Wigglers and I'm going out of town, what to do!

[Rarelyp1]

Hi All,

I'm a long time reader, but not much of a poster just yet. I have an odd circumstance and am looking for ideas on how to manage it. I'll start with a little backstory but skip to the Problem if you don't want to read all of it.

Backstory

I have a few Discus pairs that spawn in my 90 gal community tank fairly often but the eggs never last longer than a few days, too many other fish, hard TX limestone water, high PH (8.2) and TDS (1060 to 1200). I did move one pair to a separate tank to minimize overcrowding and though they would spawn in the 90, they weren't in the mood in the new tank, and even if they did everything I have read said the eggs wont fertilize in hard tap water with high TDS. To my suprise, this pair did recently spawn a small batch of eggs, and around 75% of them hatched. I'm on day 16 with the fry and they are growing fast though they strangely don't seem interested in BBS. Now, with the surprising revelation that eggs will fertilize in my water, I stole some eggs from a nice pigeon blood pair in the 90 gal and they hatched today, wigglers.

Problem
I am scheduled to leave town in a day and a half. I accept the fact that the fry will likely die since I am raising them without parents, but I can still try a few things to see if I can keep a few alive, why not try? I have a Tuck like setup with a tray in the top of a 30 gal filtered tank, wigglers are in a reusable coffee filter screen with fresh water trickling on them in the tray, water temp is 85.1 F. Eggs laid on 8/6 @~8:00 pm hatched on 8/9 @~8:00 am. Guessing they could become free swimming ~36 hrs which would be 8/11. I will leave home around 1:00pm that day. I will return on 8/15 late afternoon.
Here are a few ideas that I'd like to run past you all that have great experience in breeding.

1. I can throw a little BBS, Golden Pearls, starter food in the coffee filter and see it that carries them over. The water is circulating and being replaced constantly from the tank, but the food would stay in the filter screen I think.
2. Try to take a few free swimmers and put them on the other pair that are raising their fry of 16 days old and see if they don't get eaten immediately.

So far, those aren't great options but something to try, any other ideas other than just giving up?Attachment 128599Attachment 128598

[Cosgrovb]

The fry will be fine without BBS. So long as the parents are fed all will be fine while you are gone.

[Rarelyp1]

Thanks Cosgrovb.
To clarify, I have 2 sets of fry. One set is 16 days old with parents, and a different set that I hatched artificially/no parents. The newly hatched wigglers will become free swimming on or after the day I leave town and those are the guys I worry about starving.

[CliffsDiscus]

Not much you can do since they are artificially raise but one option is to
remove the 16 day fry and place them
in a separate tank and place the eggs
in with the breeding pair.

Cliff

[Rarelyp1]

Thanks Cliff! I had not thought of that as an option. Leaving tomorrow am, I will update this thread with how things went when I return.

[Rarelyp1]

Just returned home and am a bit surprised at what I found.. To review, I had 2 sets of fry, one set ~16 days old with parents, and 2nd set is a group of wigglers with no parents, being artificially raised in a "Big Tuck" inspired setup with the wigglers in a reusable coffee filter screen. Concern was that I was leaving town and the fry with parents would get no water changes for 4 days and parents would be fed with auto feeder, artificially raised wigglers would become free swimming and starve with no food for 4 days. Expectation was that the older fry with parents may have some live and some lost due to water conditions, and wigglers may have 1 or 2 strong ones survive if extremely lucky.
What I Did Before I Left
Fry set #1 - ~16 day old with parents. Changed water night before, set up auto feeder to feed small amount 3x a day. Fed am before I left, and watched 1 fry diminish and die during that time. That made me think whatever got him would wipe out the rest while I was gone.
Fry set #2 - Wigglers. I separated 2 with an eye dropper and added them in to the tank with parents right where the parents moved their wigglers to just to see if there was a chance the parents would accept them. Did Not work as most would have guessed, they were eaten. I did not remove the 16 day fry and then add the wigglers to the breeding pair tank as suggested because I had no good way to feed them and thought I might loose both batches of fry if I tried that. All I could think to do was to try to have food available for the wigglers and take my chances. I found a black tube from my filter parts collection, made a paste out of spirulina powder and Hikari First Bites because that was all I had on hand, put the paste in ~ 1" of the tube, and dried it in a toaster oven for a few minutes at ~110*F. Put the tube in the coffee filter basket food side down and walked away.
They Are Alive!!!
Really did not expect that. I haven't counted but there are a lot of swimmers in there. I don't know why they lived, if they ate the food I left, if they will die but haven't starved yet, no idea? SO far, they are alive though, and I thought that this was an interesting experiment that I was forced to perform, and I have results to share with the group. Hope this is helpful to someone someday as I have gained an unquantifiable amount of help from reading Simply Discus.

[Rarelyp1]

.. Update in the 16 day olds. While gone I thought most of the fry would die, trash the water and kill the parents. Didn't happen. I found none dead on return. If more died and were eaten, it wasn't a noticeable amount. The group looks to be the same size and the fry look larger and healthy as well as the parents.