Toads have a long trill, several seconds or more per toad. Sort of like small bell being continuously rung.
We have yet to have the toads come out, or any more than the small ribbon. i suspect this weekend though when we are supposed to have some warm high humidity weather and rain. That will warm the waters quickly.
Due to the later spawn than the last few years, I think this one will be highly successful. Previous years they spawned very early and it got cold again, so the eggs just sat. I did not see ANY hatched spawn last year. No BCP or perch due to the bizzaro weather.
Well we are past the big hump. Most fry are now 10mm in size and are feeding well on brine shrimp. I would normally siphon off the hatched shrimp from the eggs when feeding. This would keep the brood tanks much cleaner. What I have found is that giving the shrimp 24 hours to hatch I am pouring the whole container through a fine mesh net. From there we are spooning the shrimp and un hatched eggs into the tanks. The eggs that have not hatched are soft enough from the salt brine to hatch in the next 6 hours in the brood tanks.
This is giving the young much smaller shrimp over all to eat. We have gotten past the big hump now where we are loosing only 5-10 per day.
There is a noticeable difference in the fry that had warmer water temps when the ribbon was still in the tank. I think they may be more defects from the warmer water because those fry tanks have the most of bottom dwelling fry. They are not dying but they are not swimming using the whole tank like the fry that had cooler temps longer with the ribbons. At first I thought they were over eating and sinking but I am thinking more like defects from to hot of temps right at the end before hatching.
All in all for our first crack at hatching perch fry I am very pleased with our shot. The kids love going out to feed them.
Yes, the Perch spawn since 3days, I let them hach in the pond and with a light (spot), I bring lots of the larvae in a big hole 8x20feet near the pond. If I have a chance I will make a video to explain what I mean.
Toads have a long trill, several seconds or more per toad. Sort of like small bell being continuously rung.
We have yet to have the toads come out, or any more than the small ribbon. i suspect this weekend though when we are supposed to have some warm high humidity weather and rain. That will warm the waters quickly.
I was able to record the toads at our house with my cell phone. I'll try to attach a zipped audio file that hopefully you can open and listen to. (see attachment below)
It is a wonder where all those toads come from. They all seem to come out of nowhere to congregate in the pond. Then there is 3 days of furious thrashing and swimming, ducking each other and horsey-back rides. The toad trills continue day and night for about 3 days. Then the activity stops and the shallows are full of strings of toad eggs. All the parent toads are gone too.
Then soon there will be billions of black 'toadpoles' and in about 2 weeks millions of tiny brown toads all struggling to make it through the grass heading in all directions back towards the woods.
The turtles were busy coming up behind the mating toads when they are preoccupied and grab the toads by their hind leg and try to drag them into the deep.
The first hatch is doing well but not as well as I had hoped. We are confident that brine shrimp only is not enough to hatch as many fry as we would like.
So we have set up two 2.5 gallon green water tanks to grow some Infusoria and Paramecium or what ever little goodies we have growing in our planted tropical fish tanks foam filter. We set the two tanks up in the window of the shop and loaded them up with our seed from our planted tank and crushed up some pleko pellets for some dry feed.
With a microscope we can see lots of little swimmers in the water at 300X. They do seem to be attracted to light and easy to siphon off with out taking the food out of the tank too. Feed some to the slow hatching tank from our April 4th hatch and they are eating like crazy. You can see the fry flinch or dart then feeding.
Now we have set up another two chunks of ribbon to do another hatch. I expect from todays pictures they will be hatched tomorrow. These fry will see the Infusoria and Paramecium for 10 days or a bit more then switch them over to the brine shrimp.
We think we will have more young living past the first week and a half feeding the smaller feed to them.
I forgot to update this thread...I had a few ribbons sighted on 4/25/17 with a water temp of 51°F.
The only reason I saw them was because some ducks were making a ruckus and weird sucking sounds around the corner in the rocks...walked over to see what they were up to found them fighting over the ribbons and then eating all the broken up chunks of ribbon (weird sucking noise as they inhaled water and ribbon so fast!) scattered around he pond edge.
Never saw any other ribbons this year. But I grabbed the leftover bits I could and let them sink in water deep enough the ducks couldn't dabble them anymore.
I'll post a separate thread on my successful in-pond feed training of yellow perch.
Best regards,
MT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. - Psalm 69:1
DonoBBD, Any updates on your perch hatching venture? how many would you say survived? how many got planted back in your pond? is this going to make a difference long term over just letting egg ribbons hatch on their own?
Also Liquidsquid, if you see this, you said on 4-14-17 that his might be a good year for your YP ribbons, did it turn out that way?
DonoBBD, Any updates on your perch hatching venture? how many would you say survived? how many got planted back in your pond? is this going to make a difference long term over just letting egg ribbons hatch on their own?
Also Liquidsquid, if you see this, you said on 4-14-17 that his might be a good year for your YP ribbons, did it turn out that way?
I still have them tanked up the big perch are about 1.5" now and the smaller are at 1 to 1.25". I guess I must be a fish farmer now because I did kill thousands and thousands but learned so much. There guys are nothing like tropical fish at all. Heat when young is very very bad for these little suckers. The Daphnia update in your other thread is more info.
I currently have a good batch. The biggest expense is the salt for the brine shrimp. Two table spoons every 12 hours for a few months adds up.
All in all because we want a few fish for our green house it will work out. If this second batch makes it, that I think they will now, we will have lots. All in all I think it is much easier to let them hatch in the pond but how many make it depends on what minnows you have in the pond.
It is good to know that ducks will destroy and eat yellow perch ribbons. Thanks for the update.
Protein and Fat, doesn't matter the source to them. When I rake weeds out, I'll have them following behind me and picking through the piles to pull out the snails, small fish, crayfish, tadpoles, and whatever else they can find.
Best regards,
MT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. - Psalm 69:1