Water change during spawning and with wrigglers

[roydooms]

Hi everyone,

How often should I do water change when my pair lay eggs and when the eggs hatch in to wrigglers? Still everyday? I do 50%+ WC everyday. Is there a technique? What's the best way to do it to not disturb the eggs? Thanks in advance.

[Chad Adams]

I usually don't change WC routines.

Chad

[ShinShin]

I do not alter water changes in breeder tanks. Minimum 40% daily with or w/o eggs, wigglers or fry. The only exception is if they lay eggs on the glass at a higher level like just happened.

Mat

[roydooms]

Thank you for the reply Chad and Mat :)

Do you guys have any problem with siphoning the frys(fries?) out? What can I do to prevent that? And should I add new water slowly or pumping(I think the pump is rated 400g per hour, I'm not sure) the water from a container ok? Or should I break the pump flow to reduce current from the water being pumped? Did that make sense? I'm having a hard time explaining. Lol.

[TURQ64]

siphon with tubing the best you can..If you see bad, or get nervous, use an airstone in the tank and draain that way.Takes a long time, but safe as milk..

[chaoslite]

I am not a pro, but I can tell you what I did. I siphoned the tank slowly into a 5g white bucket and then check it for wriggles/fry. If I accidentally sucked up some up I would use and eyedropper suck them back up and put them into a bowl. I would repeat the step until I had the water level where I wanted it and then refilled the tank and added the wriggler/fry back into it. As far as your pump I would try and slow it down before refilling. I have a ball valve on my system to slow it down. You can use a bucket to refill, but pour slowly.

Mishka

[roydooms]

siphon with tubing the best you can..If you see bad, or get nervous, use an airstone in the tank and drain that way.Takes a long time, but safe as milk..


Hi. Thanks for input. Do you mean to use an air stone and create a siphon using the airline tube? That's going to take a while but no fry will get sucked in for sure. That's a good idea but I will still need to siphon out the waste.

[roydooms]

I am not a pro, but I can tell you what I did. I siphoned the tank slowly into a 5g white bucket and then check it for wriggles/fry. If I accidentally sucked up some up I would use and eyedropper suck them back up and put them into a bowl. I would repeat the step until I had the water level where I wanted it and then refilled the tank and added the wriggler/fry back into it. As far as your pump I would try and slow it down before refilling. I have a ball valve on my system to slow it down. You can use a bucket to refill, but pour slowly. Mishka


Hi Mishka, thanks for the reply. I might follow your technique and just check the bucket before dumping. It seems to be a lot easier. Can I just use a fine net or have the net at the end of the draining hose? Or is that going to be bad for the fry/wrigglers? As for the pump, there's no controller to reduce flow. I guess I'll just figure out to break the flow and slow it down or just do it manually.

[Sasha]

If the eggs are on a cone, do you lay the cone down during a large water change? or can the eggs be out of the water for just a few minutes?

[Parrish]

I use a white bucket, check for fry, and use a new/clean turkey baster to suck them up and put them back into the tank.

[Chicago Discus]

I just keep my normal routine with eggs and wigglers the only day I skip is the day they go free swimming to give them a chance to attach. then back to normal I change 30% to 70% daily on my breeders. I also use canister filters with a pre sponge on the intake. A few months ago when I was doing a water change I accidentally forgot to put the pre filter on the intake, fast forward about an hour and about 100 fry were in the canister filter it really freaked me out but I turned the filter off and there they were at the bottom of the filter. all were fine and are growing perfect in a grow out tank now......its funny how tough they really are......Josie