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I am having a problem in my fry containers. There is an accumulation of what i can only describe as slime. It is quite fibrous and the fry are appearing to choke on it. I am convinced it is bacterial blooms. I am, as describe doing 2 50% water changes a day and have a good air supply maintaining circulation. I am wondering if anyone else has this as an issue and if so how do you overcome it. I am not losing large numbers but I am losing some and I dont want it to become a problem. I have considered a micro dose of myxazin but wondered how this would affect the fry. In short help..... please
The main species which it is affecting is the napoensis and primarily those between five and ten days.

I had similar problems with C.aeneus fry, dying out at about the 10 day stage.

I had 'slime' developing in my floating fry enclosures. I don't know that it was fibrous tho'.

My solution was more 'mechanical' however. It seems to have solved the problem. I've actually been able to increase my feeding rate, without the waste buildup I was getting before.

Here's the link.

Maybe fibrous is wrong, i guess mucousy ( if thats a word) is more accurate. Either way it is clogging up the tiny fry. The larger aeneus and paleatus appear unaffected , even the bigger napoensis appear to be do ok. I syphoning the worse of it and doing so twice a day during the water changes but it seems to build up very quickly, especially around the airstone
Thanks for the reply

What size container are they in?
Amanda

I see it too - this morning I removed abut 25 dead paleatus fry from their tank (17 L). They hatched two weeks ago.

I first put a proper filter in the tank six days ago, so NO2 is still hard to keep down. Hopefully NO2 and mucousy waste will vanish as the tank gets cycled properly, and then it will be ready for the next batch.

- Allan

They are in five litre galss containers Heated to 74 and with vigorous aeration. They are water changed three times daily with 50% changes. The paleatus, aeneus and even pygmaeus have been fine this way but the napoensis are suffering. Its like the gills fill with the stuff. The ones that are avoiding it are growing well. From 125 fry I have about 50 good fry but they are still falling, maybe one a day. The water is fine as the frequent water changes are being done and the water is taken from the 200l stock tank.

I have found in the past that areas of the strongest current are prone to developing this sludgy bacterial mat, be it filters, powerheads or rocks in front of aeration bars, you may want to ease up on the aeration quite a bit it shouldn't affect total dissolved O2 that much.- Just a thought