Enantiopus sp. "Kilesa" Growth Thread

[Ron]

Are you on well water or city water? Any chance trace amounts of chlorine or chloramine were to blame?

[jcunningham0295]

What a bummer.  At least you have some more to try again.

How many are in this new group?

I think there are around 14 or 15.

[NorthernAquatic]

I am also curious as to why they died. Any info?

[jamarini]

Sorry to hear you lost both first broods, Jeff.  In my experience they are pretty delicate for the first few weeks post-release.  When I last had a breeding colony they seemed to produce about fifteen fry per spawn and despite care and attention to feeding and cleanliness the typical survival rate was often less than 50%.  I was never able to identify what exactly contributed to the losses.  Once the fry became about 1/4" or so, the losses seemed to cease.  Good luck with the next couple batches.  Keep us posted on your progress.

[jamarini]

Josh, one other thing I did was allow the females to hold longer, up to 19 or 20 days, and that seemed to help in my early experiences and although the yields were only about 50% it was better than losing the entire brood each time.  One word of caution if you wait as long as I did to pull the fry:  the females will spit in the tank when they are ready so if you miss the full-term day the fry will be released early in the morning and eaten by adults in the tank pretty quickly. 

I've also tried isolating females in smaller tanks to release naturally but in both cases of trying that the females stressed so much they died overnight and the fry remained in their mouths but were dead each time.  I had them in 20H tanks when isolating them.  The species is not an easy one.  Otherwise, you'd see them available more often and from more sources. 

[saji1986]

Sorry to hear about your fry Josh.

One thing I do (it is with compressiceps - not kilesa) is do a water change on the parent's tank a day before. Then the next day I do a water change on the fry tank, and replace it with water from the parent tank. They are growing well and I haven't lost any. Don't know if this would help at all, just throwing it out there.

Good luck with the next batch! Jim

[jcunningham0295]

Are you on well water or city water? Any chance trace amounts of chlorine or chloramine were to blame?

I am on city water and used declor.  A couple people I talked too had suggested maybe there was some gram negative bacteria in the tank.  They suggested I get a small uv sterilizer and try with that.

[jcunningham0295]

Sorry to hear about your fry Josh.

One thing I do (it is with compressiceps - not kilesa) is do a water change on the parent's tank a day before. Then the next day I do a water change on the fry tank, and replace it with water from the parent tank. They are growing well and I haven't lost any. Don't know if this would help at all, just throwing it out there.

Good luck with the next batch! Jim

Thanks.  I thought about giving this a try as well.  The parents keep breeding so the water must be ok in their tank.

[jcunningham0295]

Josh, one other thing I did was allow the females to hold longer, up to 19 or 20 days, and that seemed to help in my early experiences and although the yields were only about 50% it was better than losing the entire brood each time.  One word of caution if you wait as long as I did to pull the fry:  the females will spit in the tank when they are ready so if you miss the full-term day the fry will be released early in the morning and eaten by adults in the tank pretty quickly. 

I've also tried isolating females in smaller tanks to release naturally but in both cases of trying that the females stressed so much they died overnight and the fry remained in their mouths but were dead each time.  I had them in 20H tanks when isolating them.  The species is not an easy one.  Otherwise, you'd see them available more often and from more sources.

I did that this time, I let her hold 20 days so we Wii see if that makes a difference.  I am thinking it will as you mentioned.

[LoveTheFishies]

Sorry to hear about your fry Josh.

One thing I do (it is with compressiceps - not kilesa) is do a water change on the parent's tank a day before. Then the next day I do a water change on the fry tank, and replace it with water from the parent tank. They are growing well and I haven't lost any. Don't know if this would help at all, just throwing it out there.

Good luck with the next batch! Jim

That sounds like a great tip. 

[jamarini]

Josh, how's the most recent brood doing at this point?

[jcunningham0295]

Josh, how's the most recent brood doing at this point?

So far only three deaths.   Rest are doing ok and eating like pigs.  Think I have around thirteen left.  They were a week old yesterday.

[jcunningham0295]

Here are a few updated pics of my Kilesa fry.  Right now I have three batches in a fry saver still in the parents tank.  I think there are around 30 of them in there.  Lost 5 so far, so not too bad for three weeks on the first one and two weeks on the last two batches.  A couple of them jumped out of the fry saver and became food very quickly.  They are starting to be very active and are eating like pigs.

[jcunningham0295]

Here are a few pics of my breeding group.  The males are really starting to display and posture with each other.  My favorite so far is the second one catching them in there circle roundabout.  Currently there is another female holding.

[jamarini]

Looking good, Josh.  I'm encouraged that you're managing to keep a large proportion of the fry going and growing.