# Raising Laetacara Dorsigera Fry



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

For the life of me I cannot raise more than 3-4 fry from any given spawn. I know they are more difficult, but really--only 2-3 fry is terrible. I have tried all my little tricks with no success. Tried leaving them with the parents for extended time. Removed them when they began to look like fish, put the fry in water from their breeding tank, done small water changes daily--every other day, large water changes. they eat just fine--but just seem to die off one by one every spawn. Anyone have any ideas or tricks when it comes to raising these guys?


----------



## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

What food are you using?

About how many fry come out on each batch?


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

decap brine shrimp eggs, newly hatched brineshrimp. I have a new spawn and I am using a feed called "microfeed" from Angels plus for fry too small to eat bbs. Spawns are large...I would say close to 200 every time. 1st spawn 3 survived 2nd 5 survived. They are delicate until almost 4 months old then they toughen up; but until then it is always touch and go. The parents get very upset if a siphon is in the tank to clean it so I resort to siphoning water with a hose without the vacuum so the water quality is not compromised as much. I consistently have this issue with the dorsi's...never anything else. Oh yes, the fry are slllloooowwwww growers.


----------



## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

This is the best FRY food I have ever used. It's called "First Bites" it's made by HIKARI.









Feed them this and feed them the BBS.


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

dorsi fry are really little and first bites is too big for them for a few weeks after hatching.


----------



## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

Have you ever tried it?
The grain of the food is about the size of a tip of a nail! SMALLER!
I alway's use it on my FRY and 90% of them live!


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

yes, I have used it. Dorsi fry are the smallest fry I have ever raised. They are really little and even first bites is too big. They almost need infusoria as a first food (not quite...but close).


----------



## Chromedome52 (Jul 25, 2009)

Microworms or San Francisco shrimp nauplii. That means nauplii from the actual shrimp species found in San Francisco. They are smaller than salt lake nauplii, I've used them to raise _Badis _fry before, as well as _dorsigera _and _curviceps _fry. They were unavailable for a long time, but a couple of years ago they were allowed to start collecting them again, in limited quantities. I keep a small can handy, they cost more than salt lake eggs.


----------



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Bruce Haynes wrote: 


> Hey ChromeDome and DeadFishFloating: What's the secret to keeping dorsi fry alive...? I've tried everything I can think of and feel lucky if I can raise 5 out of hundreds.


My pair were wild caught from Paraguay. They were a juvenile mated pair when I bought them from my LFS as they had young fry in the tank. Like all three of the Laetacara variants I have kept and bred, they were very tolerant of water conditions and I kept them in straight tap water that was aged in a water barrell with peat. Parameters; PH 7.6, Hardness mg/L 60, TDS mg/L 140. Tank temperature would average around 25 degrees celcius for 7 months of the year, and get as high as 31/32 degrees celcius in the middle of summer for 2 months.

I would feed them with live bbs from the first day of free swimming and let the parents do the rest. The adults were super aggressive when they didn't have fry. The male killed two species of apistos before I gave up trying to keep other dwarfs with them. When they had fry, they managed to kill almost all of the 20 Greenfire tetras I had in the tank (36"x18"x18") in less than 2 days.

I never had to try to hard to breed and raise Laetacara, as I found them pretty easy and great parents.


----------



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

I don't know why you would be have such a low survival rate.

My fry were very slow growing as well, they wouldn't get close to 2 inches untill they were a good 6 months old. However I never had any major losses after 2 weeks. From all species I would usually only have batches of 60 to 80 fry, and lose about 50% in the first two weeks, but after that, losses were minimal unless I failed to remove them before the male lost interest in protecting fry and would want to spawn again (typically around 6 weeks).

I found my fry were pretty hardy by the time I would remove them from the parents between 4 and 6 weeks.

I usually have a good amount of green hair moss/algea and java fern in my tanks, and typically lots of microfauna are found in these areas for the fry to graze on.


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

It's maddening to say the least. I put the breeders in a 29 and they spawned almost immediately. There is nothing in the tank except the fry, mom and dad and about 50% of them are gone...maybe more. That's OK, there is still about 75 fry. They went free swimming on July 4 but are still tiny. There is an abundance of algae in this tank (I am always reluctant to disturb fish on fry by doing my regular housekeeping duties) and they do graze on that. Been doing water replacement by siphoning off 5-10 gallons and replacing it but have not vacuumed the substrate or cleaned the glass. Have been feeding them "Micro Feed" from Angels Plus for fry too small for bbs. They have grown a lot but are still tiny. The literature I have read all stated that dorsi fry are very delicate and hard to raise. I agree..but to only get 3-7 fry from a spawn is pathetic. I have no trouble with other species...but this one is difficult. Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate all of it.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

You could try Cyclop-eeze ... it's tiny and works as a first food on cichlid species whose fry are too small for BBS.


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

I have some of that. They are past the need for very tiny food now. Out of about 250 there are about 50 remaining. They have grown quite a bit, but they are still smaller than most when they become free swimmers. They are eating decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and bbs as well. Hopefully these will all survive.


----------



## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

i don't mean to get off topic but do you use tap water or declorinated water for hatching your BBS?


----------



## Bruce Haynes (Sep 8, 2010)

it's frozen, I didn't think to mention that.


----------



## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

Bruce Haynes said:


> it's frozen, I didn't think to mention that.


Oh ok.



Aulonocara_Freak said:


> i don't mean to get off topic but do you use tap water or declorinated water for hatching your BBS?


What does anyone else do?


----------



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Aulonocara_Freak said:


> Aulonocara_Freak said:
> 
> 
> > i don't mean to get off topic but do you use tap water or declorinated water for hatching your BBS?
> ...


I use the old inverted coke bottle method. I use straight tap water, throw in a teasponn of salt and let it bubble away for 24 hours, then I add a teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs the next day. In summer the eggs hatch in 24 hours, in winter (now) the eggs take three days to hatch. I will get three days out of a batch usually when feeding two tanks of fry. I usually have two bottles going, so the second bottle hatches when the first bottle is finished.

I will feed fry twice a day for the first two weeks with 10ml siphoned (I use a 10ml syringe) from the coke bottle (you need to turn the air off about 5 to 10 minutes before hand so all bbs fall to the bottom of the coke bottle). I don't siphon off a large mass of bbs, I don't know how the explain it, you develop a feel for how much is needed to feed your fry.

After two weeks I use less bbs in the syringe and add in decapsulated brine shrimp (dbs). After another week I will feed only dbs in the morning feed and a mix of bbs and dbs in the evening. At week five I feed a mix of dbs and baby fish food, with the occasional treat of bbs.


----------

