Are brine shrimp cysts killing my fry?

[plecc83]

Hi all,

I'm currently raising 50 ish sterbai fry, they are about 10 days old now.
They are in a 25L bare bottom tank (24.5C) with a sponge filter, daily 20% water changes with prime.
There is still a bit of methylene blue in the water leftover from when they were in the egg stage, I'm just taking it out slowly via the water changes, I also added a catappa leaf 3 days ago.

The eggs hatched quite quickly, within 2 days. But then they were quite casual to start eating, about 3-4 days. They are now feeding on 80% baby brine, 20% First Bites.
I have been feeding them quite a lot of BBS in the morning, so that the cory's can graze throughout the day. I then remove any leftovers in the evening, and feed a tiny pile of First Bites for during the night.

I have lost two fry over the last two days and all I can put it down to is brine shrimp cysts blocking up their intestines? is this a common problem?
I can't help but get a few of the unhatched brine shrimp eggs into the tank each time I feed BBS, do you think I would be better off only feeding First Bites just until they get a bit larger so that any brine shrimp cysts could just pass straight through them without any issues?
Or do you think the deaths could be something else?

 

[xxBarneyxx]

They can be an issue with some fish. It's best to buy decapsulated brine shrimp eggs to avoid this problem.

Also sometimes you will just lose fry, doesn't always mean there is something wrong.

 

[Naughts]

It seems very common to lose young cory fry. Some members swear by adding a thin layer of sand to the tank in the first few days.
If you are using a BBS hatchery, leave it a few minutes to settle after you turn off aeriation. Then syphon the BBS that has sunk to the bottom and throw away the rest because shells will float.

 

[Colin_T]

Have you checked the water for ammonia?

Ammonia is a common killer of baby fish because they don't normally have a filter with them. Floating plants and bigger water changes can be used to fix this.

Fish don't normally eat brineshrimp eggs, They don't normally go after the eggs because they don't move, whereas the brineshrimp nauplii (baby shrimp) move and this gets the fish's attention.