Sustaining pipefish fry

reef_dart21

reef_dart21

Member
I have two Afircan bluestripe pipefish (mated) and the issue is not getting them to reproduce but have the fry last more then 4 days then die
i have sponges over everything
all peacful fish
 
zeke92

zeke92

Active Member
the quesion is, do they die and lay there where you find them or do they dissapear? if there dissapearing i'd say the fish are having snacks or the filter is sucking them up.
If you find them dying then i would suggest making a nursery tank specifically for the pipefish fry. someone else here will be able to explain a pipefish nursery tank better then me since i have little experience when it comes to baby pipefish.
 
teresaq

teresaq

Active Member
Ok, here is what I have been reading on another forum. Pipes are one of the hardest to raise. Even keepers with yrs of experiance breeding seahorses have not been sucessful. They will most times eat thier young. The fry are the size of a piece of thread. to even get the fry in to a rearing tank, the male must be moved when he is very close to delivering to a breeder type net in the fry tank so the fry can fall to the bottom so they arent eaten. I have no idea what you would feed something so small, other then rotifers.
TeresaQ
 
reefnutpa

reefnutpa

Member
As was mentioned, the fry should be raised in a seperate nursery. The parents will eat the fry, as will the other tank inhabitants.
When I still had my dwarf pugnose pipes, I fed the fry rotifers for about a week and slowly started adding newly hatched (4 to 6 hour old) bbs. Seemed to work quite well. I didn't set up anything fancy as their nursery - regular barebottom 5 gal tank with cycled sponge filter for biological filtration. Twice daily siphoning of the tank to remove ALL detritus (keep it spotless!) and 3 to 4 times a day feeding.
Hope that helped a bit.
Tom
 
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