First spawn - Phase 2 Help!

[OregonDreamsBettas]

Hi All!

Well I spawned my bettas a few weeks ago and now my fry are 2 weeks old today. Happy Birthday baby fishies! LOL
They are doing well on a diet of bbs and microworms. But I have two questions at this point:

1. I spawned my fish in a plastic storage tote. It's like 16"x13"x6" and I can only fill it about 4-5 inches full of water without it leaking. So I bought a 15 gallon aquarium and I want to transfer them over but trying to find the best way to do it without traumatizing the fry...

2. I have about 40 fry. I feed them twice a day and do water changes about 25% every 2 days. I make sure the water is conditioned and the same temp and siphon it into the tank via airline tubing so it doens't shock the betta by going in too quickly. About 10 of them seem really large, about 10 seem really small and the rest are somewhere in between. Is this normal?

I will try to post new pics of the fry but was waiting until they are in a glass aquarium where the pics will come out clearer than through the plastic they are in now.

Thanks again everyone!

[MrVampire181]

Ahh size differences. This means that you aren't changing the water enough/it's time to move them. It is 100% normal for every spawn as well.

Fry produce stunting hormones. The larger the fry the more they produce and the smaller fry suffer for it. This hormone can be kept in check by doing larger daily water changes. The more room/water they have the more the stunt hormone is diluted and the faster they grow.

For my fry I start larger, daily changes anywhere from the day after I remove the male to one week of age. I use 4 gallon plastic sweater boxes as spawn tubs so I'm changing about 3 1/2 gallons of water per day. Since my tubs are now kept at room temp (in the fish room this is always over 80F in the water) I have jugs with treated water ready for water changes. At two weeks I transfer them to a 16.5 gallon plastic tub and do 50% water changes every other day. At one month they are moved to 30 gallon grow outs with 75% daily water changes.

Hope this helped! If you are afraid to do large water changes it's okay :) Try seperating the larger ones into a different tub so the small ones have a chance to grow.

Helpful links:

http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...?articleid=751

http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...articleid=1769

[OregonDreamsBettas]

Hey thanks for the quick reply!
How do you recommend transferring the fry to a larger tank? Pour them in or...???

[MrVampire181]

I float them over night, add in some water every hour, then pour them into the tank the next day.

[OregonDreamsBettas]

Darn it... my plastic tote is too large to float in the new tank.

I was thinking of draining the water from the old tank into the new one until I'm down to one inch or so left in the old tank and then pouring them in.

Then I can slowly fill up the new tank over the next few days and do water changes so hopefully my little babies will have a chance to grow...

Does that seem like it would not traumatize the fry too much? LOL Worried about my babies...

[MrVampire181]

As long as the tanks are of the same temperature, yes that would work. Take it slow because this is your first spawn.

[OregonDreamsBettas]

So... I got the little guys all moved over to a new tank tonight. I had thought there were 40 or so but when I moved the plants heater and filter we counted 50! There were a few dead ones too so there were definitely more. I added some water and will continue to every day until the tank is full. I also turned up the filter and added a snail. I hatched the second wave of bbs and I thought I had overfed but they were gobbled up within an hour. Lots of full fishy bellies.

[MrVampire181]

Keep up with lots of food and water changes (once the tank is filled) and they'll grow insanely fast.

[dramaqueen]

Wow, 50. Babies! How are they doing now?

[OregonDreamsBettas]

They are doing great! We lost one really tiny one... and we had a near disaster today. My daughter and i left for the afternoon and left a bucket of water gravity feeding into the fry tank. Fortunately I had the air stone on the end that was in the tank because while we were out the bucket fell over and the siphon started pulling water from the tank onto the floor!!! Thanks to the air stone there were no baby fishes but there was quite a flood in my daughters room. Thanks to the air stone also the water was really slow so didn't deplete the tank too much. Whew!