# Water changes on fry tanks?



## greaser84 (Feb 2, 2014)

What fish are you talking about? I have a fry tank and I do a 50% water change once a week, no problems whatsoever.


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

Yeah, it depends on the species and the size of the tank.

Three generic thoughts/tips:

Initially, focus on cleaning up rather than the volume of water. In other words, keeping the bottom squeaky clean may get you through the first couple of weeks without needing to remove as much water.

It's certainly a little tricky, but if you can darken the room and place a small night-light in a corner, most will flock to the light leaving the rest of the tank easier to maintain......albeit with little illumination.

Re-filling the tank in most cases requires a pretty low rate of flow. The easiest is to simply position a bucket with clean water and siphon it into the fry tank with air line tubing. Trickier is to fuss with ball valves to fit over the exhaust of a powerhead in the bucket to return the water to the fry tank slowly.


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## Grah the great (Jul 3, 2013)

I was thinking of my Aphyosemion striatum, which I am going to attempt to breed again in about a week or two.


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

Bare-bottom fry tank plus a turkey baster should help out quite a lot. 
Perhaps remove water by scooping it into a container and carefully checking for fry?
Try dripping the new water in with a bit of airline hose.


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

Most angelfish breeders make their own syphon using a piece of rigid airline tubing. Since my fry are currently located in a marina breeder box - for now - I'm using a pipette. Then again, the box is circulating tank water through it so all I'm doing is cleaning the bottom.

You know though, I haven't read where any of them say how they add water. Makes sense though to use an airline. Not very easy to do without having the tank on the floor or a stepladder for the bucket. Have to ponder that a bit before they get moved to the shiny "new" hex I scored for a grow-out tank.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I use a 10 gal to grow out CPD fry and I syphon the water out just like in any other tank. I check the removed tank water for fry and usually find one or two. I add water with a bucket. Water change is about 20% once a week. There are a lot of floating plants in the tank which soak up the waste from the fish. Twice a year I totally empty the tank, clean it in, refill it with all new water, let it sit for about a week with just a few snails and then the entire cycle starts again. Works very well for me. There are usually between 50 and 100 fry in this tank. I try to remove the larger fry once they are safe from the parents in the adult tank but a few always avoid capture, hence I have to totally empty the tank to catch the last of them before adding tiny fry again or their older siblings would eat them just like their parents would. Time consuming but worth it.
If you are worried about sucking up fry using a vacuum just put a stocking over the intake end. I used to do that with my shrimp but in the meantime I clean their tanks no different than the fry tank. But I usually catch a few shrimplets using the small vacuum hose. I return those to the tank and they don't seem to get hurt getting sucked up.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

I do smaller ,more frequent water changes in fry tanks where feeding's are more frequent for developing fry ,and or where species is more intolerant of accumulated waste.


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

Grah the great said:


> I was thinking of my Aphyosemion striatum, which I am going to attempt to breed again in about a week or two.


Killies are a species I know little of. But from that little bit, I'd suggest you poke into a discussion forum dedicated to them.


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## someoldguy (Feb 26, 2014)

Generally I put my newly hatched non-annual killie fry into either a plastic shoe box or small rectangular take-out food containers . Maybe 3 dozen or so fry max. in the shoebox , and half that in the smaller container . The fish are only in these containers for a couple of weeks , and given the size of the fry , aren't producing much bioload so I don't sweat too much over water changes , rather concerning myself with removing uneaten food from the containers . I'll use a meat baster to suck out the uneaten food , replacing any water removed , or lost via evaporation , with water from an established tank . Usually , there's either a small bit of java moss or some floaters in the container , plus a small snail to help deal with uneaten mess . From the shoe boxes , fry go into a larger tank , usually a 5 , with maybe 3 inches of water . Same thing with removing uneaten food , plus addition of a bit of either tank , or aged water each day until the tank is full . Once the tank is full , maybe a sponge filter and 20% or so changes/week depending on the population of the tank . Couple of weeks in there and it's off to their final grow out tank.


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## mach_six (Sep 12, 2005)

I have a fish specimen container drilled with 1/4" holes, I use that to pour the water into the tank from a bucket slowly and could be used to siphon from as well.

Originally i used it to hold coral frags but has been re-purposed for other aquarium uses.


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