# Dead Green Terror Wrigglers/Fry



## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

So after a horror experience last time where all my GT fry were demolished by other fish I moved my female GT and her eggs (still on the rock) to a new tank.

I am surprised to see a number of the wrigglers are now dead. Some/most are fine, but a noticable number are dead or look like dying.

Is this normal?

I probably let the ammonia and nitrite in the tank get up to 0.25ppm before doing a 50% water change.

It is a 10 gallon tank with a air filter and heater.

If its not normal I am thinking maybe some detergent when cleaning the tank or some acquarium safe silicon I put on the outside got in some how.

Just a little disappointed...


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

Well, it could be ammonia OR detergent, or a combination of both. It could even be the stress of the move from one tank to another. And, while a 10G might be fine for a grow out for tiny fry, Mom could be quite stressed in there. Too many negative factors to pinpoint just one!


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

It might have just been Mom - this morning all the fry are gone.
So maybe the dead ones last night where ones she was eating but did not swallow.
The thing is she didn't look stressed.

This is the second time she has tried to breed.
The first lot was my fault - I did not have sufficient barriers to isolate the fry, but she was far more stressed with this lot and did not eat them.

I am wondering next time wether just to separate the eggs from her altogether next time?
How do other people manage this?


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

I wonder if the female GT was stressed because the male was not in the same tank (as said above I moved the female and her eggs to a different tank)?


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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

If this is only the females second spawn, she will likely eat them. It takes fish a few tries before they get the whole spawning process down. I doubt she was stressed from not having the male, more likely it was the new tank and less than ideal water parameters.

Most people use a breeding tank. Trying to salvage fry in a community tank is always an annoying process. I suggest allowing the parents to guard the eggs until they are wrigglers, and then using airline tubing to siphon the wrigglers into a bucket, pitcher etc, just something so that you can raise it high enough that the siphon is gentle. Then fill the 10 gal with water from the main tank. Then move the wrigglers into the 10g. Wait until they are free swimming before feeding.

You want to wait until the fry have hatched though, wrigglers is the stage where the fry are completely hatched, but still have the large sac on them so they can not swim. Sorry if you already know.


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

Thanks Ahud, I was considering an adaptation of siphoning the wrigglers off approach you have suggested.
The whole point to what I did was to avoid aggression in the community tank to begin with.

As it was the second time she has bred, I am thinking of
- Doing exactly the same thing again (moving her and the eggs to a seperate tank)
- Siphon off say 70% of the wrigglers so at least I am assured something (I would have had two days this time had I known she would eat them)
- See how she goes with the remaining 30% on the third go and take it from there

I just know from last time that if I separateher from the eggs, she won't take it well. This might be the best compromise.


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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

I would advise you just siphon off wrigglers.

If you take them at wrigglers, you do not have to worry about fungus. So the mom is not needed for the fry to continue developing. In my experience, bigger fish take moving the hardest, so the mom is likely to continue eating the fry if you move her with them. Hard to beat a female fish for fanning the eggs and eating bad ones to keep fungus from growing. But after that, the fry will make it on their own granted there are no predators. The only negative is you won't see the awesome parental care that cichlids are known for.


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

Ok thanks for that, point taken


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

My GT laid eggs again (about 2 weeks ago) and I planned to follow the suggestions here.

However the aggression in the main tank was too much, so I moved the female and her eggs back to the other tank as previously described above.
This time, I put newspaper around the tank so she could not see out, I was hoping this would reduce her stress.

Two weeks later, she is back in the main tank and I have a LOT of GT fry! :fish:


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

Wigglers and small fry are far more susceptible to pollution than adult fish. Because you saw dead fry, I would say that is what happened the first time you moved her and the fry. If she were responsible, you would never have seen the dead fry, as she simply would have eaten them. Also, fry are very sensitive to large changes in water chemistry that adults have no problem with, so the 50% change may have altered the pH or hardness to such a degree that it killed off the small fry. Best thing to do is siphon off wigglers into a tank of water taken from the breeding tank, so that there is no sudden change in the chemistry.

BTW, not sure what "detergent" you used, but one should never use soap of any kind inside an aquarium. It leaves a film - you cannot remove it all - that takes a long time to dissipate, and sensitive species may die as it does so.


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## Tejay (Jan 22, 2013)

Hi Again - I should clarify she did eat them all, there were just a few dead ones left in the tank.

However, my latest batch are slowly dying off - probably about 10 to 20 per day.
Some seem to swim around just fine, a lot huddle tightly in one corner??
What is going on ????

With the detergents, the tank were very dirty when I got them so this was unavoidable. But I am a paranoid type of guy and I thoroughly *hosed* the tank out many times and a number of water changes have happened since then.


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