>Adrian my water seems to be much like yours yet, I must use a calcium additive
>or I will see deformities. In the hatching tank I don't change the water
for at
>least three weeks after hatching. I do regular water changes once/week on
all my
>tanks. About 40%. I have tested my 65gal tank which contains a goodly
number of
>large fish and the ph is the same before and after water changes, so I
would be
>surprised if ph is causing these problems. I rarely see it occur in my other
>fish. I will check that possibility though.
No, I don't think the pH is causing the deformities either. Personally I
think you probably need to add some new blood into your group?
>This problem may begin in my hatch tray. I use tupperware sandwich containers
>which I float in a tank and I provide air. I change water daily until shortly
>before hatch out. Again I can't see that a ph drop is occurring here. But I
will
>check this possibility.
This is where we differ. I use 135 litre circular tubs to hatch and raise my
fry and that is a rather larger water to fish ratio. I don't do any water
changes in the fry raising tub until the fry are about 10 mm in size (only
just top up the level). Then I do about 25% weekly changes until the fry get
a bit larger, then I move them to a tank.
>Should I test the water for some specific type of calcium or will a broad
range
>result tell me if the "critical" ingredient is low or adequate?
Personally, without getting too deep into the discussion ;-) (I know this is
a soft point for some) but I really don't think calcium is the problem. I
tried adding a calcium and vitamin C supplementation to the diet of
G.maculosus some years ago that were having spinal deformities but it didn't
make any difference. I then just added some new blood to the group and the
problem fixed itself? I also think if you feed calcium in the diet you need
to add vit C as well. (Read it somewhere, but can't remember where at the
moment) Also I think fish can only absorb minute amounts of calcium from
water. If you really think they need calcium you need to add it to their diet.
>What do you feed your fry and fish?
The bulk of the adult diet consists of newly hatched brine shrimp. They also
get microworms, finely ground "Home Brew" consisting of
fish,mussel,spinach,prawns,liver. plus squashed fresh water shrimp. larger
ones will get bloodworms as well.
Fry get newly hatch brineshrimp, microworm, OSI microfood, Sera Micron and
Spirulina Algae. The new Sera Micron has spirulina in it!
Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
Home of the Rainbowfish
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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