Baby bronze cories growing up!

[IndiaHawker]

Hi again all! Haven't really posted in a while as haven't needed to and been busy - everything been going relatively smoothly except for two of my remaining three zebra danios succumbing to drops recently. I have 10 or 11 bronze cory babies still surviving and thriving to the best of knowledge - hard to count them all at once! They're now in the main tank and some in particular are getting huge (for babies - like little teens!) So I've been thinking about trying to separate them into a separate container - just want something cheap and plastic that'll do the job, big enough for them to be comfortable but no bigger than necessary! If anyone could recommend any brands or specifics to look for online available in UK that'd be really appreciated! Plus what equipment would I need please - imagine they'd be fine without light as would be right next to main tank and I know cories prefer lower light anyway. Just heater and a pump containing filter foam (do they all contain foam? The pump included with my fluval flex has minimal foam within it, but I imagine that's to do with the fact that most of the foam is contained in the back section of the tank, outside the pump)? If anyone could recommend me any good value for money pumps, heaters, and anything else I may need that would be great as well please? I could also put one of my two current air stones into the baby Cory 'tank' if that would help?

Anyway, hope you're all well and here are a few pics of my babies (excuse the bladder snail outbreak - I'm wary of feeding less because of the babies in tank, another reason I'd like to separate them if possible!):

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[Colin_T]

They prefer to be in big groups, why do you want to separate them for?

 

[IndiaHawker]

They prefer to be in big groups, why do you want to separate them for?

Just far too many in tank and worried as they're growing bigger rapidly! Just to clarify I may not have phrased that well - I didn't mean separate them all individually, I just meant have all of the babies in a separate place to the main tank

 

[Colin_T]

if the babies are big enough so they don't get eaten, then leave them with the adults. If the tank is too small for all the fish then move some into another tank or sell them to the local pet shop.

 

[IndiaHawker]

Yeah that's my plan, I plan to either try and rehome them to good homes (plan to keep two), or give to my nearest fish store failing that, but until then I'm worried they're still too little to rehome, yet too big to all do well in my tank and not negatively affect parameters too much, hence the idea of separating them for the time being - not a permanent thing! How big would you say would be a good size for them to be to rehome them? Cheers

 

[Colin_T]

If you want to sell them to a pet shop they need to be about 20mm body size, similar size to what the shops sell them at. If you are giving them to people or the pet shop for free, then any size bigger than 10mm body size. As long as they are big enough not to get eaten by other fish they will be fine at that size.

If you need a temporary grow out tank, buy a 100-200 litre plastic storage container and put a thin layer of sand in it. Fill it with tank water, a small established filter and aquarium heater. Put the young fish in that, feed them well, do lots of water changes and they should grow rapidly. Put the lid on the storage container to help trap heat, stop the fish jumping out, and to reinforce the container and stop it bulging out too much.

 

[IndiaHawker]

Okay thanks for the help! The biggest baby is probably nearing 2cm however many are still a lot smaller, maybe 1cm max! Temporary grow-out tank wise - really can't accommodate a 100-200 litre container in the space I have - current tank is 57L and couldn't even get permission weight-wise for a 90ish litre tank alongside it in my room upstairs! Is there anything smaller I could humanely keep them in for the time being? I'd love to hang onto them as long as I reasonably can as I'm loving watching them grow up and likely won't be doing this again for the foreseeable future - however don't want to cause harm to them in any way!

Wondering how I could go about using filter media in a separate container - my Fluval Flex has one large chunk of foam and some 'biomax' in a net bag - removed the carbon a while back. Could I maybe cut some of the foam off and stuff into a filter, then replace back into the main tank when I'm done with it?

Thank you

 

[Colin_T]

Get whatever size storage container you can get. You can conceal it by putting it in a corner and stick toys or something over it. Make it look like a storage box for toys or blankets. It's only going to have water in it for a short time so you make sure it doesn't look like a tank/ pond during rent inspection time.

No idea how you're going to do a filter. Normally when breeding fish you try to have spare filters for the babies.

Your best bet might be to just leave them together where they are and do more water changes to compensate for the extra load.