# Help.....How to feed fry when gone



## Morgan Harris (Sep 15, 2010)

Ok...so my nyererei decided to finally give me some fry recently. I have one brood of 6 that are a week shy of 2 months (counting from the day the breeding happened). Also have another female who has been holding for about 3 weeks and likely will be spitting soon. I've been feeding the first brood frozen daphnia and frozen tubifex worms. Getting close to being able to give them NLS GROW, but don't think they are big enough yet.

My problem is....I'll be going out of town for Christmas for a week. Nobody here to feed the fry. I have feeders for the adults, but don't have a clue how I'm going to keep the fry fed.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Surely this is not a new situation for the pro's on here. I'm confident there is an answer out there somewhere.

Thanks....Morgan


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

I feed my fry powdered NLS. In powdered form it tends to distribute around the tank and give them something to forage on that the adults aren't likely to pay much attention to. You could get an automatic feeder and set it up to drop in a small amount of powdered NLS each day or every other day. You just have to go easy and not drop it in by the bucketful. If the automatic feeder is not an option then I'd just add the powdered NLS before I left. Fry can be pretty resourseful at finding food. I've never been one to do pinpoint feeding, never found it necessary. I use a coffee grinder to powder the NLS. In a well established tank, fry will find and pick at food that we can't even see.

HTH


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## Morgan Harris (Sep 15, 2010)

Thank you so much, Tim. That sounds like a perfect solution. I do have several automatic feeders and I'll try it out to see which one will work best with the powder. I knew somebody here would be able to help. I LOVE this forum.

Morgan


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## toolate_frozen (Dec 1, 2010)

You could also try algae wafers. I use these on my fry when I know I can only give them one feed that day. They take hours to eat it all. I guess thats not gonna last a week though. Algae wafers in auto feeder???


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## shaguars7 (Apr 12, 2009)

you know what else you can try is vacation feeders... I cant remember exactly what there called, but just remember when i was a kid with my community tanks I used to buy these little white pyramids.. They were just food in a cube and would slowly dissolve.. from wAht i remember they had ones for a few days to weeks..look into that. Here is a little link about them. it says it may not be good for adults but you are talking fry so i think it could comply..... http://www.bestfish.com/vacfoodpa.html


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I'd be afraid the vacation feeder blocks pollute the tank?


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

I've not heard good things about those blocks at all. I'd be wary.


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## toolate_frozen (Dec 1, 2010)

Tetra make a holiday block which uses agar instead of plaster. You could cut one of those up perhaps. I never need to use holiday blocks but I sell a lot of them and people have good results with them. The one complaint I've heard about them is a big bumblebee catfish eating the whole block in one night! Clearly, far more palatable than the plaster type.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I like prov's idea of the automatic feeder, although I would never use one unless it was a tiny fry situation like this.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

DJRansome said:


> I like prov's idea of the automatic feeder, although I would never use one unless it was a tiny fry situation like this.


I would agree. Most fish, even small ones will find food better than we think on their own. I wouldn't go to great pains, personally, with newly hatched or released fry because if my fish are breeding, they'll probably give me more than I can work with anyway.


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## marvo (Nov 24, 2010)

prov356 said:


> DJRansome said:
> 
> 
> > I like prov's idea of the automatic feeder, although I would never use one unless it was a tiny fry situation like this.
> ...


 .........exactly........


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## Morgan Harris (Sep 15, 2010)

If the fry had been in a larger, long established tank perhaps they could have found food on their own. Have them in a 2.5 gallon with a small internal filter that I had running for a while on the main tank.

Anyway, the powdered NLS in an automatic feeder worked like a charm. All seem healthy, happy, and have just about doubled in size since I left.

Thanks for the help.


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