Fry need to be fed about 4-6 times a day. They need to be in a spot where there is very little water movement or else the food floats away before they can eat their fill. I have had many fry starve because of this. Hikari first bites is not a good option for tiny Rams. They just do not eat their fill. It could be your dad ate the fry because they were slowly starving and he knew they were not going to make it. In the past, the most I have gotten to live past 2 weeks is 8 fry, the rest starved. Even in low water movement they had a hard time finding food that settled on the bottom. I have used the First Bites, frozen baby brine shrimp and crushed flakes with no luck.
Ram fry are so much smaller than fry from live bearers such as Guppies and Platies, and African fry. They cannot handle food such as crushed flake, it is just way too big for them.
The best food for Ram fry is Live baby brine shrimp. I used that on my last batch and every single fry lived and are now 4 months old! Because the food is live and wiggles the fry had no trouble seeing them at all. They were fat, happy fry! They grew twice as fast as ever too.
All you need is a couple jars, air pump, tubing, salt, baking soda and shrimp eggs. You get two jars going at once. It takes about 18-24 hours for the shrimp to hatch. As soon as they hatch is when you feed. What I did is, when I started feeding from one jar I mixed up the other so that way I had one ready at all times. I used one one day, the other the next day. When you have your next batch of fry I will get into more detail then. You can find the eggs at most lfs. I only used 1/4 teaspoon for each batch. I will never try anything else again! So, if you want your fry to live and grow up, go with the live baby brine shrimp! If you look at the video of the fry growing up you can see that their tummies are fat and gold. That is the bbs.
Here is the video I went by to learn how to do it.
YouTube - Do-it-Yourself: Brine Shrimp (artemia) Hatchery
