Originally Posted by
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.