Fry In Tank- Water Changes?

[Lufbramatt]

I have a 29g (2.5ft) with 5 adult Brevis cichlids. The tank has been set up about 2 months, and the filter was fishless cycled before I added fish. The fish must quite like it as I discovered some tiny baby brevises in the tank on saturday!

My normal regeime has been a 20% water change once a week, as the tank is relatively understocked. Filtration consists of an Eheim 2322 thermo filter.

I am wondering what to do about water changes and substrate vacuuming now there are fry in the tank. There are loads of rocks, plants, shells etc to provide hiding places so I'd rather not remove them to another tank, although that is an option as I have a spare 10G tank upstairs that could be set up easily. Ive been feeding them baby brine shrimp and ground up tetra prima which they swim up to and munch away at with their tiny little mouths!

Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers

Matt

 

[Crazycat lady]

I have just had (well not me personally) 20 ish guppy fry which are in a breeding tank. I was wondering if extra water changes would be suggested too
As I know growing babies have higher metabolism!

 

[KittyKat]

The young won't grow as fast in a community tank as they would in a dedicated tank.. but larger tank is good. Mostly, it depends on whether you want to save most of the fry, or not.

For low fry concentrations (OP 1), I would continue as normal with water changes (or increase to 2*25% per week).

For high fry concentrations (OP 2, depending on their tank size), I would increase water changes a bit, maybe 3-4*25% per week because the hormones released into the water by the fry can slow their growth and the extra food will add to nitrate.

 

[Lufbramatt]

Thanks Kitty Kat. So far I have only seen 3 fry, but I'm sure there are more in there. Trouble with shellies is you dont see any eggs or fry until you happen to spot a rogue one move accross the substrate, they are almost transparent and very well camoflaged against the sand!

It looks like mum brevis is full of eggs again as she's really coloured up and fat so I expect there will be more fry in a few weeks!

 

[Athena]

If you are going to do a gravel vac be careful not to siphon up any of the fry. I'm mentioning that because yesterday I did EXACTLY that and one of my convict fry got sucked up and I felt so annoyed with myself for not spotting him on the substrate. Luckily the little fella didn't end up down the sinkhole because I happened to notice him wriggling around in the bucket by chance (bucket is black, fish is a pinkish colour which is how I noticed him). Phew!

Athena

 

[micko]

Grab your girlfriends/grannys/mothers/aunties/sisters/next door neighbours off the washing line if you like and put them over the end of the gravel vac. No fry will get sucked up then.

 

[KittyKat]

Grab your girlfriends/grannys/mothers/aunties/sisters/next door neighbours off the washing line if you like and put them over the end of the gravel vac. No fry will get sucked up then.

*'s stocking, not the person

 

[micko]

Grab your girlfriends/grannys/mothers/aunties/sisters/next door neighbours off the washing line if you like and put them over the end of the gravel vac. No fry will get sucked up then.

*'s stocking, not the person

How did I miss that?

 

[Lufbramatt]

hehe my girlfriends stockings are expensive seamed ones and look much better on her rather than over the end of the fish tank hose! I just use an offcut of eheim hose rather than a gravel vac as it stops so much sand being sucked up, makes it easier to avoid fry as well.

Did a water change last night and didnt suck up any fry, they just hid in the shells when they saw the pipe coming anywhere near them! Will do another water change on friday afternoon.

 

[sausagewinkle]

For my fry water changes (betta fry) I use silicone tubing to do the bottom of the tank (no substrate in the tank), When they were younger and TINY I used a pipette to remove the muck from the bottom (mainly apple snail poo). now they are bigger I still use the silicone tubing to 'hoover' the bottom, but use my gravel cleaner pipe (with the gravel cleaner end taken off) I put this into a breeder inside my tank and syphon the water that way, this way I have no chance of sucking up any little fry
Mine got partial water changes every day (there was about 100 fry) now they get them every other day. Some people will tell me this is isn't necessary but its the way I do it

 

[Crazycat lady]

hehe my girlfriends stockings are expensive seamed ones and look much better on her rather than over the end of the fish tank hose!

exactly the same problem!

My syphoning tube has a big tube at the end. So when i do a water change i just dig it into the sand, the sand is all agitated but stays in the big bit and the dirty water flows out. no fry casualties