Unintentional Danio Rerio fry

LorenHusky

Hey guys! I have a 20g tank that has been going for about 4 weeks now. I keep it around 77-78 degrees fahrenheit. I have 6 'Zebra' Danios. I do a partial water change every other day with Seachem Prime as my water conditioner. Today I was vacuuming the gravel and not really paying much attention. It was sucking up a bunch of garbage off the bottom like it usually does. I was siphoning water into the bucket when I realized that some of the 'crud' seemed to have a mind of it's own. I stuck my finger down into the bucket and the little eye lash sized tad pole looking things swam away from me! I immediately stopped the siphon and began using the cap of a pill bottle to take them out and put them in my 2.5G tank my Betta was in (he's been temporarily evicted). The fry have the ability to swim, but when left undisturbed they just sit at the bottom or cling to the sides.

The 2.5G is new to me unfortunately and thus is not cycled. While I hate to rely on any water stabilizer this heavily, I think this is still a better shot at survival for the fry than almost certain death by the adults in the 20g.

So what should I do? I put somewhere between 30-50 of them in the 2.5g, knowing full well that not everybody is going to make it. Since they are not even 'free swimming' yet, do I feed the something or not? I've never had this happen so I have literally NO idea what I'm doing.
Any and all advice will be considered and appreciated. Thanks!

LorenHusky

Anybody??

Cole mccallister

if you are going to feed them crush your flakes to a powder i have been trying to breed zebras but all i can get is males i would make a profit and sell them at 3-4 of an inch legal selling size also clean fry tank often but on day six they should be free swimming so if you are going to feed do small amounts a pinch twice a day one in mourning other at night until they are legal selling size then you can get them off your hands also if lived a little closer to me i would have taken them off your hands so good luck hope this helps some

FishyFishy89

When they're big enough, your local pet store may offer store credit for them.

Cole mccallister

that was not the goal (s)he was meaning somthing else i just suggested the sell/credit thing they just ment proper care for them mmmmk also anybody else have probs with zebras ripping each others gillplates off

FishyFishy89

They're "unintentional fry" and being that they were put into a 2.5 gal instead of a somewhat larger tank, I assume the user doesn't have any thoughts to keep the fry long term.

You covered what the OP can do the feed them well enough. I offered a solution in case the OP doesn't want to keep the fry.

LorenHusky

I will probably keep a few long term. I have a 29g tank that is currently full of rats. Once my ball python finishes his snacks I will transfer all my stuff to the bigger (longer) 29g, and there will be plenty of room for more Danios.
I just wanted to know what to do with them. I put them in the 2.5g tank and I honestly can't see any of them at the moment. How many days does it take for them to start swimming around? They were really really tiny. I'm amazed I even noticed them.

Byron

Feeding fry is not all that easy, unfortunately. In an established tank with lots of plants and wood, some microscopic food will naturally occur and fry will naturally find it. But probably not sufficient to nourish many of them and most will die off. The crushed flake food is one option. There are also fry first foods you can buy in tubes (I think); I've never used these but I'm sure they're probably better than nothing. As the fry get a bit larger, newly hatched brine shrimp is an old staple.

Cole mccallister

one microscopic food would be to make infusoria rather simple yet complicted process many ways to make it but takes a while to so there is also sifted daphnia too.

Byron

Forgot earlier--another source of infusoria is dried leaves. Oak and beech are safe (if not collected from a location where they may have picked up fertilizers, chemicals, toxins, etc), and you can buy almond leaves in some fish stores. As they decompose they produce a film of infusoria which fry will feed on.