# Jack Dempsey free swimming fry questions



## Cursor (Jan 4, 2005)

My Jack Dempsey's bred and I now have free swimming fry. I have never tried to raise fry before other than accidently once.

I have a few questions.

1) What should I feed the fry?
2) Do they need to be specially fed if they stay with the parents?
3) At what point should the fry be siphoned from the parents? To increase their odds of survival?
4) Is there a special way to siphon fry?

If can think of anything else I should know about to raise the fry I would appreciate any info you have.


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

> 1) What should I feed the fry?


Live hatched Baby Brine Shrimp is (IMO/E) the best food for fry... hatching them can be a pain until you get your system down just right; decapsolated BBS is an easier yet (supposed to be) equally efficient method (I'm just starting to toy with them so have little experience to share). There are also some dry prepared fry foods available... crushed flakes is also an option... both of these end up creating more wasted food than I'm typically comfortable with.

I mix the food in a small cup then suck it up with a turkey baster and shoot the food right into the group of fry.



> 2) Do they need to be specially fed if they stay with the parents?


Parents will guide the fry to different areas of the tank where food is available... Parents will also often chew up their food and spit some out for the fry to eat... the more experienced the parents are the better they will supply food to the fry. But regardless I like to supply fry food myself.



> 3) At what point should the fry be siphoned from the parents? To increase their odds of survival?


I like allowing parents to raise fry themselves as much as possible. Young/new parents are much quicker to eat their own fry...

My suggestion would be to have a fry tank ready and waiting, but leave the fry with parents until you notice the brood shrinking then move the fry to the fry tank...



> 4) Is there a special way to siphon fry?


Personally, I start a siphon from the tank (where the fry are) to a bucket then hold the bucket so the water surface of the bucket is only 6~12" below the water surface of the tank. This ensures a slow siphon. Then I move the siphon hose to the brood and suck them into the bucket.

Taking "all" the fry from the parents often causes the parents to become very stressed, therefore I typically leave about 20% of the fry with the parents. Leaving them fry to care for seems to easy their stress quite a bit.

Edit/Added:



> If can think of anything else I should know about to raise the fry I would appreciate any info you have.


Fry love plants! floating plants work nice. I personally keep mature bamboo stalks in most of my fry tanks. They eat some of the waste produced (nitrates), the root balls provide excellent hiding areas for the fry at the bottom of the tank and my fry are constantly eating things off the root systems...

Sponge filters are great for fry tanks. They do not create a strong enough current to suck up fry and when the fry tank is not in use the sponge filter can be run in the main tank to keep the bacterial colony mature.


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## Markm0723 (May 17, 2006)

I agree with everything Toby said. The only thing I would add is if you can't hatch out BBS at this time, Hikari First Bites work great. I've had excellent results raising JD fry on it. Golden Pearls is also an excellent first food, but harder to find (you'll have to order it on line). I leave the fry with the parents basically until they start preparing the flower pot for the next batch of eggs. 

Good Luck,
Mark


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