catching bristlenose fry?

mrlimpet · Post by **mrlimpet** » 07 Mar 2006, 15:58

i'm pretty sure my bristlenose plecos have spawned again. i want to move dad and his eggpot to a 10G for hatching.

problem is, i have 50 or so 3-month old bn fry from the first spawn in the 10G that i'd like to move out first.

what's the least stressful method of harvesting this first batch? do i just net them? what have others tried?

thanks.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 07 Mar 2006, 16:18

What is the purpose of moving the 3 month old fry? Just to move them to another tank, or what? You don't have to move them out, unless you're just looking to get the space available for the new batch of course. Dad will not eat the 3-month old fry, that's for sure.

I'd net them - carefully of course. Once they reach around an inch, they start being fairly robust, but at three months they may be a bit small still.

Removing anything and everything they can hide behind/underneath is almost essential here. That includes any filter, heater, decorations and such.

The alternative is to make them hide in some pipe/tube/cave that you can then put your hand/finger over the open end(s) and lift them out. But this is certainly more tedious and time-consuming, as certainly some would not hide until you've chased them around the tank for several laps... [Guess how I know that one...

] As for stress levels the two methods are probably about equal - at least for the ones that you have to chase around a lot before they get caught. I haven't, as far as I know, lost one due to catching them tho, except for the first lot of three that I tried to rescue from being eaten by the goldfish that shared the tank with them - and they probably died from shock from being moved to a tank with different water conditions, rather than anything else.

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Mats

mrlimpet · Post by **mrlimpet** » 07 Mar 2006, 16:45

thanks for your reply MatsP.

i'm not worried about dad eating the older fry. i'm moving the older fry because it'll be easier to maintain the water quality for the new fry if i move the older fry out first. it's only a 10G and while i have been doing daily water changes, it gets pretty funky in there. i can only imagine what the 10G would look like with 2 batches in there. plus, when it's time to sell/give them away, it'd be a whole lot easier if they're already segregated by size.

i have a 29G with room for the the older bn fry. the only other inhabitants of the 29G are 20 or so 8-month old bolivian ram fry, and the bolivians may go to auction in another month.

Post by **Barbie** » 08 Mar 2006, 19:11

If it was me, I'd just move the male and his new fry to the new 29 gallon and maybe move as many of the older fry as you can catch. The new fry being in the 10 are going to put you in exactly in the same situation in no time at all. It's not like you can ever catch them in big groups, so it won't be a problem if you have to just plan on removing the bigger ones as you need to. Moving those fry while they are still in the cave with Dad is by FAR the safest method, also.

I actually got tired of the fry shuffling game and moved my groups into 50 and 55 gallon tanks. While this sounded like a great idea, what has actually happened is the male stepped up production with their better water quality and is still causing me issues with getting enough food to the fry without causing problems ;).

Barbie

mrlimpet · Post by **mrlimpet** » 09 Mar 2006, 01:36

thx for your reply barbie. it sounds like you're overrun with fry there.

you bring up some good points.

whatever i end up doing, it must include separating the male and female, or letting future spawns take their chances in my community tank.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 09 Mar 2006, 09:18

Yup, unless you have many, large tanks, the male/female separation is the only option.

And thanks to Barbie for coming up with an excellent solution to the problem...

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Mats