water changes with fry?

[Lara]

Hi there!

I have read a bit about doing daily water changes when fry hatch but I'm not sure why. I'm accidentally breeding bristlenose catfish at the moment and I have just been doing weekly water changes as usual. Does anyone know why you're supposed to do daily changes? and how long should you continue with daily changes if this is the case

Cheers,
Lara

[fishfreaks]

fry are sensitive to bad water conditions and need to be fed more often. ergo you get the more waterchanges. our convict fry are about 1/2 or so now and we still do a waterchange 3 times a week.

[Osiris]

FF is correct. Their fry are fed more, especially with pleco's eating what they eat fouls the water quickly, and all them fry add up to waste, for their fastest growth and good health so you don't lose any keep up on water changes my fry tanks though i do every other day. but once my plecos begin breeding i will be doing daily on their fry tanks since of the food they eat.

[Lara]

ok, I get it, but wouldn't doing water changes so often really stress out the fish, on I guess more of an emotional level? That sounds weird I know but I remember reading somewhere that one of the mistakes hobbyists make is interferring with the tank too much and that all jobs should be limited to once a week (obviously that isn't a direct quote). Shouldn't you keep your hands out of the tank as much as possible or do the fish get used to it and become less afraid? Thanks for advise so far

[fish_doc]

The fish actually become acustomed to tinkering in the tank. My guppies and cichlids pick at my hands when I have them in the tank. When we moved I had a big net and pulled all 60 guppies out with 2 scoops of the net. They love attention.

When I spend alot of time watching my goldfish they get to the point where they watch and study me back.

[Osiris]

You are correct but think about it, water is pristine where they live always new water moving in place where they are, not like in aquariums, levels build. I agree in SW i have seen drastic changes since i haven't stuck my hands in there in likea month, but that's a reef so yea..

[DavidDoyle]

Fry do best raised in bare bottom tanks and being fed a few times daily. Between the uneaten food and those cute little curly poops baby bristles leave the water can get bad fast. I find the best routine is to vac the tank to remove uneaten food and poop once or twice a day using a small size vac system (always vac into a bucket so you can recover the fry that will inevitably get sucked up).

This routine should result in about the equivalent to changeing 10% or so of the water daily and should be sufficient for bristle babies.

[Lara]

Thanks Guys, I get it now, been doing daily changes and all good, It's a bugger when the fry get sucked up though, I feel sorry for the poor little guys!

[garfieldnfish]

I just got some skirt tetras to spawn and at least 3 of the eggs hatched so far in the breeder net, could be more, but no more then 10, the rest of the eggs were left in the tank. So I am a little interested in this myself.
MalawianPro wrote that in the wild water is always "pristine", always new water moving in. Well, is this not the same water other fish have just polluted upstream, not to mention human waste water and industrial pollution? I guess he never saw some of the European rivers and some larger ones in the US where I am surprise any fish still survive these days.
I also think people overfeed fish in general and with fry (just like with any cute babies) it's that much harder to resist. Overfeeding of fry will pollute the water and I doubt fry need to be feed more often then the rest of the fish (they would not get this treatment in the wild). Of course if you are a professional breeder and want record numbers to survive that changes the playing field somewhat but if you are trying to mimick nature as close as possible, I would stick to guarding the eggs/fry from the hungry mouths of the tank mates (already helping them a lot), but I would not give any other special treatment (except prviding fry food once a day) and then you should have survival of the fittest and no culling is neccessary.
Any comments are welcome. My 3 (maybe more) newly hatched skirt tetras are in a breeder net in their parents 46 gal tank. The tank is somewhat understocked so I am planning on keeping them in the net until they get large enough to be safe. But I do not plan on feeding them more then once a day, plus adding some green water from my plant tank and I will stick to the weekly water changes. Wish me luck.

[Z Man]

Lara, if you are not already, use a piece of airline tubing attached to a piece of rigid tubing to siphon out all the gunk. Slower but less likely to suck up many fry.