Woohoo! I've got medaka fry!

[Tamyu]

The first two of my medaka eggs hatched today - ahead of schedule. I am fairly certain they are from the first batch laid. I was able to recover a few that I was certain had been eaten from the plants when I did a good search of the tank.

There are about twenty more to go, and if they hatch in order of birth, I will have a couple more every day.

They are 4 or 5 days ahead of schedule (12 to 14 days to hatch? These didn't even take a week...) so I don't have any live foods ready for them. I was planning on getting brine shrimp going tomorrow... Hope they are okay with just their yolk sacs and whatever is living on the plants for the moment.

I will try to get photos again tomorrow - it is incredibly hard to photograph something so tiny.

ETA;
Unfortunately, I lost their father a couple days ago. He was an old grizzled wild caught guy with battle scars... The mother is still happy and healthy, but isn't mating with any of the other young small males... So no new eggs since the day he passed.

[Romad]

Congrats and good luck with the fry. They should be fine until you can get the baby brine shrimp.

[Tamyu]

Fry pictures!
I cleaned the little fry tank out today (it is hooked to the main tank and water circulates into it - along with dirt...) and moved them temporarily into a cup while I did it so was able to get some fair pictures. They are tiny tiny little things.

[Romad]

The adorableness meter is pegged :) Thanks for sharing.

[LittleBettaFish]

Congrats on your fry Tamyu. Sad to hear about your male though!

Should be fine munching on infusoria until you get your BBS hatchery going. It's amazing how many micro-organisms are present in our tanks, particularly if you have plants.

[Tamyu]

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Congrats on your fry Tamyu. Sad to hear about your male though!

Should be fine munching on infusoria until you get your BBS hatchery going. It's amazing how many micro-organisms are present in our tanks, particularly if you have plants.

Based on their size, it will be a while before they can eat BBS at all. After looking at them, I decided to hold off on starting as there is no way they could manage. The BBS would eat them.

I put a big handful of moss and hornwort from the main tank in with them and they are growing, so I think they will be alright for the time being. One or two more are hatching every day.
Medaka fry accept powder food very early, so they may end up eating that before they are big enough to eat any of the live foods I have on hand. Even daphnia is about half their size. They have made me seriously rethink how I am going to feed betta fry if I breed... I can't find any microworms cultures here, only larger live foods like BBS. Betta fry are comparable in size, so I am worried about what being able to feed them at all.

[LittleBettaFish]

Yeah betta fry are absolutely tiny. I have raised wild betta fry to a month or so old before on just whatever they scrounged from the tank, then I supplement with BBS and grindals.

It's cool watching the fry develop in their eggs. I have a container full of killifish and pseudomugil eggs that I have been hatching out every few days and you can see their little eyes looking out at you.

[Tamyu]

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Yeah betta fry are absolutely tiny. I have raised wild betta fry to a month or so old before on just whatever they scrounged from the tank, then I supplement with BBS and grindals.

The common recommendation here is to use PSB (?) in a jar with plants, put it by a window for about a week, and things start to appear swimming around in it. The PSB is sold as an additive that can help maintain water quality, but no one actually uses it for that. I guess it strongly encourages the growth of infusoria while preventing it from "going bad". I am wishing I had picked up a bottle of it...

It's cool watching the fry develop in their eggs. I have a container full of killifish and pseudomugil eggs that I have been hatching out every few days and you can see their little eyes looking out at you.

It is! I have a tiny flashlight I use for egg hunting in the main tank. After a couple days I can find stray eggs by the reflection of their eyes. With the medaka, you can also see the color of the fry while they are still in the eggs. There are gold like their mother, black like their father, and a few between. The black ones are very obvious as they really are black inside the eggs.

In other news, my algae eating shrimp are also carrying eggs around now, so there is a bit of a baby boom going on!

[Olympia]

Hehe so cute! You must have an awesome camera too!
What kind of shrimp? :o
Posted via Mobile Device

[Tamyu]

Originally Posted by Olympia

Hehe so cute! You must have an awesome camera too!

My camera isn`t that great... (Olympus Pen Lite) I don`t even have a proper macro lens. These were taken by me doing my best to manually focus and then moving around following as the fry twitched around in the cup.

What kind of shrimp? :o

They are Southern Marsh Shrimp (Neocaridina denticulata). They are like a cold water version of the cherry shrimp. They look kind of like the Amano shrimp in coloration, but are smaller and reproduce like the cherry shrimp. They are great because they don`t get very big and can live in a very wide range of temps... I have no clue why Amano shrimp are popular but not these.

They also follow the "native species" theme for this tank. You can catch them around where I live.