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Hi,

I posted some questions at the Breeding Advice forum yesterday (http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Breeding%20Advice/65338.html?200510170946) but apparently no one reads that forum. So I hope it's ok to repeat the questions here. Basically I have Bolivian Ram frys that are about 3 days away from being free swimming, and when they do get to that stage, I want to move them to my spare 2.5g tank.

Questions:
1. What is the best way to prepare a fry tank in such a short time? I have an unseeded sponge filter and heater. So far I've filled the tank with treated tap water, set up the filter, added a bunch of floating elodea from the parents' tank, and added some bio-starter liquid (Seachem Stability). Although I know the tank is not going to cycle in 3 days, I'm hoping that having lots of floating plants combined with frequent water changes will help reduce the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate once the frys are in there.
2. Do you think it's better to use some old tank water (50%?) to help build up the bacteria in the sponge filter, or should I just continue with adding the bio-starter? The tank water looks dirty when I siphon it out (tea-colored).
3. How often will I need to do a water change in the fry tank (it's bare-bottomed) and how much water should I replace each time?

Thanks for any advice!

-P

upikabu,

I am sure not an expert in setting up a fry tank, but the one thing I would say is to use 100% of the water from the settled tank.

Do you have plants in the settled one? If so, throw one or two in this tank as well as plants have beneficial bacteria attached to them.

Does the settled tank have a sponge filter that you could cut up and place in the fry tank filter system?

How about some gravel from the big tank?

Water change – IMHO the more often the better, I would always add water from the settled tank though.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo,

Thanks for that. Unfortunately when I came back from work last night the frys were already free-swimming (but staying close to the substrate), and the corys were stalking them, grabbing the ones who ventured too far from the parents.

I managed to rescue about a dozen or so frys (took me a few hours) and put them in the fry tank. I put a bunch of floating plants there so hopefully it will help with the water quality. I will change the water daily. The parents are still diligently guarding over the rest of the frys in the main tank, so we'll see who has the better luck raising them.

BTW, I know you have Espei frys in your big tank. Do you feed them anything special? I can't get live microworms or vinegar eels until this weekend, so in the meantime I'm giving them powdered fry food. They don't seem too interested in them though.

Last edited by upikabu at 18-Oct-2005 18:57

-P

upikabu,

Great that you could save at least some of the little buggers .

I don't feed my fry anything. The 125G has so much stuff floating in it that they can live of that, in particular that I just now see a slow down in diatom production (brown slime algae) which is good food (I think).

Did you use "old" water from the big tank, it should have at least some microscopic nasties in it?

How about pre-soaking the flakes and then really grinding them down to nothing?

Hope it works,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club