I was just wondering what the best temperature to have in a fry tank is, they are 2 weeks old now, and temp is at about 21 constant.

Is it beneficially to have a higher temperture - would they grow any quicker in a warmer environment. It's just that they don't seem to be growing very quick.

They will grow much faster at 24-25.

and if you can keep the lighting dim 24/7 this also makes them grow faster as they are nerly always activ

Thanx, I will try that.

no prob hope every thing go's well for you and your fry

Actually, having the lights on 24/7, even if only dimmed, is not recommended. Fish have a wake/sleep cycle, just like we do, and they get stressed if the light is kept on all the time. And stressed fish surely do not grow as well as balanced fish.
Mine get their lights out when I go to bed at around 11pm (well, they don't have a choice, they are in our bedroom ), and lights are back on around 9 in the morning.
Better things if you wonna have the fish grow is more frequent water changes, as well as frequent smaller feedings. Growing fry need more protein in their diet than adult fish, and right now mine are on mostly bloodworms at the moment. They get a dash of gel food every now and then, but I can tell, they pick out the bloodworms from there as well. The veggies are always the last parts to be eaten...
Come to think of it, that eating behavior strongly resembles my daughter's as well - avoiding the veggies!

They just seem too small to eat any of the other food, I've tried them with crushed up baby powder, they don't seem to like it, I give thm the brine shrimp gel, seems ok at mo just very messy. Bloodworm would definitely be too big for them.

Its funny, mine never touched the frozen newly hatched brine shrimp eggs after they have gotten to like life food. They'll get around eating it eventually, but I can see they take hours to eat that, while the life food basically disappears into their stomachs the moment it hits the water.
Did you get around hatching brine shrimp eggs yourself? It isn't really all that hard, all you need is a long narrow container, like an empty 2 l bottle of soda with the narrow part cut away, 1 l of water, 1 teapsoon of aquarium, rock or solar salt, and a glass of brine shrimp eggs from the pet store. Salt into the water, stick an airstone in there as well to keep the water cirulated, and the brine shrimp from suffocating once they hatch, 1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon of eggs, and depending on the temperature the eggs start to hatch within a 24-36 hour time period. I found that with the brine shrimp their bellies get that cute pink coloration, and they grow really good on it.
Another thing I tried out is Hikari First Bites. Its a powdery food, almost like dust. That is one of the few "non-life" foods my spoiled fry will eat.

And I do have microworms all over the tank area, those are really good to raise too, at least if you don't mind a bit of yeast smell around. If you want, I can send you some, just let me know....

The best no-fuss off-the-shelf fry starter food I have used is Artificial Plankton - Rotifer (also called 'AP') by Ocean Star International. It's also less expensive than many of the other dry larval diets. Here is one of the places where it can be purchased:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseac...d/5864/cid/1515

Brine shrimp are not very nutritious unless they are fed immediately after hatching when they (the brine shrimp) still have their yolk reserves. Brine shrimp can be made more nutritious by enriching them with algae or one of the off-the-shelf products before they are fed to the fish fry. However, brine shrimp can be used as a source of bulk as long as the essential fatty acids are provided in other foods.

Nothing beats green water and an assortment of natural live food.

Thanks all, I am in the UK and don't think I can get the stuff that you were talking about bekko, but thanks anyway, I am feeding just the powder food at the moment and they seem to be eating it, they are nearly 4 weeks old now and I've only lost about 10 in all . I can't find brine shrimp eggs either. Will they be ok just on the powder or is there anything else I can try. They don't like egg yolk and it is very messy.

P.S how big are yours now andrea cos yours are about the same age a mine aren't they?

Elge, my first batch was born around Valentine's day (February 14th), and are around 2.5 -3 cm's now (Gosh I hope, it has been ages since I used cm ). I have to take a picture of them now. Its funny, there are black eyed ones and normal eye colored ones. The black eyes babies have all transcluent bodies, and I literally can see whats inside (intestines, even swim bladder), while with the normal eyed babies I can see just the scales, not whats inside their bodies. I have 6 left from that batch.
The 2. batch is now roughly 5 weeks old, and counting around 200. I imagine that when I brought in some pond plants into the 1. batch's tank for hiding spots, that there might have been something bad with the plants, because the babies kept dying. Thats why I have only 6 left.

