Stocking question with intended fry growout

[Ben Rhau]

Hi all,

I had a community tank, and removed the predatory occupants to make it a breeding tank. I’d like to know how much capacity I need to leave in my tank if I want some of my apisto fry to grow out to juveniles, at which point my LFS is happy to take them. I’m not trying to scale or make money, I’m just interested in seeing them grow up.

Here’s the current setup:
20 long with a sponge filter, heavily planted, and also with floating plants.
3 resticulosa-complex apistos
6 nannostomus marginatus
10 microdevario kubotai
3 corydoras habrosus

My plan was to nix the kubotai to make more room for the fry to grow out. Do you think it’s worth doing that? They’re so small, I would think they only take up about 10% of my current load. That said, if I want 10 - 20 juveniles to grow up in the tank, maybe it’s worth having that marginal capacity.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Mike Wise]

It really depends on how much effort you want to put into growing out the fry. Extra feedings with extra water changes will definitely help them grow faster. Otherwise they will become stunted. Fortunately resticulosa-complex species tend to be more willing to put up with juveniles in their tank than other apistos. Still, once/if the adults start driving the juveniles away it is time to move them. One other thing: other than the breeders I'd remove any bottom dwellers along with the micros. That means moving the cory habrosus.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Thanks. I did move the micros and cory habrosus, to give me better flexibility as the apistos produce fry. I also hatched some BBS.

Question: For the adults, what percent of their feeding do you typically supplement with BBS? I tried feeding only BBS, but they are so accustomed to the chunkier frozen foods (like bloodworms and adult brine shrimp) that they ignore the BBS at first. Two of the adults I see snacking on it occasionally, and one of the females ignores it completely. Definitely not what I expected, as I’m accustomed to most fish going bonkers over anything live. The pencils definitely like it.

 

[Mike Wise]

My adults all get BBS almost every day. I often mix it together with frozen foods. They all eagerly eat it.

 

[Ben Rhau]

They figured it out, lol. I didn’t realize how easy it is to hatch BBS with a hatchery dish. I see no reason not to just have a new batch going every couple days!