Swordtail Fry

[Dnee1977]

Hi, my female Swordtail gave birth 4 days ago; I was able to save 12 of the fry. So I now have 2 one-gallon tanks with 6 swordtail fry in each. I want to house them together. Should I get a 10-gallon or 20-gallon? I need to decide soon so I can properly cycle the tank.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Try to get the biggest tank you can afford and have space for. Generally the more water there is, the more stabile the water quality & chemistry will remain, and the better it is for the fish.

If money is an issue you can get large plastic storage containers and use them to rear up fish in. They are relatively cheap and come with a lid to stop the fish jumping out. You treat them like a normal aquarium except they are plastic and you can't see through the sides.

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If you have an established tank that has been running for more than 2 months, you can take half of the filter material from the filter and put it in the new tank. This will give you an instant cycled filter. Just make sure you replace the material you remove with some new material.

If you can't remove filter material from the established filter, use a rubber band or some string to hold some new filter material against the established filter material. Leave it here for a couple of weeks and the filter bacteria will start to grow on the new material. Then you can move this into the new tank and it will help to speed up the cycling process.

Liquid filter bacterial supplements can also help. I recommend double dosing them each day for the first week then that should be it. Try to add the bacterial supplements near the filter intake or filter sponges so they end up in the filter. Keep the bacterial supplements in the fridge.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

If you have an established tank that has been running for more than 2 months, you can take half of the filter material from the filter and put it in the new tank. This will give you an instant cycled filter. Just make sure you replace the material you remove with some new material.

Quite a helpful tip, anyone who is reading this. I like to keep extra media in all my tanks ( like a small bag of K1 for example). So if I need to quickly cycle a tank, I have extra media I can do this with. It has saved my life a few times!

 

[Dnee1977]

Thank you

Took me awhile to find my way back to this thread lol

I’ll start with a 10-gallon then upgrade to a 20 when they get a little bigger. They’re so tiny and cute.

Thank you for the wonderful advice

 

[Colin_T]

Took me awhile to find my way back to this thread lol

I know the feeling. If I can't find a post I first move my mouse over the "Forums" tab and scroll down to "New Posts". If it's not there I click "Active Topics" and look there. That generally covers all the posts from the last 24 hours.

If it's something I am interested in I bookmark them.