Hastatus fry not surviving...

[zergling]

1. Water parameters
a) Temperature range. - Hydor inline heater set to 78. Will confirm with a digital thermometer in the next few days.
b) pH. - Will test later. (IME San Francisco Hetch Hetchy tap water is almost always in the 7-7.5 range)
c) GH. - Will test later.
d) KH. - Will test later.
e)Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, levels. Will test later. Tank is a little over 2 years old, I'd be very surprised to see any ammonia or nitrite readings
f) Water change frequency - 50% water change, 1-3 times per week.
(Most LFS's will check your water and give a list of readings).

2. Tank set up
a) Size. 25 gallons - 18" x 18" x 18" cube.
b) Substrate. - sand, 0.75" to 1.5" deep.
c) Filtration. Rena Filstar XP3 with stainless steel mesh pre-filter
d) Furnishings. Bolbitus, Anubias, frogbit, duckweed and java moss. Driftwood and rocks. Small mound of Fluval Pre-filter Media on top of the substrate for the fry to hide in. Three spawning mops (not floating).
e) Other tank mates. Colony of Red Cherry Shrimp - 100+ if I had to guess.
f) How long has it been set-up? 2 years.

3. Symptoms / Problem description - Dead hastatus fry, around 1/4".

4. Action taken (if any) - This week I started feeding about 1/8 tsp of New Life Spectrum Fry Starter powder food, 1-2x per day. No idea if this helps.

5. Medications used (if any) - none. Seachem Prime only for treating tap water.

Feeding routine - I feed live tubifex worms daily. I (over)feed enough to have patches of tubifex worms poking from the substrate. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I put in a small pinch of non-live food (I rotate them for variety) - NLS Small Fish Formula pellets, earthworm flakes (from kensfish), super color pellets (from kensfish), hikari shrimp cuisine. Once a week, I drop a piece of zucchini or spinach for the RCS.

Brand new HM Digital TDS Meter says the tank is at 66 ppm. Tap water registers at 25ppm, filtered tap water registers at 18ppm. I'll need to check calibration later, but this makes me think that the calibration is not too far off.

===============================================================================================

Hello planetcatfish!

Yep, I'm yet another hobbyist joining your forums looking for guidance! I have years of experience with freshwater (mostly planted) tanks, so I apologize in advance if I have some bad habits that need to be corrected. On the flip side, I'm very new to cories, so also very motivated to learn!

The hastatus tank is 18" cube, about 25 gallons, set up back in 2012. It had 5 hastatus cories that are over 2 years old, and back in May, I added a dozen young cories (probably less than months old). They've been happily spawning, but the fry are not surviving.

Everytime I sit on the couch to observe the tank, I usually spot anywhere from 1 to 4 very tiny fry hopping around in the open sand. My guess is there are a lot more hiding. In the past couple of days, I've seen one or two slightly bigger fry, around 1/4", floating in the water current - I presume these are already dead fry.

Here are the theories that are running in my head, and possible actions to take. Please let me know if you think they are good or bad.
1) After the fry have consumed their yolk sac, they are unable to find food small enough (microscopic organisms?) to feed on?
- Is it possible that the big colony of RCS is outcompeting the hastatus fry for microscopic food? I don't mind taking a big chunk of the RCS population out.
- Thinking of replacing the stainless steel mesh pre-filter with ATI Filter Max #3 sponge filter to encourage the growth of microscopic organisms in the tank instead of inside the canister filter?
- This week I started feeding about 1/8 tsp of NLS fry starter powder food, 1-2x per day.. Not sure if this helps..
- Thinking of getting a microworm culture going?

2) If my TDS meter is accurate, is 66ppm too low of a TDS for cories? I have "Barr's GH booster" (3:3:1 K2SO4:CaSO4:MgSO4) readily available.

[apistomaster]

I raised about 1000 C. hastatus over a 2 year run from a permanent colony set up in a 20 long.
Soft water is helpful as your tap water seems to be but I would want to see a pH between 6.0 to 7.2 and water temps of about 82 to 84*F.
I introduced the use of Eheim pre-filter tubes as fry refuges. I also encouraged the growth of dense Ceratophyllum(Hornwort).
I would only use enough sand to barely cover the bottom. This will make for less uneaten food.
The adults do well on mostly live bbs as do their fry. Supplement both with earthworm sticks and use blackworms and frozen blood worms for the larger fish.
Make sure to feed the fry bbs at least 2 times a day.
I also had hundreds of cherry shrimp sharing the breeding colony tank and it never appeared to me as though they had any effect upon the numbers of fry obtained.
Be sure to use sponge prefilters over the inlets of any powered filters.

[zergling]

Thanks apistomaster! Your permanent colony setup is actually what I'm trying to copy!

The breeder that I got these cories from lives a couple of minutes away from me and is on the same SF Hetch Hetchy water supply, so I'm not too worried about about my tap water. Only difference with my tank is that it is much more densely plant.
I copied your use of the Eheim pre-filter tubes, though I got the cheaper Fluval ones instead.

