Dwarf fry

[Madsie]

Hi all. I need some advice on why my dwarf fry dont survive. They had 7 fry a while back and all died within the first week. I have 10 dwarfs in a 2 gallon with no liverock or sand. i feed bbs in the morning and evening and I leave all flow etc off for about 3 hours for them to feed properly. I have started my own phyto culture now in the meantime and will enrich the brine with phyto when there are babies again. Would it make the fry stronger to maybe add some phyto to the tank as well when theyre feeding?

 

[rayjay]

I don't know which phyto you are going to use, but I know of NONE that are complete enough on their own to use as enrichment. It's fine to use as a food, but you should have a more complete enrichment that includes a high DHA component like Dan's Feed from seahorsesource.com.
Also, are you growing the nauplii out to the Instar II stage? Brine nauplii CANNOT feed when hatched out to the Instar I stage as they don't have a completed digestive tract.
When feeding Instar I nauplii to the seahorses, they do get varied amounts of protein and fatty acids, but little of the DHA.
As the nauplii start using the egg sack immediately upon hatching, and, because they don't all hatch at the same time, not all the nauplii have good levels of enrichment left in them.
Another thing about the Instar I stage is that the carapace is tough and often the nauplii might go through the digestive tract of the seahorses without being consumed.
Enrichment of the brine should not be limited to the fry, but should be done for the juveniles and adults as well IMO.

 

[Madsie]

Thanx it makes a lot of sense. My problem is to get hold of something like Dan's feed as I live in South Africa and we don't have something similar. I actually contacted seahorsesource and they said they won't be able to send it to individuals like me:sad2: so I'm not sure what else I can use.

 

[rayjay]

Look around to see if any of your stores carry high DHA Selco. It's an emulsion but it's probably the next best thing.
If you can't find that see if they have Selcon. That is next down the list.
If you are into DIY, I have placed an enrichment formula with the links at the bottom of my brine shrimp page. It is in two parts on my page but I used the formula many years ago before Dan even started in business.
I wasn't able to source the E,C,and B complex vitamins but used all the rest.
I preferred to use fish oil instead of cod liver oil because the DHA profile is higher in fish oil. Cod liver oil is just that while fish oil can come from tuna and/or a variety of fish.
See Links at the Bottom of my Brine Shrimp Page
If you don't want to do all of that, then you can at least do what I used to do years before I found that formulae, and make up a mix of fish oil, spirulina powder, and egg yolks (required to emulsify liquids as brine don't ingest liquids)
At that time I think I used a half cup of water with a quarter cup of fish oil, two heaping tablespoons of spirulina powder, and one egg yolk. I put it all in a blender and blended for at least two minutes and then stored the product in a sterilized pop bottle in the fridge. Like the above DIY enrichment, it doesn't store for long so just make small batches that are good for about a week at most.
That means you would probably have to scale the above enrichment to about 1/4 of each ingredient as the full package makes roughly a litre of product.
Just a caution when doing enrichment, especially with emulsions, add small amounts more frequently rather than larger amounts less often as emulsions can smother the brine nauplii.
Unlike adult brine which can be enriched in four hours, brine nauplii will take 12 hours just to get gut loaded, but another 12 hours to have the enrichment become part of their flesh, making them even more nutritious.
You need to do it in two stages with new water and new enrichment for each 12 hour stage. Trying to do it in one 24 hour stage often kills off the nauplii but also leads to more nasty bacteria being produced.