fry tank?

[tranced]

i have some gold occy fry. unfortunately they seem to be dissapearing slowly, and my J. regani seem to be getting fatter....

so ive moved them to a 'fry tank'. ive never really set one up before tho?

its 24" x 10" x 12". is this big enough? i doubt i will have hundreds of fry. also would it be safe to put the fry back into the community tank when they are a little bigger, i mean in regards to the parents? they were living happily before i came and intervened, but i suspect the parents will 'forget' their children after being separated?

i am either going to use a sponge filters or a small aquaclear... everyone seems to say sponge, but i would prefer an aquaclear 30. i will be buying an extra sponge, and fitting it over the intake. would this be as good as a sponge or is there a problem im not seeing?

i heard that a fine layer of sand will be good for the fry, something about bacteria growing on the bare glass and fry getting fungused? i put a very fine layer of sand in there and they seem much happier now, so i dont see any harm in having a lil bit of sand?

i realise that this will make it harder to clean the tank, however i am feeding them frozen baby brine shrimp, and its too small to see on the bare glass anyway...

is just baby brine shrimp ok? will they grow faster if i mix it up with some powdered sera flora or even some frozen daphnia?

finally, i was considering putting a few juvenile corydoras habrosus in there, as a cleanup crew. good idea??? if u dont know, a juvie habrosus is a catfish about 1cm long, with a rather small mouth ... im thinking small enough to be interested in fry food and not be of any danger to the fry.

thanks for reading my novel anyway!

[tranced]

ok ill throw in some pics to sweeten the deal...

[fish head]

nice pics!  sweet, indeed!

I feed fry a variety of foods.  I like small snails for a clean up crew, but that's because I don't have a tiny cat w/ a tiny mouth.

I use a power filter on most tanks that have breeders (and fry) but I use some sponge filters too.  I used to put a sponge over the power filter intake, but my fry seem to hang near the shell, or on the sand, and don't seem to go free swimming all over, until they're big enough to fight the current.

(I don't have goldies, but other shellies)

...just my 2 cents

[tranced]

well the fry are all doing well, using an aquaclear 20, its the smallest one, i can turn it right down so theres very little current. running it with 3 sponges inside the chamber and sponge over the intake, the fry dont go near it but best to be safe right ? plus it adds another sponge for bio filtration

feeding them BBS and daphnia, the smaller ones dont seem to be able to eat daphnia well but the bigger ones love it. also some crushed NLS cichlid formula, tho i should probably get those 'grow' pellets.

also i removed the julies from my larger tank, now its just occies, cyorichromis and bristlenose... so hopefully i will get some fry survival in there as well.

[tranced]

just an update, fry going well, not a single death yet (touch wood) and there are so far 16 occy fry in there one bristlenose fry, and 5 habrosus cories.

now the aquaclear is sorta gummed up with goo i can run it on full blast no worries.

im picking up a two tiered, two foot setup tomorrow. i will probably try the next model of aquaclear up from the 20, and see how that goes...

ill take some pics when they get a bit bigger too...

[liamthecoder]

Cant Wait to see Them 

[tranced]

i would just like to say, how brilliant the habrosus corys have been in my tank. i intend to breed them, for the sole purpose of looking after my fry. when i do water changes, there is literally NOTHING to vaccum off the substrate. not one spec of food or anything. and i feed the tank heavily with spectrum grow, frozen BBS and frozen daphnia. also i believe the peaceful nature of the corys has a positive effect on my frys attitude, as i have 20 fry in there ranging from 3mm - 15mm and no aggro at all. the largest one could literally eat the smallest in a single bite!

the aquaclear is also great as the way it provides a gentle circular current gently sweeps all the waste up, and the food circulates around like a conveyor belt. reminds me of a sushi place! where the food goes round n round till someone eats it... lol

so yeah i think this fry tank is a great success its made me very happy! however i think its reached its population maximum and am in the process of setting up my next one

[buddha]

Got any pics of the fry tank? I've got some Brevis fry I need to get out of my main tank, and one of my female Cyps is holding right now. Just like to see other people's setups.

[fish head]

I like the idea of your clean up crew!  thanks for sharing your experience w/ us.

What are your plans for these fry?  Sell locally, sell & ship on aquabid, give away, or are you keeping all of 'em?

[tranced]

here is a kinda shabby photo of it. i will have to borrow my sisters digital slr sometime, cos it takes amazing photos. but this should give u the general idea. its a small tank, i think 10 US gallons. the larger dark spoltches are the corys. the fry are same colour as the substrate so you will have to wait till i get a better camera for those!! lol



i like it so much, i have another two cycling LOL



as for the fry i will sell most of them thru the local cichlid club ideally, as good quality gold occies seem to have become a bit hard to find? and the money will go towards my new fishroom that im planning to set up! i will probably pick out the best of the fry and keep them for myself lol so i have a new generation in the wings, i might buy some similar sized ones from another source as well, then swap all the males from my group with all the males from the other group, so i end up with two good quality breeding groups, that are not related that would be nice

[fish head]

nice!      fishroom....now that could put me in a trance!          please keep us posted on your progress

[buddha]

Cool, thanks for the pics.

I'm in the process of trying to get a small 10 gallon and have a similar setup to yours. I've been trolling Craigslist because I'm too cheap to buy a new one!