ice blue zebra cichlid babies!!!!!

[rabbithearted]

Today was the 20th day in her hold and I decided to strip her because of how thin she was getting. She still won't eat, even after a few hours of having released them. :/ I am hoping she will start soon. She doesn't seem to be holding any other babies in her mouth but maybe she has a few left in there. I will try again in the morning to see if she releases any more.

She released a total of 15 of them. They look to have tiny little dark stripes on their bodies.



I'm excited to watch them grow and see their coloring.

It also seems that the father has struck again and my red zebra female with red eyes (she isn't albino, she's orange still so idk) seems to be holding. The mother of these guys was an ice blue zebra and the father is an albino ice blue zebra.

 

[jrthor_85]

Congrats!

 

[rwellbaum]

nice

 

[projectile]

Congrats! If possible take snaps of the stripping the fish of fry .

Sent from my GT-I9003 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[rabbithearted]

Thanks This actually is my first time with cichlid babies, and first time stripping so honestly it was a trial and error and then finally success at getting them out. I checked mom this morning and I didn't see any more babies in her mouth but she still looks like she's holding and still isn't taking food. :/ So I don't know what to do about her.

 

[jrthor_85]

Whenever I strip fry, the mother's "pouch" usually stays distended for another day or 2, and is usually eating after about the same time, 24-48 hours.

 

[rabbithearted]

UPDATE:
The babies are about a month and a half old. In all I ended up with 60 babies. The mothers "pouch" was still looking like it was full because it was! I have only lost about 3 of the babies and they are all doing really well. They are happily eating ground up flake cichlid flakes after a few weeks of eating first bites. But I would love to know what else I can feed them to make them grow a bit faster. They have about tripled in size but I feel like I see a lot of photos of peoples fry growing like crazy.

But they are slowly developing their color, some are much darker than others and then some are almost white with very light gray stripes.




This is a bad picture and I will try and get a better one. It's only one of them, it's one of the lighter ones. Bad cell phone quality. They are fast little swimmers now though so it's a little more tough to get pictures of them. The tank floor looks dirty because it was just after a feeding for them and their new tank mates and half brothers/sisters that are all completely Albino but I am not having luck with this batch. They seem to be sickly and very few of them have survived out of the 20 that were born. The white in the right hand bottom corner is actually one of the Albino babies that have made it.

They also have been moved into a 20L tank that I picked up for $5 with a lid. I was very pleased with that deal. They have tons of space to swim with their size, plants to swim and hide in as well as rocks to go under and swim between. They are even coming to the front of the tank when they see me, knowing it's feeding time, instead of just hiding. There is a hang on back filter going on the tank, and the babies are removed and the tank is vacuumed once a week.

I cannot wait for them to fully get their color and start to get a little bigger.

 

[jrthor_85]

Can try adding live or frozen baby brine shrimp, and they should also eat frozen daphnia pretty well too. Maybe consider putting in a small wedge of cucumber or some blanched spinach leaves to let the graze, but you need to remember to change the veggies out after a few hours.

60 fish is a large clutch!, and also a large amount of waste in a 20gal tank. I would try to vacuum the bottom and maybe change 5 gals of water every other day. leaving the debris on the bottom can increase nitrates much faster than normal fish waste, and some beleive high nitrates will contribute to slower growth or stunted growth. Still do your weekly large change, but trying to keep that bottom clean will help you very much in the long run.