Quick question, When should i remove my cacatuoides fry?

[canuckgame]

hey all, i am on day 16 with my apisto fry, feeding BBS twice a day (this is all my job allows) and changing 15% water every 2nd day.

i will say i have between 20-30 fry, and they seem to be doing great! they are all around 3/8 of an inch and starting to show character! im pretty excited, my apistos are the centerpiece to my tank.

anyways i have a quick question for the experienced folks, the mother seems to have stopped herding them and now they are scattered allover on one side of the tank, both the parents are still very protective of them, chasing my neon tetras and Ottos away, but now im wondering when i should remove them from the tank, and put them in a "grow out tank"?

i dont have a grow out tank ready yet, all i have is a 10 gallon i put my 2 German Blue Rams in to relieve them of the aggressiveness of the apistos.

i was planning on getting a 55 gallon this week to upgrade from the 30-40 gallon i have now. but i dont really want to use that as a grow out tank. so i was thinking of buying a 2nd hand 30 gallon or something, i would have to cycle it and everything so im a little skecthed out about transfering the fry to a newly cycled tank if that is the option i go with.....


any suggestions on what i should do here? should i just leave the fry? any suggestions at all is appreciated.

 

[regani]

I usually take my fry out 2-3 weeks after they become free swimming before they start to get too independent and scatter all over the tank, that way they are still easy to siphon out. You often get the parent to spawn sooner again if you remove the fry, if that is what you want.
You can get an instantly cycled new tank if you take the sponge from a running cycled filter and give it a good squeeze in the new tank so that all the gunk comes out and let the new filter suck it all up. To ensure the water values of the new tank are close to the original, I usually use about half of the water from the old tank and fill up the rest. Just make sure the temperature between the two tanks is close before you transfer the fry and you shouldn't have any problems

 

[kaitlyn19]

If you have a second, check out my post about how to get these guys to breed and give me some pointers. My guys don't seem to want to. Thanks