Water changes with fry in tank

[DiscusnAfricans]

How do most people handle water changes with fry in the tank? Most of the fry I deal with come from mouthbrooders, but fry from cave or substrate spawners seem to be much more sensitive.

A few weeks ago, all of the fry from a pair of daffodil I have disappeared after a water change. They spawned again recently, and I'm trying to figure out if I should just wait an extra week or two before doing a water change, or just do very small ones. I don't want to lose this batch of fry too.

At about the same time, I did a water change on a tank with a pair of kribensis that were guarding fry. For the past few days they parents had been ever vigilant, but during and after the water change they seemed to start fighing and abadoned thr fry. The fry weren't dying, but the pair is in a community tank, and the next day there was no evidence of fry and the parents were just acting normal. Lately they're going back into spawning mode, so just curious how I should handle tank maintenance.

I know water temp being close is an issue, but I didn't know if there was anything else I needed to pay attention to.

 

[Rasta Fish]

I would not do any water change in the tank if you suspect thats the cause
I would just add water to top it off

 

[DiscusnAfricans]

If you go that route, at what point to you start doing water changes again if you're not pulling the fry? Even with a small bioload, I'm uncomfortable letting the tank go more than 2 weeks without at least a small partial change.

 

[verbal]

On the daffodils I would do small water changes. You should be able to get multiple spawns in the same tank without issues.

For the kribs in the community tank, I would pull some fry and raise them in a separate tank. I would use water from the main tank to do water changes in the fry tank.

 

[dogofwar]

I generally just do smaller water changes (10-20%) and don't mess with the substrate if I suspect that the pair is guarding fry...less disruption.

Matt

 

[Greengirl]

I noticed after I switched tanks that there was some fry in a bucket of extra gravel and water. I saved them and now they are growing in a 10 gallon. Yesterday I decided to do a water change and wanted to test a theory. I let the water and gunk from the gravel siphon off first into the same big bucket. I look in the bucket the next morning and sure enough there were tiny free swimmers. They didn't seem affected at all by being siphoned out of the main tank. In fact they are probably lucky they were not eaten by the ghost knife. Try siphoning your substrate in another tank first and see if fry pop up the next day.

 

[spazmattik]

I had a similar situation with my convicts. First water change the dad beat the mom up pretty bad. She healed up and I did another one and the dad killed the mom.

 

[Tony]

I'd stick with small partial water changes... maybe 10-20% like Matt said.

If you're feeling guilty because that isn't enough, do them more often.

 

[eden2020]

Small changes..

+1 Tony and Matt

-Marc

 

[DiscusnAfricans]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had originally considered aging the water, but I keep the tank about 10 degrees warmer than the ambient room temperature. I'll go with the plan to do small water chanegs as necessary, with as little disturbance as possible.

 

[Avatar]

Less is more?

I use airline to refill small fry tanks as opposed to 1/2" hose - no issues as yet.