_shorty_
New member
I harvested my first fry last night. So far so good, but I know it's early. I fed rots this morning and the feeding reaction in my limited experience seemed very good. Most larvae were in the water column and swimming vs last night many hanging out on the bottom. I think there may be one dead one and a couple others that were still hanging out on the bottom but still darting around.
I have to say - harvest was more difficult that I thought it was going to be. Everything I read says 'just syphon them out' or 'just scoop them up'.. lol... ya easier said than done. So I started with 1/4" tubing - and got a few, but they just swam away from the end. (They were stronger swimmers than I assumed they'd be). Then, I got the coffee mug out. That did a an okay job. But there were still a lot of straggelers that I couldn't get - and my little 5 gal fry tank filled up fast with the coffe mug technique! I ended up taking breaks from collecting the fry in order to use the same coffee mug to carefully pull water back out of the fry tank without scooping up the fry to drop the water level back down. Ya, that sucked...
I wired and LED to battery and mounted it to a suction cup which worked out pretty nicely. I placed that LED on the front glass a few inches from the eggs near the surface of the water and collected from the backside. This allowed for very good visibility of the larvae and other critters swimming around. My controller LED display may have thrown them off, as many decided to explore and move toward the back end of the tank and even down into darkness. It may have also been the LED light shining through the tank horizontally and reflecting back off the back side of the glass. I don't know. Maybe that's normal for several straggelers?. I know I lost several larvae... some to exploration - some to an oportunistic cleaner shrimp. But, for a first attempt, I'm happy.
After the experience I am considering a few things. 1) make sure ALL (even tiny) light sources are covered/turned off. 2) find a new, easier, quicker way of collecting. 3) Will making the light vertical down through the water make any difference in how the fry are attracted?
I read in ernieq's thread that he used a brine shrimp net to collect. I wish I would have remembered that last night. I may try that next time as long as it doesn't hurt the fry, that probably would have been MUCH easier. Or, deangelr mentioned he's had best results using a fry trap... but I don't want to pay the 30 bucks for that as infrequently I would plan to use it (even though it seems a very clever little device)
Any other recommendations on collection techniques or tweaks? Is the brine shrimp net the way to go?
I have to say - harvest was more difficult that I thought it was going to be. Everything I read says 'just syphon them out' or 'just scoop them up'.. lol... ya easier said than done. So I started with 1/4" tubing - and got a few, but they just swam away from the end. (They were stronger swimmers than I assumed they'd be). Then, I got the coffee mug out. That did a an okay job. But there were still a lot of straggelers that I couldn't get - and my little 5 gal fry tank filled up fast with the coffe mug technique! I ended up taking breaks from collecting the fry in order to use the same coffee mug to carefully pull water back out of the fry tank without scooping up the fry to drop the water level back down. Ya, that sucked...
I wired and LED to battery and mounted it to a suction cup which worked out pretty nicely. I placed that LED on the front glass a few inches from the eggs near the surface of the water and collected from the backside. This allowed for very good visibility of the larvae and other critters swimming around. My controller LED display may have thrown them off, as many decided to explore and move toward the back end of the tank and even down into darkness. It may have also been the LED light shining through the tank horizontally and reflecting back off the back side of the glass. I don't know. Maybe that's normal for several straggelers?. I know I lost several larvae... some to exploration - some to an oportunistic cleaner shrimp. But, for a first attempt, I'm happy.
After the experience I am considering a few things. 1) make sure ALL (even tiny) light sources are covered/turned off. 2) find a new, easier, quicker way of collecting. 3) Will making the light vertical down through the water make any difference in how the fry are attracted?
I read in ernieq's thread that he used a brine shrimp net to collect. I wish I would have remembered that last night. I may try that next time as long as it doesn't hurt the fry, that probably would have been MUCH easier. Or, deangelr mentioned he's had best results using a fry trap... but I don't want to pay the 30 bucks for that as infrequently I would plan to use it (even though it seems a very clever little device)
Any other recommendations on collection techniques or tweaks? Is the brine shrimp net the way to go?
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