I've determined that #2 is actually my orange boy...just didn't recognize him with his tail nommed. Cupped 7 more fry tonight, which brings the total of cupped fry to 21, 20 from this spawn, and my petco baby. Add my 7 cupped adult males, and I'm in for a lot of water changes!
Luckily, I have a system. I have holes in the lids of the cups that are too small for fish to get out but big enough for poop and leftover food to pass through. I take a group of cups into my bathroom, and tip them over on their sides in the bathtub. After most of the water drains out, I pick them up, put them back on the counter, and remove the lids. I use a turkey baster to suck out any left over yucky stuff, and gently refill the cups with treated water that is the same temp as the water I removed. I usually do this every other day, but I might have to do 1/2 of the cups one day, and the other 1/2 the next day. Rinse and repeat.
They'll be ready sometime in February - March. I'm up to 30 cupped fry now! Only a few left in the tank. Instead of making my 20gal a goldfish tank, I'm going to use it as a growout for the remaining small fry and future spawns.
That's a good idea! Right now I have a 10g for my grow-out...but since half my spawns disappeared (literally...can't find bodies or anything :(...and no adult fish, snail, or shrimp shared the tank), I don't need anything larger than that.
Mine are in a 16 gallon plastic tote at the moment, filled to approximately 10 gallons. Way cheap setup, the tote cost $5. I got the 20, hood/light, air pump, about 100 feet of airline tubing, and a filter from a lady who works at my lfs. For free. LOL, she always lets me pick out whatever I want when I trade in snails. Which is very helpful, since I'm a perpetually broke highschool student. =)
Don't knock it...free is good :)...wish I have contacts like yours! My fry stay in their breeding/hatching/grow-out tote until they absolutely can't stand the sight of one another without picking a fight...I find that there are always 2-8 fry that just don't develop this attitude, so while getting large enough to not get eaten in a sorority or community tank, they continue growing out in a NPT 10g.
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