Swim through divider or angled egg tray?
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Newbie here with weird ideas on how to keep the adults from eating all the eggs and fry without having to do anything.
This all probably sounds stupid, but I’m not looking to produce huge numbers and I know that moving fish is stressful no matter how gently it’s done.
A: Have any of you ever heard of using a plastic mesh screen the fry to swim through to create a “safety zone” where the adults can’t reach them?
B: Using an angled egg tray to drive most newly hatched fry under the bottom lip of a regular tank divider. Fry generally stay near the top so they would be less inclined to swim back under the divider and back through the egg tray and there will be floating plant roots and everything they want near the top to hopefully keep them there. Once fry are larger they are moved to the other side to keep them from eating the smaller ones and sold before they reach breeding age. Problem is, because fry “generally stay near the top” they might just push through the egg tray and the java moss layer, completely ignoring the angle of the tray…
The “Grand Plan” :roll: is to turn the old ten gallon into a CPD breeder tank with around 1-2 males and 2-3 females from as many different bloodlines as I can get. I don’t want to set up a second tank for fry. I figure the fewer adults per gallon the less likely they are to eat all the fry and eggs.
This is what gave me the idea of creating a safety zone or an angled egg tray.
Would a regular plastic screen bought in art stores be safe for an egg tray or the safety zone divider? I think netting would be a danger to the babies once they grow just large enough to shove just their heads through and they’d get caught just behind the gills.
How small would the holes have to be to keep the adults from getting their heads stuck in a safety zone divider? Would half a centimeter be good? Would using quarter centimeter screen be too small for slightly larger but still edible fry to use as a safety zone? What size would be good for the holes in an egg tray that the fry would be not likely to swim through? I’d layer java moss on the egg tray so that would hopefully help.
For the safety zone the tank would be set up so all the stuff the fry love to hide in (floating plants) would be on the side I would want them to stay on in order to draw them through the screen to safety.
I’ve heard of fry generally staying near the top and adults generally staying closer to the bottom, so maybe the screen/divider could be angled slightly to give the fry more surface room and the adults more floor space.
I know that not all of the fry (if any) will stay in the safety zone or follow the angle of the egg tray under the divider (don’t know how steep an angle it would need to be, maybe flat!), but this is one of those “whatever survives survives” set-ups. I’m just trying to think of a way of giving them a safe place to hide from the big guys. If they follow the angled tray or really like staying in the safety zone it’ll save some fry.
Hi,
I know some others on the forum had success with a divider, check aquagirl for example. I tried it but did not have success, I used a thick (5cm) piece of filter foam (not the fine one, but with bigger ”holes”) but noticed the fry swim through the foam back into the part where the adults reside.
Also, I never noticed my fry to stay at the top of the tank, but this could be to do with the temp or O2 in the tank.
I now move the parents to a separate tank and this works better for me.
Lars
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