• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Got two batches of fry and holidays

peaches

Member
Joined
29 Dec 2008
Messages
257
Location
Yorkshire - Gods own county
I was going to set up a growing on tank for fry rather than keep them in with their parents then put fry food in my fish mate which rotates slowly.. The parents ' tanks are matured more and have plants, but I was afraid that during the holiday the fry would be predated.
No one to come in and feed.
Any brilliant ideas?
 
I was going to set up a growing on tank for fry rather than keep them in with their parents then put fry food in my fish mate which rotates slowly.. The parents ' tanks are matured more and have plants, but I was afraid that during the holiday the fry would be predated.
No one to come in and feed.
Any brilliant ideas?
Fry net / breeding box that they can all be house in inside your current tank. They just suction or hang onto the side of the tank.
Allow water flow and you can toss a few floating plants for cover / security
 
I believe Fluval/Marina make an extra large (about 2l) hang on breeding box. It fits outside the tank like an air powered HOB & runs the tank water through in that manner but keeps any fry separate.
Not sure if you could fit a feeder on it though? 🤔
 
Fancy guppy, pure strains.
They wouldn’t do ok with the parents? Guppy are prolific breeders is predation from the adults a huge threat?

There was an interesting observation once made on guppies in the same river no further than 50m away from each other, where those isolated in a pool alone gave birth to fewer larger fry, whilst those up river and exposed to predators, gave birth to far more fry. Talk about safety in numbers !!
 
You could setup a culture of moina in the grow out tank, add some snails, moss and leaves then feed a small amount of yeast every couple of days. Then when the culture has increased to a reasonable number, add your fry.
It worked as alternative to BBS for my Psuedomugils luminatus so I'll be doing it again in the future.
 
I havent cultured moina, but have done daphnia. Is it like daphnia?
Very similar, they seem to be more resilient than daphnia and more stable. The reason I'd suggest moina is that they're smaller and appear to be softer/easier for fry to eat. My adult Psuedomugils struggle with daphnia, I think thier carapace is quite hard, whereas I assume moina have a softer carapace as even fry are able to eat the smaller moina.
 
I used to use a cheap battery-powered automatic feeder, and load if full of a bit of everything including powdered daphnia and powdered processed food.
 
Very similar, they seem to be more resilient than daphnia and more stable. The reason I'd suggest moina is that they're smaller and appear to be softer/easier for fry to eat. My adult Psuedomugils struggle with daphnia, I think thier carapace is quite hard, whereas I assume moina have a softer carapace as even fry are able to eat the smaller moina.
Now I have moina, I popped them in a little tank with some yeasty water. Do they need an airline?
I wonder if I could gradually drip them into the tank whilst I'm away, sort of intravenous infusion style?
 
Now I have moina, I popped them in a little tank with some yeasty water. Do they need an airline?
I wonder if I could gradually drip them into the tank whilst I'm away, sort of intravenous infusion style?
No air pump needed, I imagine the bubbles may be problematic for them, like daphnia.
You could drip or pump them in. Keeping fish simple did something similar recently. The problem with moina is they don't seem to be drawn to light, if anything they flee from it so getting them to concentrate in an area to then syphon/pump them out might be difficult.
 
Screenshot_20220513-214124_eBay.jpg
something like this. I had seen that video a while ago, but he was just resetting it twice a day. Thanks, I will look at it again.
 
View attachment 188525something like this. I had seen that video a while ago, but he was just resetting it twice a day. Thanks, I will look at it again.
From memory the food he was feeding would die/start to decompose if left too long, so resetting it was to avoid adding that in to his rearing tanks.
With moina living in freshwater there would be no need to reset, just ensure you have a large enough volume of water/moina mix to dose as often as you want for as long as you're away. I think the problem will be ensuring you're dosing enough moina. I'm not aware of a way of making them congregate in a single place (like brineshrimp are drawn to light).
I'm not sure how large your guppy fry are but my rainbows were too small to eat the adult moina. The adult moina could breed in my rearing tank, producing baby moina that were the perfect size for my rainbows, supplying them with a constant supply of food.
 
It's guppy fry which are a decent size at the moment. I had also wondered about using a mixture of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and powdered fry food on an auto feeder.
 
Back
Top