Raising flowerhorn fry require alot of patience and attention to detail. To raise flowerhorn fry, you must follow an specific growth process. If you do not follow this specific process for raising flowerhorn fry, the fry may become stunted and lose their color.
Using a growth chart for flowerhorn fry will help you plan there development instead of having to guess at how the flowerhorn fry will develops. The growth chart will track the sizes of the flowerhorn fry, the feeding need of the fry, and the appearance of the flowerhorn fry during the first sixteen weeks of their lives. The flowerhorn fry will live off their yolk sac for the first few days of there life.
How to Raise Flowerhorn Fry
At this time, the flowerhorn fry will be tiny and nearly transparent. Once the yolk sac is gone, the flowerhorn fry will have to start eat microscopic food like infusoria or newly hatched brine shrimp. You must provide the fry with this food because otherwise, the stronger fry will eat the weaker fry.
By the third and fourth week of the life of the flowerhorn fry, their body shapes will start to take shape and dark markings will start to appears on their bodies. Many people make the mistake of giving them regular flake food too early in their lives. You should not give this to them too early.
As the flowerhorn fry are still growing, their feeding should still be live food. Give them the flake food four or five times a day to ensure that you cater to their growth and the water in the tank is not adversely affect if you take care to manage the water. By the sixth and seventh week of the life of the flowerhorn fry, the male flowerhorn fry will start to get a nuchal hump which will eventually become one of the feature that make flowerhorn fry easily recognizable.
Not all male flowerhorn fry will get this bump at the same rate. The appearance of this bump is a milestone for the flowerhorn fry as their development change from juvenile to young adult fish. Their color will also start to intense display its characteristics during this phase.
The red and orange color of the flowerhorn fry will start to develop so providing them with food that will enhance their color is important to the development of the flowerhorn fry. Another factor in the growth of the flowerhorn fry is the quality of the water in which the fry are living. If the quality of the water is poor, their growth will either be accelerated or stall.
Flowerhorn fry are very sensitive to the amount of ammonia in the water. You must maintain the water parameter in the tank to avoid harming the fry. If you change the water too often, the flowerhorn fry may suffer so small water changes too often is better than one large change to the water in the tank.
Using a bare bottom tank will allow the owners of the flowerhorn fry to easily see if there is any food left in the tank for the fry to eat. This will allow them to adjust the feeding schedule of the flowerhorn fry to avoid harming the water in the tank. The feeding frequency of flowerhorn fry will change once they have mature to a certain size.
The young fry will require a lot of food to be eaten throughout the day. The stomachs of the fry are very small so they will need to be feed frequently due to the high metabolism of the fry. Once the flowerhorn fry reach the size of eight or nine centimeters, they can be fed three times during the day.
However, you must ensure the size of the food is the same than the size of the flowerhorn fry. Food should be fed to the fry until they are done eating in a couple of minutes as leaving food in the tank for too long will negative impact the water in the tank. Sorting the flowerhorn fry every week will allow the owners to ensure that all of the fry are getting enough food.
The larger fry will eat all of the food and leave the smaller fry to starve if you dont sort them by size every week. By sorting the fry, the owner can separate the large flowerhorn fry from the small fry to feed each fish accordingly and ensure that the most promising flowerhorn fry are being given all of the resource that they require to grow. When the size of the fry reaches the range of eight to twelve centimeters, they are ready to be move to a larger tank to continue their grow-out phase.
The flowerhorn fry will have developed their adult coloration and the signature head shape will be visible on the male fry. The flowerhorn fry are no longer fragile like fry younger than eight centimeters but they have not yet come into their full maturity. At this stage in their lives, the flowerhorn fry must have the temperature in the tank steady and the water keep clean.
