Help with fry and eggs

Frank Drebin

Hey guys,
Walking by my kids 20 gallon Glofish tank and i notice a little swimmer. I looked a little closer and noticed a bunch more of them.

Have kept aquariums for close to 15 years but have never attempted to raise any of the fry. I am well aware I cannot sell them but would like to raise some for our tank and a few of my friends with aquariums set up have asked for some.

Never done this before so here is what I am doing, I need the feedback from this forum and any suggestions that you guys may have.

Got a 10 gallon tank out of the attic, rinsed it out well and set it up. I have a long air stone running and a heater running. I scooped all the fry out that I could find, probably close to 30 of them and then I siphoned the gravel out of my 20 and ended up with a ton of eggs (no clue if they have been fertilized or not). I placed the fry and eggs in the 10 gallon.

Here is my problem, none of the filters that I have can run in the 10 gallon. They are too strong. I even went and bought a power filter rated for a 10 gallon and had to immediately turn it off a couple of the fry were sucked up in it. They were ok because I had already suspected this might happen and had no media in there. They were just sucked up and sent right back into the tank.

I have ordered a sponge filter, my LFS closed down and I don't have one in town other than Petsmart which does not have sponge filters. It should be here Tuesday. But, even with that, this 10 gallon has not been cycled since it is only set up for 1 day.

My question is what do I do about the cycle? I would assume that these fry make very little waste but I know that I am going to create ammonia feeding them the baby brine shrimp. My plan, as of now is to do a 50% water change every other day and try to keep levels down. LOL, I did it this morning and even though I just used airline to siphon out the water (which takes for freaking ever) I still sucked up 5 fry and had to net them back out of my waste bucket. I was going to continue the water changes and continue to dose the tank with Seachem Prime every 48 hours.

If I had planned to breed, I would have set up this tank, seeded it from my other tank, and let it cycle for a couple of months prior to adding fry and eggs but this was not planned.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Especially your thoughts on what to do about this tank cycling. Will the large water changes keep the water clean enough for the fry to survive? How long, on average, will the fry have to be in the 10 gallon before they are big enough to go in the actual Glofish tank? Will the eggs that are just lying on the bottom of the tank actually hatch or can I siphon them out because they are no good?

I know lots of questions and a long post but this fry and egg stuff is new to me. The kids are excited about the "baby fish" and I just want to try to do all I can to keep them alive.

Bacon Is Good

Your doing everything right but when you feed them after 2-3 days scrunch flake food into tiny tiny pieces and then youd be fine. Keep a couple to keep the kids happy and sell some or donate them to your local pet store so you don`t have over crowding issues. How many eggs?

Frank Drebin

Thanks for the reply!!!!

I cannot sell any because it is actually illegal to sell glofish. So I am going to just keep a few, to ovoid any type of overcrowding, and give the rest to friends that have already called wanting a few.

The number of eggs is a tough one to actually say because I put marbles in the bottom of the tank for no other reason than it was all that I had. That was a mistake, I wish I had left the bottom of the tank bare so I could easily siphon out waste and actually see the number of eggs. If I move the marbles to a corner or one side I can see, what I would estimate to be close to 150 eggs.

It is actually pretty cool. I am not going to get into any Glofish debate because I set up this tank and let my kids pick the type of fish, all glofish, but you can already tell the colors of some of the fry.

On a side not, I am more of a saltwater reef guy than I am a tropical fish man but my kids wanted their own tank that they could "take care of," that lasted about 3 days, and this is what we ended up with.

Needless to say, from siphoning their tank, to setting up the 10 gallon fry tank, to just the daily maintenance of my 75 saltwater reef tank, my wife thinks I have lost my mind.

Bacon Is Good

I don`t have any but I was thinking of buying breeding and selling them until today because of high demand.

Could you donate it to like a petco or petsmart?

What state do you live in?

Olympia

There's a GM patent on them so it's best not to take them to shops. You never know these days. Technically breeding them is illegal, you owe the company the price of any fish born thanks to the patent, but obviously they don't have to find out.
Anyways, free swimming fry are done with their egg sacs. If you can add some live plants to the tank, within 10 days you should have infurosia swimming around to feed the fry. The more plants the better.
Large water changes are a good idea. Don't even worry about the cycle, just keep that up.
Good luck with them!
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