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feeding bbs

minifoot77

Members
has anyone ever done the diy 1 litre bottle? i get shells suspended in the water and i have heard those were bad... how do you harvest the bbs?
 

rsretep

Members
are you using an airstone to circulate the water???? i drain bbs after 24 hours of airation into a small plastic cup and disperse them with an eye dropper... i can usually get three good feedings out of one batch then rinse entire setup and start over....i buy from aquabid,the bbs come mixed with salt already so it makes things very easy
 

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
I have two batches going at a time in Mason jars (staggered so that I always have BBS available). I have holes punched in the top of each jar, a big one for airline tubing (with no stone attached) and smaller ones to let air out. When I feed, I pull the airline tubing out and let them sit for a few minutes.

<Most> of the shells either float to the top or drop to the bottom. I shine a small Maglight across the jar mid-depth so that the BBS collect around that area. I use a pet medicine syringe (plastic, bought at Petco) with airline tubing on the tip to extract them from the center. I don't worry about rising them as I only do Africans and figure a little more salt won't hurt anyone.

A few shells in each portion do end up in the tank, but my peacock fry generally do not mess with the shells. They usually float up to the top or sink to the bottom and sit there until I change water.
 

minifoot77

Members
that was my tiredness showing through... but tony did still answer my ?'s it should have said "do you really worry about the few rouge eggs that won't sink of float?"
 

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
Sorry for getting back so late. Got married over the weekend and been "off the grid." :)

Nah, I don't worry. Maybe I should, but have been feeding BBS to two batches of A. maylandi fry now and have had *very* few losses. I generally watch them swim up, grab an errant egg in their mouth and spit it right out.

But then again, I feed everyone 2-3 times a day. A hungry fish may not spit one out.

I've also heard that fry are a lot less susceptible to getting sick from eating the eggs than adults.... not sure where I heard that from though.

**EDIT: Jeeze, basically restated the same thing myself... sorry bout that. Been a long week. :)
 
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