I found two baby fry in my 240litre tank - I have moved them into a plastic tub.

Question - what should I feed them? Someone on another discussion board suggested
putting spinach in some water and leaving it, then pouring the water into the tub.
Is this going to be enough? I have some paste food (Brine Shrimp and Daphnia)
that I could put in a container, shake up and give - if this is ok - how much should
I put in?

Well done on spotting them. It must have been difficult in such a big tank and they must be really lucky to have survived until now!
First off, you shouldn't really keep them in more than 6 inches of water as it can cause abnormal development or crushing. You also need to keep the water impeccably clean. I do a 50% water change every day in my fry tank and have only lost 1 so far (touch wood).
Food wise, I hatch baby brine shrimp for mine as a treat, you can also buy a powdered baby food made by Tetra which mine like. I didn't get on with the liquid food you can buy, it made a huge mess of the water. You can also hard boil an egg and feed them the yolk. To do this I break off a tiny weeny bit, then mix it up with a little tank water and use a dropper from a bottle of Interpet medication to drop a tiny bit into the tank. I use the same method with the powdered baby food as it's so easy to put in too much otherwise. You could also chop frozen blood worms up into minute pieces. It's funny to watch them suck them up!
How big are the fry? Are their bodies fully developed with little tummies and fins yet or are they just like a little black sticks with eyes? If they are pretty well developed then 3 feeds a day should be ok, any smaller then you might want to feed them a bit more. I tended to feed mine every couple pf hours and they seemed to do fine.
I don't see why the paste food wouldn't be alright for them as long as any particles in it are very tiny. I'd use a dropper from a med bottle to feed it to them though otherwise you could end up overdoing it.

fishyfan - they are tiny - too small to see if they have bellies. Definitely no fins at this stage. I'll give the boiled egg yolk a try

How are they doing? (By the way I'm Mel from rec.aquaria!)

ah Mel

yeah doing fine. All 3 of them. Changing about 40% of the water every day
feeding often, but using a squeezt thing to suck any amounts of food not
touched (normally quite a lot).

Fed them last night, and this morning they are all dead
Not sure if I fed them too much or what went wrong!

Sorry to hear about your little darlings!
Fry are very delicate creatures, and a bit too much water change was most likely the culprit. Especially if anything in the new water was not close to the one they are in, like ph or temperature.
My hubby had about 150 koi babies yesterday, and did a water change in our pond. Unfortunately, he forgot to take the hose out, so he put way more water in than he planned to. They had probably a 80% waterchange, and 30 of them were dead this morning.
I am always very careful with my betta fry, they are 5 weeks old now, and I do not more than 20% waterchange once a week, since they have a tank filtered by a sponge filter. And even then, I only let the new water trickle in through airline tubing. Sensitive little things!

Sorry to hear about your baby fishies.

I have only one fry, and I change half the water at least once per day. I don't have a filter though. I hope mine makes it...

Maybe your fish will have some more eggs, and then you can try again?

Laura

yep got 24 fry already - mummy laid eggs so soon after the last lot. Being more
careful on food (only feeding live food and some Liquifry - staying away from boiled egg!). Only had 2 losses - 1 which was deformed and another.

whats a baby fry i have 2 fish and they are making holes i the gavel so what do i do?
many thanks

Oz, are you oxygenating the water at all? that could have killed off the other guys.

Motor, fry are baby fish. Your fish are digging in the gravel because they are looking for food.

Shiari - no I haven't been. I did put my 6 inch airstone in yesterday
and turned it right down, let it bubble for 10 minutes and took it out.

I currently have about 40 fry now. Since this "new batch" have arrived
I've only lost 2 fry. 1 was deformed and the other...well just didn't want to
live.

I'm feeding them level 3 fry powder and baby brine shrimp. Changing water
every day or every other day (about 50%).

Moved them all into another tub today, cleaned their normal tub from top to
bottom (to remove any pooh) and put them back. Maybe I should just do a tub
to tub method next time to reduce the stress.....

Where do you get powdered fry food? My one lonely fry has been living on crushed up hikari flakes since I took him off egg yolks! I tried my local Petco, they had no fry or gel food, and when i asked them about it, I had to explain that fry were baby fish!

Can you order that online?

Laura

I got mine from Blooms in the UK. The baby powder food is made by Interpet - hope that helps.