Well, I am sad to report that I still don't have the answer to my dying fry dilemma.
The spawn I hoped would answer most of the questions now died as well. Is it the food, the fish, the water, the amount of feedings, etc? I can't answer them all.
I spent the better part of the past 5 hours reading old books, doing internet searches, calling old breeders I know ( there are a few still around
) and still don't have a definitive answer. HOWEVER, I do have a couple of possibilities I didn't think of.
What was interesting was that in one forum, I was reading about this exact same situation that I am having and there was a number of interesting opinions on the cause. One by one I could eliminate them from my situation because it's the fish that DID have successful spawns as well as the ones who didn't that have the problem. It's not the machine, it's DEFINITELY the mechanic.
I've ruled out the water as it's the same water as before all this and the recent tests all came up the same as before. The M. Blue shouldn't be the issue as I'm using the same dosage as before as well AND I had the same result with not using any M. Blue and with using a different antibacterial med and different source water.
So I've narrowed the choices down to 2 possibles: bacteria bloom in the fry tanks or the food I am feeding the parents. Based on what I was reading, the timing does seem to coincide with a bacterial bloom happening in the tank caused by the hatching eggs. Since I do remove the M Blue after hatching, there is an ability for a bacteria to be growing in the tanks and taking over the fry. I'm now going to try a couple of other things in the tank to see if there is a difference. I'm also letting the old Silver raise her current spawn as a comparison. The fish should be able to keep any bacterial issues off the fry and if they do free swim, it will tell me that I need to clean my tanks a bit more thoroughly between spawns. ( even tho I thought I was doing a bang up job but who knows?
) Any new spawn will now only go into a tank that has been bleached first.
What's interesting was the food part of this one discussion I read. My first reaction was it's not the cause here because Poppa is getting fry using foods that don't contain the ingredient in question. HOWEVER, the foods I was feeding in the beginning do but the food I switched to doesn't. The ingredient in question is actually a preservative but numerous posts stated that a few weeks after switching to foods containing this preservative the situation stopped and the fry were healthier again. So where's the emoticon for "Pulling one's hair out!!!"? What to believe, what to disregard, what to respond to?
So for now, I have a couple of things I am going to try. The good news is that I have only been going through this for about 3 months. Some of the posts were from people going through this for 7,8 and 12 months or longer so I don't feel so bad now.
In other news, I had a new pairing today. The remnants of the adult Barred Marbles spawned. This is a female who has spawned before with other males and the 2 "losers" from the silver female's new pairing. Unfortunately, 1 eye lost again so he has to come out. I was hoping he would be the male of choice as I do have some of his offspring from his first and only spawn so I know he "has/had the stuff". You can't always get what you want.
I was surprised to see that the pleco eggs still have not hatched. I used the magnifying glass again and see that they do still have red veins showing and I saw some movement in the eggshell so hopefully tomorrow they will appear. Every day they don't hatch makes me nervous they will die off.
I really don't want to have to wait another 3-4 weeks for their next spawn to see if the change in tankmates made a difference.
Anybody use Peroxide instead of M. Blue? Can you give me the dosage you used please?
My good Silver female spawned with the Zebra Veil male that was beaten by the Zebra Lace female a while back. I'm going to let them try to raise the spawn as I have little hope of it being any good. It's only his second spawn ever so I'll be surprised if it's a success but since she has successfully raised a spawn before, I have confidence that if it is good, she will do good with it. They are in a 20 long so there is plenty of space should they need it.