The 2. batch doesn't have anything in there besides the heater and the sponge filter, and so far only about 3 have died (two of them accidentally during water changes )

Bekko, I used to buy food culture starter kits from Aquatic eco all the time, and I was always happy with them (daphnia, microworms mostly), but they raised the minimum amount to 50 bucks - anything under, and they don't take the order. I did however find frozen rotifier in the pet store yesterday, and the fry went nuts over it. Once or twice a week I dump a little cup of green water from one of my ponds in there as well. I knew there was something good about a pea green soup out there!

Kept looking around a little bit, and maybe a few of those UK sites are able to help you out with some life food....

http://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/main/default.aspx has quite a few stores around, and carries life food every now and then....

http://www.tmc-ltd.co.uk/aquariumproducts/gamma.asp has a whole range of frozen foods...

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml is generally a great site for any kind of live starter kit help, how to raise what, plus the supplies needed....

Thanks soo much andrea, you once again came up trumps! I managed to get some brine shrimp eggs yesterday. If I get a 2l bottle, can I just feed the airline through the neck hole? and do it that way with the salt water. How many would I need to feed about 150 fry, how long do they last, what cycle would I need going for a constant supply?

Thanx again

You are welcome!
I usually cut the narrow part of the bottle off and away, so the surface area is bigger, but yes, I guess you could feed the tubing through the bottle neck.
How many to feed? I don't know if you guys in the UK have that, but I use whats called turkey baster. Or a small pipette from the craft store to feed the fry. When its feeding time, take out the air stone to let the water calm down. Then put a light source (flashlight or something) at one side of the bottle - the shrimp will swim towards the source, and its easier to collect them. I usually just turn the tank light arond and sit the bottle on top of it. Shrimp swim to the bottom, and I suck them up with the pipette or turkey baster.
You can collect literally 100 or so in the pipette, or way more in a turkey baster. Some people say to squirt them out into a brine shrimp net and wash the salt off under running water, but since the salt content is hardly detectable in that bit of water in the pipette, I squirt the shrimp directly into the fry tank. Salt build up isn't really an issue, since daily water changes take out that itty bitty salt anyhow.
The shrimp last about an hour or so in the fry tank, but the fry will have them eaten long before that. For a constant supply I toss in another 1/2 tsp of eggs in the same bottle the next day after I setup the first time. And have another bottle handy to start a second batch. You can usually get 2-3 days worth of brine shrimp with one bottle, before you have to use the 2. bottle.
I feed my fry 4-5 times a day, so 2-3 days isn't really that bad. When I clean out the 1. bottle, the second one is ready to use, and shrimp have hatched in that one already.
Its a ton of work to keep the fry happy, but it comes the time when you get rewarded - when they first start to look like actual fish, or you see the first spot of coloration on them, or the first time they recognize you and start begging for food.
For mine I cleaned out the 160 gl tub outside in the sun, filled it up 1 ft with water. I let the water warm up til tomorrow, and then the first batch can go outside. They get much better color, and faster growth that way - the walls of the tub are covered with thick algae, which means less feedings for me!

Yeah we have turkey basters here. But, I can't seem to find one anywhere this time of year I read somewhere that it is dangerous if the fry eat the shells, obviously I will try my hardest to get the shells out but I am getting a bit paranoid about it, as I'm doing so well for my first attempt.

See, the shells sink to the bottom of the container, and I syphon that out with the pipette first and squirt it in the sink. You can easily distinguish the brine shrimp from the shells - the shells are darker in color and not moving, while the shrimp are a pale brown to light yellow, and moving.

