New Cory Fry Tank On The Way

[greenmumma141]

wow!!! it's crazy how fast they grow, good job mum!

 

[snazy]

These were taken two days ago. The smaller corys were two weeks 2 days then. I have no idea how many but I haven't lost any and about 20-25 hatched when I counted the empty shells. The bigger bronze were just 1-2 days short of 4 weeks and the surviving albino from the clown loach carnage at about 6 weeks minus a couple of days at the time the pictures were taken.

All the pink spots are the albino ones

 

[MrsM]

Awwwwwwww too cute!!

 

[Flute]

Lovely photographs! Corys are such brilliant fish

 

[fluttermoth]

Not much cuter than baby cories, is there?!

Looks like you, and your fish, are getting hang of it now; well done!

 

[snazy]

They are super duper cute. I can't stop watching them, they are always so busy looking. I was finding it hard to hatch them but it's not difficult to raise them. I think a cycled tank and plenty of food is sufficient not to lose any.
One more from a couple of days ago:

 

[snazy]

Pictures from today:

Younger cory babies:

 

[MrsM]

looking good

 

[snazy]

I had such a scare last night with the tank. Decided to wash the filter sponge as the flow was down to bare minimum and 2 hours later ammonia was 0.50 ppm!!! Did a large water change and moved 10 of the biggest babies to my other tank, dosed with my new bottle of Prime which came so handy. Now since then ammonia has been reading 0 and it's been 24 hours since. I haven't used Prime before but if it neutralizes ammonia, is it still readable on the test if it's there, even in non-toxic form or should I relax?

 

[snazy]

Gold lasers fry are very noticeably orange when they hatch.... its possible your albinos are throwing out bronze variations,which mine do all the time....

The last batch i have around 35 growing fry all are bronze colour except the 10 albinos - all of these from albino parents

Strange, because I've been researching and apparently two albinos will not produce a bronze cory. Albinos will carry only the albino recessive gene apparently and will pass it on to offspring as long as both parents are albinos.

 

[MrsM]

hope the ammonia is still zero bet you pooped yer pants! i know i would have!

 

[snazy]

That's why I was saying don't wash a newly cycled filter

It always happens, it's like the bacteria is not stuck to the filter when not that mature yet and washing it even briefly causes a spike The ammonia has been 0 since but I added a second filter to be on the safe side. It was in my other tank for 2 months, so it should have been at least partially cycled too. I can't risk cleaning the sole filter to cause a spike again

It's been a learning process though. First the sponge filter wasn't providing enough oxygen eventually. I am guessing the amounts of food processed need quite an amount of beneficial bacteria to deal with it, which also needs oxygen to convert ammonia and nitrite, and also multiply along with the inhabitans growing. My shrimp first started going to the surface a few hours after lights were off, then the corys started gulping air way too often. I added an air stone that is quite powerful, the corys loved it and the gasping stopped within an hour or so. I switched off the air stone on a couple of occassions after to test and they went back to gasping again within an hour or so. If I hadn't noticed they would have slowly died off on me one by one. The other good part is that the extra water circulation has stopped the brown diatoms too

And now with a second filter that at least has mechanical filtration as well, it looks lovely and clean too and I won't be poopting my pants washing the stupid sponge.


And I've been quite lucky not to lose any baby corys yet, some baby shrimp have emerged too

 

[snazy]

That's pretty much how ugly the fry tank looks now with the extra filter. The sponge and air stone are behind the plants on the left:

I moved 10 of the babies to my other tank during the ammonia spike. Here is a video of them, ignore the sterbai and pygmies as they were there already:

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqmMDONavOQ

 

[snazy]

And a video of the ones in the fry tank:

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoowBL47JEA

 

[MrsM]

your tanks look really nice, even with the filter on view... i love the one in your signature