Fish Fry Rapture

['Ric]

I woke up and cranked on the lights in my aquarium last Saturday and was surprised to see hundreds of little fry darting all over the place. I think they were from my mated pair of Blue Neon Gobies (vs. my mated pair of Jawfish.)

 

I wasn

[bk_market]

Wow so cool, did u take a pic?

['Ric]

Wow so cool, did u take a pic?

 

I tried - results not so great, but I'll post when I get a chance (probably not today)

 

'Ric

[jason the filter freak]

Do you have a clean up crew? Also at that size I don't imagine there is much of a skeleton, and with proper amounts of bacteria they could have all been broken down

[yauger]

that's cool, I wondering what is the ideal environment for the little fry to survive?

[Grav]

My 1st guess would be the "scooping." At that size, their tiny little body is not able to support itself out of water, and even the mild friction of being netted is more than they can handle. Next time try scooping them with a cup of some kind.

 

2nd try a small dedicated fry tank with low flow and a sponge over any pumps / filters. Set this up with water from the main aquarium.

 

Finally you need to feed them lots of very small stuff and still keep the water quality right.

 

if it was easy, everyone would do it.

['Ric]

I did use a cup to scoop about half of them. I tried a net at first, but couldn't tell if they were in or out of it in the mesh. The breeder net I kept in the tank, just slowly moved it along to scoop them and then hung it on the side. I could them still swimming around in the breeder net and Hospital tank (I put a charcoal pack that came in a super-fine mesh pouch over the filter intake. Had a bubbler going, but in a rock hole to keep current down.) It was water from the aquarium as well.

 

I finally bought a test kit, so I just found out my phosphates are high. First tested at 1.0, but in one day down to 0.5 with Kent's Phosphate Sponge media added to sump. I'll keep cycling sponge through until it gets down less than .1.

 

'Ric

[Connor]

congrats i bet thats exciting

[yauger]

BTW Fish Fry Rapture is an awesome title...

[davelin315]

I once tried to separate yellow-tail blue damsels that were freshly hatched. I put an air lift (basically an undergravel lift tube) next to the hatch and they were swept up and bubbled over into a breeder cage I had at the top of the tank. The air lift was barely out of the water but was enough to sweep them over the edge. What I found out, though, was that the breeders have holes that are too big for small fry and they were all getting stuck in the "gill net" that it turned out to be. Since neon gobies are much smaller than yellow-tail blue damsels, I figure that your fry were small enough to slip through the holes in the mesh and when they weren't, they probably got pounded by whatever pods you had in your system (as well as other inverts) that snuck in with the carbon bag, etc.