Thanx again, I put started them off last night, about 24 hours ago, I will just have to wait and see how they go. I don't know if they will be any good because I was hunting everywhere for them and couldn't find any, but then I came across a lovely little man who had an opened pot that was hardly used so he sold it to me for £5 he said they usually sell for about £20 (bargain)

Oh, and I forgot, how much should I put in at each feed for 150 fry? And how often.

BTW, they are growing faster already, just on the powdered food, if you look at some of them from the side they are looking a kind of coppery green colour.

Its almost impossible to count those tiny brine shrimp, and I don't even try. I have roughly 200 or so fry, and I just squirt in 2-3 loads of the pipette a few times a day, together with frozen rotifier and microworms. When looking at the pipette, I can see its basically pretty full with brine shrimp, but counting?

I wasn't actually expecting a round figure lol, although it would be fun to try if you had a spare week They started hatching yesterday, how long should I leave it for all the ones that are gonna hatch to hatch.

Thanx again

Thats how I would feel after a week of counting brine shrimp!

So, they hatched, hm? Thats cool!! Are they starting to swim freely, or they still just hang around on the walls, plants, whatever is in the tank? During this "transition time" from egg to actual fry they don't need food yet. There is a tiny egg sac attached to them that they consume first, which usually takes 1-3 days, depending on the temperature.
Once they start swimming freely, then its time to throw in the goodies.....

Good brine shrimp cysts will hatch 200,000 per gram. Young fry can eat 3-6 at a sitting. I don't know how many that is in a day - maybe 20-30 per day? After a few weeks, they can probably eat 10-times that amount.

OSI has a distributor in the Netherlands, but I do bot see UK. Their Artificial Plankton really is good stuff.
http://www.oceanstarinternational.com/osi/html/contacts.html

Another good dry fry food is made by Inve in Belgium. The one made for marine shrimp postlarvae is good starting about day 10.

For 2-3 week old fry, there is a product called Cyclop-eeze.
http://www.cyclop-eeze.com/
It is copepods harvested from an arctic lake. Comes as frozen or freeze-dried. I think the frozen is better but dried is available in UK.

bekko

Andrea, I think your getting a bit confused , the brine shrimp have hatched, the fry are 4 wks 1 day now. I was wondering how long it will take for the ones that are going to hatch to hatch.

And, thanx again bekko, I will try that

Yikes! Yeah, I guess I need a little bit more sleep! Or my head out of the cleaning supplies I have been using lately!

Andrea, how the heck do you get the shells out of the brine shrimp water. I'm having a nightmare and don't wanna kill my babies. I have been so careful but there are still a lot in there. And they haven't had any yet because I'm so paranoid. I can't wait to eventually see some little pink tummies.

Don't they sink to the bottom of the bottle? Mine do that, and I just syphon them out with the pipette.
The shrimp itself go after the light source I provide on the side of the tank. They are out of harms way when the pipette reaches al the way down to the bottom of the bottle.

I torture my fry with the hatchery floating in their tank!! They see the shrimp in there, but can't reach!

A lot of them do but I am still picking up about 10 in each pippette full. I tried the light thing but it had no effect on them. Also the shrimp are at the bottom of the bottle by the time the eggs have had a chance to settle

Oh, and how cruel are you teasing them poor little babes

Gives them something to do while they are not eating....

I found this article on how to hatch brine shrimp and what to do with them after they hatch. In that article it says that the shells float to the top, but mine never do....
http://www.petfish.net/brine.htm

Sorry to butt in but quick question. I have 2 feeder gf who are only fry, can you guess their age? Their bodies are about 2cms long and they are as thick as half a pencil in diameter. They are still eating fry food stage 2. (I've had them for a week and I swear they're growing heaps) Much appreciated if you'd take a guess. Ta.

Never seen any that size so I can't be sure but as a guess I would say about 3 months. Andrea will be able to tell you though.

We figured somewhere around, well, almost 3 months, yes. And hungry! And beginning to see you as their personal slave and unconditional feeding person!

Thanks guys.