25 Gallon Planted Community Journey V2

[Robbo89]

Your tank seems to have a lot of cover. Get yourself a coarse sponge, not fine like in the picture. It won't restrict the flow.
Then make sure to feed some finely crushed flakes that fall slowly to the bottom. Platy fry don't come up to the surface, but tend to choose a safe spot in the tank and hang around there waiting to be served

. Many will survive eventually. Unless you are after raising all fry from each batch.
 
If the fry are too small, they'll escape the breeder net. My cory fry all went into the tank once hatched as my net isn't very fine. I think there are finer ones they sell too.

Ah alright, did you ever find a better option that the breeding net though?
 
How are those solid plastic box things? not too keen on that option but if it does a better job that this thing...

 

[snazy]

Ah alright, did you ever find a better option that the breeding net though?
 

 
Yea, leaving them to grow up with the adults
Wish I could stop them from surviving. No one eats platy fry anymore.

 

[Sophie]

 

Ah alright, did you ever find a better option that the breeding net though?
 

 
Yea, leaving them to grow up with the adults

Wish I could stop them from surviving. No one eats platy fry anymore.
 

 
Started as a delicacy - just boring now

 

[snazy]

 

 

Ah alright, did you ever find a better option that the breeding net though?
 

 
Yea, leaving them to grow up with the adults

Wish I could stop them from surviving. No one eats platy fry anymore.
 

 
Started as a delicacy - just boring now

 


 
Yeah, exactly. They got fed up with the same fry meal

  Seriously though, there are clown loaches in there that can eat a platy as big as 3 months old if they wanted to and they aren't touching them. I guess they aren't the most delicious fry

 I recently took out all the adult females bar one that is smarter than me

 and I can't catch her. And my clown loaches are now happily swimming in between a crowd of platy fry, begging for food alongside them

 

[Robbo89]

 
Yeah, exactly. They got fed up with the same fry meal

  Seriously though, there are clown loaches in there that can eat a platy as big as 3 months old if they wanted to and they aren't touching them. I guess they aren't the most delicious fry

 I recently took out all the adult females bar one that is smarter than me

 and I can't catch her. And my clown loaches are now happily swimming in between a crowd of platy fry, begging for food alongside them

 

 
That would make a pretty funny sight!  
 
As it's only platy fry and noting too spectacular, I'll update every few days and maybe with pics once a week.
 
So, day 3 today. Four in the trap are eating crushed flakes and looking good, Two/Three hiding in the tank also seem to be managing pretty well.
Just wondering, how long before they start developing colours?

 

[snazy]

Just wondering, how long before they start developing colours?
 

 
3 weeks max and they'll be coloured. At least my red ones are but the colour gets better with age.

 

[Robbo89]

 

Just wondering, how long before they start developing colours?
 

 
3 weeks max and they'll be coloured. At least my red ones are but the colour gets better with age.
 

ooooooo exciting, as I said the female came from an awesome tank at the store, filled with high fins neons all kinds of species, just hoping I get some cool looking babies
 
Anyway, back to the updates, ordered in 8 black widow tetra to be picked up 2 weeks from today for a really really good price! Which is exciting me, all I need to find now is some anubias... oh and there are like hundreds of tiny (.5mm long) white worms on my front glass.... what could it be?

 

[TallTree01]

Can not believe I only found this little ripper of a thread now. Good journal for sure mate!

 

[Robbo89]

 

[Robbo89]

Up at 5am to cram some last minute study for my Biology exam... wish me luck guys! 
 
Anyway, thought  may as well put up a cheeky little update for you all,
 
Platy fry at I guess day 6 now, still no deaths despite the parents best attempts, all seem to be healthy and happy since I released the ones in the breeder into the big tank to fight for themselves. I can see a few markings develop but no colours as of yet, might grab some photos after the exam.
 
While messing around with my external I grabbed a photo of it's specs. ~100 L tank, 4 times turn over per hour, right? I had in the back of my mind that it should be 10 x per hour....  

 
Also cleaned a bunch of algae from my filter pipes, look at the difference!  

Before

 
After

 
On another note, found a local breeder yesterday who can sell me peppermint bristle nose at 3cm for about $13 which is pretty cool. Thinking about grabbing a pair from him in a few weeks and try and breed them, seeing as at 10cm they'd be worth close to $70. My only concern is that if the apistos spawn in the tank, which is kind of what I'm hoping for, are they likely to swoop in at night eat the eggs ? Or would the cories do this anyway meaning I would have to remove the eggs or the catfish anyway? My other idea was putting boiled zucchini (which I hear bristlenose love) in each night to distract them, while also placing a homemade plastic mesh 'bowl' over the eggs. Just at night, as during the day I'm confident the parents will defend their spawn well, they are cichlids after alll. 
 
Thanks to anyone in advance who can help me out with the thought process of all this, as you can imagine my brains pretty cluttered with enzymes and bacterium !

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Generally speaking, if you are REALLY interested in breeding, then you want a species only tank, and a separate breeding (or at least a grow out) tank.
 
If you want to be breeding your livebearers, apistos, cories, and BNs, that means you are going to need a bigger (much, much bigger) tank or many smaller ones (same size as this one).

 

[Robbo89]

Fair point, I reall should have though that through a bit more haha.
 
In a few months I'm upgrading to a probably 6x2x2 tank, I guess thats when I should be able to start breeding things properly

 

[eaglesaquarium]

In a 6x2x2 you'll have spawning more than likely. The question that remains will be how the fry do after that. If you earnestly want to raise them, the current tank could be a breeding tank, and you can isolate your breeding stock in there... It would be one species at a time though. You can have successful spawns in a community tank, the survival rate will just be very low.

 

[Robbo89]

Yeah thats what I was thinking, Picking up even another 100L tank and using them to breed different species out of my future 6 foot community at a time, say breed the rams then raise them in another 100l while i breed the corys 

 

[greenmumma141]

wow, just looked up "peppermint bristle nose". How cool!!!!!