I'll get the sponge prefilters to replace the stainless steel mesh prefilters.

I'll get a BBS hatchery going. Anyone have any suggestions on a "clean" looking BBS hatchery setup? The tanks are in the living room, so unsightly contraptions will eventually be a "can you please hide that ugly thing??" request LOL

[syno321]

I have had great success using microworms as a first food. If you overfeed, they live for days in the water, or the adults will consume them.

[dasob85]

Mine much prefer live bbs over microworms and they snub their noses at microworms.

[apistomaster]

I only used microworms in a pinch. BBS were the key to my fry thriving.
Actually bbs were what I considered to be the staple food for all ages.

A simple BBS hatchery setup can be covered with an inverted plastic garbage bag. The cysts hatch within 20 hours.
I place a low wattage CFL to supply heat by keeping it inside the bag.
The cysts hatch within 20 hours.
This allows all the hatch to be harvested at once.
I store the unused harvest in a container of salt water inside the refrigerator.
The harvested shrimp store for 24 hours.

[zergling]

Just a quick update - while doing a water change last night, I saw a fry that was probably around 1cm big - biggest fry I've seen in this tank. Hopefully this means that there are more of them hiding, and that things are turning around in the fry raising department of this tank

The only change that I've done recently was feeding a home made fish food blend that my buddy/breeder uses in his hastatus tanks. It's basically an assortment of high protein fish food, finely ground. I've been feeding a small pinch of it twice a day.

I haven't really had much time to fiddle with the tank aside from water changes and feeding. I have a sponge pre-filter waiting to replace the stainless steel mesh on the filter intake. I also have a BBS hatchery coming in, so I can feed the tank newly hatched bbs.

Thanks everyone!

[zergling]

Updates,

Got the sponge pre-filter to replace the stainless steel mesh pre-filter, and started feeding newly hatched BBS to the hastatus tank, along with the live worms and the home made fish food blend.

More interestingly....

Exactly 30 days ago, I pulled a nice clump of bolbitus from the hastatus tank and dropped it in my 64-ish gallon tank (120cm x 45cm x 45cm), in preparation for 6 juvie discus (roughly 2.5") that I was going to put in 2 days later. Well, as you can imagine, some inhabitants have managed to hitchhike.

I saw a hastatus fry in the discus tank last week, so I caught it and dropped it in the hastatus tank. I was thinking to myself - "Oh that poor fry. I must have missed the hitchhiking egg. Good thing it knew better to hide in the massive java moss forest this past three weeks....".

Fast forward to this morning, in the middle of a massive water change in the discus tank....I saw another hastatus fry in the discus tank! I caught it and dropped it in the hastatus tank. I was thinking "Oh wow, not one, but two hastatus eggs/fry managed to hitchhike from a month ago!"

As I was finishing the water change in the discus tank, three more hastatus fry popped up out of the java moss forest and swam with the cardinal tetras for a few seconds!

This emoticon pretty much represents my facial reaction:

Long story short - at least 5 hastatus eggs/fry have hatched and survived in my discus tank this past month. While my hastatus tank has shown me one fry that have survived during that time

The differences that I can think of:
- 25% of the discus tank is a java moss forest. (Yes, seriously, the java moss forest filled up a bare-bottom 15g tank prior to getting moved in to the discus tank)
- Hastatus tank has very little java moss, mostly bolbitus and anubias.
- Daily water changes in the discus tank
- The discus tank is at 82F while the hastatus tank is at 80F
- Heavy(er) live tubifex/blackworms* feeding on the discus tank. No newly-hatched BBS feeding in the discus tank, though.
- Discus tank has a Rena XP4 filter, rated at 450gph. 64 gallons -> Roughly 7x turnover per hour.
- Hastatus tank has a Rena XP3 filter, rated at 350gph. 25 gallons -> Roughly 14x turnover per hour.

I'm thinking of grabbing chunks of the java moss and dumping it in the hastatus tank. I'm thinking 50% of the sandbed would be clumps of java moss and spawning mops, then 25% for the bolbitus and anubias, and the remaining 25% would be where I drop the live worms. Then re-evaluating my situation a month after the next spawning...

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Updates,
Got the sponge pre-filter to replace the stainless steel mesh pre-filter, and started feeding newly hatched BBS to the hastatus tank, along with the live worms and the home made fish food blend.....The differences that I can think of:
- 25% of the discus tank is a java moss forest. (Yes, seriously, the java moss forest filled up a bare-bottom 15g tank prior to getting moved in to the discus tank)
- Hastatus tank has very little java moss, mostly bolbitus and anubias.

I'm thinking of grabbing chunks of the java moss and dumping it in the hastatus tank. I'm thinking 50% of the sandbed would be clumps of java moss and spawning mops, then 25% for the bolbitus and anubias, and the remaining 25% would be where I drop the live worms. Then re-evaluating my situation a month after the next spawning...

I think that you have your answer, live food, and I'm a great sponge and Java moss fan. Have a look at this thread <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =35069&f=6> and this the tank where my Corydoras hastatus breed.



cheers Darrel