Breeding Jack Dempsys

[GrakFu]

For those of you who know April and I, you know were new to fish. We also have turtles. This is going to be a long story but I will restate my questions in the final paragraph.
So we had three JD's from the spring auction this February. 1 abandoned the tank while we were at work. 1 bashed its head off the glass and went belly up. Jack, our belly up fish, was fed to our turtles. Three days later our son was asking why Mommy's fish were in his tank... Apprently the turtles ignored Jack and we now have an Undead fish. Not long after our discovery that Jack was very much alive April purchased 5 baby JDs and Sparrow, our 3rd JD was "sacrificed" for turtle food. We didn't think she survived the night but low and behold she is still with us. Her tail fin and a few millimeters of her actual tail were removed as well as a reasonable piece of her dorsal fin and back.
Somehow Jack and Sparrow have managed to not only survive but thrive in our turtle tank. So much as they have spawned in our turtle tank. Jack is not afraid of biting our turtles and even goes as far as stealing food that is hanging from their mouths. Our "substrate" consists of maybe a gallon of cherry to baseball sized rocks atop egg crate light diffuser with two large rocks for hiding under for our pleco, guppies and survivalist feeder minnows. We also have a 2in pvc pipe roughly a foot long and a small fake log. Our filter is a 10 gallon tub with 3 gallon insert full of lavarock with green scrubbies and a large piece of 1" filter cloth(blue on one side white on the other.) We have our heater in the filter with out 250gph pump. The pump dumps into the right side of the tank and our siphon tube pulled from the left rear corner. The tank itself is a 55 long and currently utilizes about 38 gallons not including the 10 in the filter.
The JDs spawned directly under the siphon hose atop a few flat rocks. If I lose the batch I won't be surprised considering our pleco feeds on the algae on the turtles durring the night, I know he won't be shy to snatch up the eggs. Regardless of how slow the turtles are they will eventually find the eggs. Also the abovementioned siphon hose. So against all odds, knowing my luck, these eggs will hatch. Then the fry are going to want to eat. I do NOT have a breeder tank. If I were to get one I wouldn't have anywhere to put it or the time to set it up. To top the whole shebang off we are headed out of state come Friday and will be gone for a week...

So in summation; What do fry JDs eat, do the male and/or female need to be removed from the tank, will the fry find a low current location after hatching or should I expect to feed them in the filter where the fry guppies are, does anyone want some JD eggs? Also my phone uses German and English so if the autocorrect is really bad I apologize and I will edit when I have a computer in front of me:)

[dennysfishroom]

First of all, the fry won't eat until their yolk sac is absorbed. This can be anywhere from 3-6 days after they hatch (somewhat temperature dependent). When they do start eating, it will be very small food such as infusoria or similar. Unless your turtle tank is really a lot cleaner than mine, there should be quite a bit of infusoria in the water. The parents will move the fry while they are just wrigglers to a place they think would be "safe". Once they start free-swimming the parents will try to control them but they have minds of their own. You will have mortality, but possibly some will survive. Good luck. Denny

[GrakFu]

Good deal, our turtle tank is crystal clear. I don't know what infurosia are or if they are visable. I still don't expect many of the eggs to make it through the night with the pleco. But we shall see. The eggs turned from clear to a light tan. I am assuming this is the yolk responding to fertalization. I am surprised at how fatherly I feel. I have always thought of the fish as turtle food. Now I feel like I need to watch the eggs to protect them. Turns out I might join the BAP afterall:)

[mewickham]

I would think baby jack dempseys would be big enough to take newly hatched brine shrimp (or frozen baby brine shrimp). There are also powdered fry foods available. If you can't find them, there are also powdered marine foods made of copepods that would work in a pinch, and frozen marine foods that are tiny-- such as various eggs and copepods.

[GrakFu]

Well we made it home from vacation. We had probably 30 fry. Jack and Sparrow had surprising parental skills. I believe all of the fry are gone now. Turns out those turtles move A LOT of water while swimming. Jack and Sparrow are again in beautiful breeding color. We don't have room for another tank so I will be putting in a lot of work to get the turtle pond up and running. Who knows we may end up in the BAP?!

[GrakFu]

Fun story. Time has come for a water change. But at breakfast I discovered un unplesant suprise. There was a fly that had been cooked into my egg. Being the awesome turtle parent I am I figured its been a while since they've had eggs and gave them the portion with the fly. The turtles were far to busy watching my hands and the JD's got the loot. Less then a minute after, they got their color and started cleaning their rocks. Half an hour later we have eggs. Apprently even through my hurricane style water change. I guess we will see in another six weeks or so if egg may be an awesome way to produce JD's. I may have to throw some in for the Gold Sevrum...

[GrakFu]

Brushing of the deck today I found a lone centepede/millipede. Dropped the wriggler into the turtle/jd/ahi/fat head tank. Male JD made the first move. For now I have to assume that a good old fashioned shot of straight protein is all it takes to get these JDs to spawn. April is doing a water test a little later.

[dennysfishroom]

Are you're turtles kept outside? I've found that it's hard to keep JD's from breeding especially when you'd just as soon not have any fry. Denny