It is no secret that in this hobby the Royal Farlowella aka. The Royal Whiptail is one of the most finicky fish to raise and care as fry. With such a high mortality rate within their first week from hatching they prove to be one of the hardest fish to be able to get to a stable size for re-homing.
We have been conducting a few experiments lately, one of those is seeing how well the EBO Foods Paste Range would be for such a fish. With a wide range of Soft Granules and ready made Paste Foods, we challenged a local Royal Whiptail Breeder to do a small experiment to see how the Paste Range would go with raising the young fry.
Male Royal Whiptail taking care of the eggs.
After seeing the success with our Chameleon Whiptails we thought we could further this into other species such as the Royal Whiptail.
The rules were simple. To do this we asked them to split the fry gathered from the same batch of eggs, and separated them into 2 breeder boxes in the same tank.
To try and get the most accurate results, we wanted to keep all the variables the same in both boxes. The only difference was the food that was used to raise the fish.
Separating the fry into 2 different boxes.
In the first box (Box1), we fed our normal foods which consisted of:
- Blanched Veggies. (Pumpkin, Lettuce, Zucchini, Cucumber)
- Baby Brine Shrimp
- Other small granule fish foods
In the second box (Box2), we rotated the following EBO Paste Foods, but held off on the Seafood Paste until they're a bit older.
- Youngster Grow
- Spirulina Paste
- Artemia Paste
The Breeder fed all their fish twice a day. Morning before work, and Night time before they went to bed. Once their eggsacs were consumed they started feeding Box1 blanched veg at night, and Baby Brine Shrimp or Small Granule Foods in the mornings. Always removing bad food to reduce the amount of waste in the boxes.
In Box 2 we suggested to start the fry on Spirulina Paste in the morning, and Youngster Grow Paste at night. They reported back that the fish didn't get the same reaction of excitement as we got with the Chameleon Whiptails when the food was dropped in, but they were definitely eating the foods as it breaks down in the water column and is a lot easier for them to consume with such small mouths.
In the first 4 days they lost 12 out of 34 in Box1. Whilst Box2 they lost 2 out of 35 fry. Which is already a big difference. But this feeding routine was continued in the hopes that the fry would settle down and get accustomed to their food source by now.
In Box 2 we suggested they start alternating in the Artemia Paste to mix the variety up for the fish. But also to try "smearing" the paste onto a piece of rock or slate so it coated the surface very lightly. Since Whiptails like to graze on a surface this might help even more with the feeding style.
After the first week of feeding they had lost over half of the fish from Box1, with only 12 out of the 35 left surviving. Whilst Box2 had recorded 31 out of 35 fish still alive.
The end results for week 2:
- Box1: 5 out of 34 Survivors
- Box2: 31 out of 35 Survivors
Royal Farlowella Fry after 2 weeks. Mix of Albino and Normal juveniles.
The experiment is still ongoing but we have asked them to redo this test again on their next batch and see if they get the same results.
Once the experiment has been completed, they will redo the test once more, but this time ONLY feed the Paste range to ALL the fry instead of separating them.
We are excited to see how this turns out, but so far at the end of week 2 we have a higher survival rate which could lead to a higher yield of fry for breeders.
