Raising fry in community tank

[Beastije]

Hi guys
I have few tanks where I am having issues with raising fry. I have some clown killifish fry that I saw in my vast hornwort/frogbit and some pseudomugil luminatus fry in my luminatus tank which also has hornwort and pennywort and naias on the surface.
When I notice the fry I start feeding the tank more, infusoria, firstbite sprinkled all over the whole surface, feed the adults more. However when I start this process, no matter if I feed the adults in one corner or all over and only AFTER sprinkle the first bite, at some point all the adults congregate in the place where the fry is. I havent seen the clown killifish fry since I first fed it but I keep seeing adult female in the same place now. I am deadly afraid to feed the luminatus fry to not have it eaten since the adults will then focus more on the part where it lives.

How should I feed the tank, including adults, while trying to raise the fry? I feed the adults twice a day, dry food, frozen cyclops, bbs, live microworms, live bbs. The adults are all nicely fat and are constantly breeding. Thanks

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Most fish will see fry as on the menu. Some species will even eat their own young. If you are serious about breeding and getting maximum survival of the offspring, it needs to be done in a species only tank. And if the species involved is one which will eat their own fry or eggs you will have two options.

One is to pull the eggs to another tank to hatch and raise them until they get big enough not to be eaten. The other is to remove the offending parents to another tank leaving the eggs/wiglers/free swimming fry on their own.

Next, most fish will eat almost anything they can. This includes the food for fry. I work with plecos and they do not eat normally eat eggs. The dad protects them. I feed different foods for the kids and the older fish. The idea is that that the smaller food is all the small ones can eat but the bigger ones will eat it if that can see/find it.

But I feed both foods at the same time with the idea that the digger fish will chase the bigger foods first. As far as i can tell this lets there be enough of the small food so the kids get their fill. It usually takes small eyes to spot small food particles.

In the end, assuming one's bigger fish are not eating the smaller one, then you can easily tell if the fry are getting enought to eat as they will grow. If the bigger fish are eating them, the fry will just appear to vanish.

 

[Colin_T]

Get a separate hatching/ rearing tank for the fry. It's the only way to guarantee the babies don't get eaten.

We used 2 or 4 litre icecream buckets with an airstone for hatching eggs. The fry were then scooped out in a spoon or plastic container and moved into a rearing tank that was 18 or 24 inches long.

Do not mix fry together if they are more than 2 weeks apart in age because the bigger fry eat the smaller ones.