is to change it as often as is reasonable for you but do it SO SLOW!. You will actually have a tiny bit of fudge room on parameters but not on chlorine and temp.

a 50%-80% water change daily is not too much provided you do it very slowly. For example, I change my fry tanks, 100% daily, by siphoning new water from an empty tank (obviously any water container that can hold a heater will do) into the fry tanks via an air hose. it probably takes 6 hours to change over a 20 long I'm guessing. I've gotten cocky before and doubled the hose size only to lose a bunch of babies. You can't be subtle enough with your fry tank changes. I usually trickle new water onto the seasoned sponge filter on the way in just to help diffuse delivery.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Finally (finally) was able to put some juveniles in the big tank. I've seen two of them and one daily. They are still very small and must have good hiding places. Glad no one has eaten them yet.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

Lol, nice bump, and nice work on being so patient. I just realised that mine are at least months old and I'm getting ready to put them in the big tank.
I ended up with ten out of 60-70. four are way smaller than the other six. I'm guessing they are females.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

How many months?


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

DJRansome said:


> How many months?


Ha, I guess numbers lock was off on the keyboard. 14 mos. Around the same time that you originally posted.
How many did you end up with?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I put 4 in the adult tank, but rehomed some along the way. I had a good survival rate and I don't recall dozens dying, just one here and one there. To be honest I don't know.


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