Moving fish to a breeding tank

[smileandnod]

Hi.

I have a pair of Nijsseni in a community tank, and they have tried to spawn twice now. The eggs have been eaten by the female on both occasions, and I don't think that the fry would survive for long anyway. Too many other occupants, and a couple of very stubborn and resilient cory cats.

So I would like to move them to a separate breeding tank.

The problem is the water parameters. My tap water is great. Really soft with a tds of about 60 on the meter. Ph is about 6. However, I used a pea gravel as a substrate (yeah, I know!), and this is leaching minerals into the water at a rate of knots. So the tds of the tank is around 360!

I would keep the breeding tank either bare bottom, or use a thin layer of sand, which would mean the water should stay at around 60 on the meter. This is where I am unsure. Should I go through the long process of moving the fish with bags, and pouring a little tank water in every so often so that the parameters come down slowly, or is it safe to move the fish from one tank to another? I would of course prefer the later, as the tanks will be about a foot apart.

In both instances the KH and GH measure roughly the same.

Thanks.
Ian.

 

[Mike Wise]

You could add the fish to the breeding tank with 50% water from the community tank. Then slowly add the soft/acid tap water over a period of a couple of hours to fill up the tank. Then change change part of the water daily over a week. This is the careful way. Me? I would put the fish in a bucket with just enough water to cover their backs. Then I would add a drip line from the breeding tank to the bucket and let it drip water into the bucket until it was full. It should take at least a couple of hours, but by then the fish will be acclimated to the water in their new tank.