Should I move the fry or not?

[blokk]

Just hade my first BN spawn last week. Now the eggs have hatched and I can see the fry in the cave with the male. Been reading in the forum and theres seem to be two camps in the question in moving the fry. There are 3 female and 1 male and 6-8 Corydoras leopardus in the tank. Are the corys a threat? And I have one internal filter and one external, dont want the fry to end up in them.

So should I take the cave and shake the fry in to a guppy nursery or just leave them be? And will it upset the male to much, heard that he can get upset and stressed for a couple of days if the egg/fry are removed?

I want a high surviving rate but also a good quality in the fish.

[kouen]

Hi!

It's better to move cave with father and fries.

I did the cheap and easiest saver. It placed in breeding tank; additional water change is not required. At 5 day you can leave father and place fries alone in the same bottle for first 2 weeks.




Just big (8 liters) plastic bottle and thin drill will save a lot of kids $)They may left and join father at any time.

[Hellspawn]

I moved my first "litter" yesterday. They are 6-8 weeks old at the moment. No fatalities as of yet, all are swimming and eating as if nothing happened.

Took me 2 hours to catch all the little ones, so be warned!

[apistomaster]

You can leave a couple spawns with the parents in a 125 liter tank for a couple months before ever moving them and they will get off to a good start. The adults don't harm the juveniles so if you have a large enough tank you can do most of the initial grow out in the breeding tank. It is much simpler than juggling broods to small hatching/rearing tanks.
A pair will usually spawn once a month for several months and it doesn't matter if you have a large range of assorted sizes.
You can sell off the largest fish just as your tank is reaching its maximum capacity making room for the next and youngest brood. The less you handle/move the fry and juveniles they faster they will grow.
I am recommending using a colony breeding permanent set up and if you have large breeders and a market for your production then there is no reason why you can't maintain the breeders, very large numbers of fry, juveniles and salable sized fish all in one tank.
A 250 liter tank works even better.
I breed lots of plecos this way and it allows me to produce more fish with fewer tanks.
I have hundreds of L333 in a US40 gal breeder tank/about 160 liters. There are fry which have just left the caves for their first time to those more than 6 cm long and everything in between. Not counting the 7 adults. I do change 3/4 of the water every 4 days and provide plenty of aeration and filtration. If you keep up with the water changes you can raise a very large number of fish all in one tank. Plecos do not harm their young or younger siblings and I provide enough wood for the fry and juveniles to use for hiding places. The basic idea is the same as maintaining a large guppy breeding tank. Seek the simplest ways of doing things when breeding non-cannibalistic fish.