Oxydator in breeding tank

[Bart_NL]

I was looking on this forum for people using an oxydator in their breeding tanks, but find only a few very old posts, not specific to breeding.

I once killed almost my entire discus community tank by turning off the air pump during tank cleaning and forgetting to turn it back on, shock the next morning as the flow caused by the filter by far did not get enough oxygen into the water.

Since then, on recommendation by my breeder I put a Sochting oxydator in every tank I have (3 at the moment) so even in case of a power failure there will be enough oxygen for a week.

I have two breeding tanks, one with 50-60 1 month old fry in them (snakeskin leopard mix with batik sakura) and the oxydator seems to do them good, they look healthy and have incredible appetite, maybe others here can say something about the pros/cons of using a peroxide based device like this in a breeding tank ?

In the second tank, I have a huge snakeskin / leopard couple that has spawned like 4-5 times by now, but no success yet, fungus comes in a few days and the eggs will not hatch. I know patience is key here, so I lowered the temp to 28 Celsius. I read about people using peroxide to fight fungus infecting the eggs, so I am slowly upping the output of the oxydator a bit hoping the extra oxygen may help with the eggs, is this a stupid idea ?

I know it may be that the male I have here is not fertile, I am hesitant to put other chemicals in the water (RO with EC=100)

Any thoughts on using oxidators in a breeding tank like this, anyone ?

[Bart_NL]

Always fun replying to your own posts ;-)

6 weeks later the fry has grown a lot, consuming more food and oxygen and producing more waste, to the point where I will need to split them over 2 tanks this weekend.

To my surprise yesterday I found out they were running low on oxygen, so I guess a warning is in place here:

Please do NOT assume that the oxydator is capable of releasing as much oxygen as typical surface water and airstone, use it only as an addition, the more (3) sources of aeration the better !

In my setup I had pointed the inflow from my filter downwards into the stream of bubbles from my airstone in order to reduce the amount of current, which (adult) Discus do not like.

Now as the quality of my air stone was degrading, producing less but larger bubbles, my fry and their oxygen demand were growing. I got to the point where the fry started nipping at the surface for more oxygen as the aeration by the air stone plus oxydator became insufficient, danger !

So if you are considering adding an oxydator to your breeding tank, consider it an additional, backup device and make sure you also have an air stone plus some surface agitation as additional sources, better safe than sorry.

[brewmaster15]

Always fun replying to your own posts ;-)

6 weeks later the fry has grown a lot, consuming more food and oxygen and producing more waste, to the point where I will need to split them over 2 tanks this weekend.

To my surprise yesterday I found out they were running low on oxygen, so I guess a warning is in place here:

Please do NOT assume that the oxydator is capable of releasing as much oxygen as typical surface water and airstone, use it only as an addition, the more (3) sources of aeration the better !

In my setup I had pointed the inflow from my filter downwards into the stream of bubbles from my airstone in order to reduce the amount of current, which (adult) Discus do not like.

Now as the quality of my air stone was degrading, producing less but larger bubbles, my fry and their oxygen demand were growing. I got to the point where the fry started nipping at the surface for more oxygen as the aeration by the air stone plus oxydator became insufficient, danger !

So if you are considering adding an oxydator to your breeding tank, consider it an additional, backup device and make sure you also have an air stone plus some surface agitation as additional sources, better safe than sorry.

Lol.. Don't take it personal on the replies. I have started countless threads that generate 0 replies. People tend to comment on things they are familar with.. obviously this isn't one but that doesnt mean people havent read it.

Al