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I got me biggest spawn on last week, about 50 eggs. I collected all eggs and replaced into a 2.5G tank. Very high hatching rate, in fact, I think there were only 3 or 4 turned into white. I used Methylene blue for the first time (placed only on the day I put eggs in) and I think it worked very well. I do 2 WC daily, each about 20%, one in the morning and one at night. Today is about 4th day after hatching, and I am feed mirco worm since day 2 til now, and started on bbs yesterday. So far I lost 5-6 fry, mainly it caused by bloating. I was wondering is this a commonly issue? And what might be the reason(s) causing it? BTW, I also added Indian almond leave into the tank yesterday. and there is an airline to keep the water turning a bit. temp is at 78F. Light is off at all time. Bare bottom. Thanks in advance!

no one knows? not even a guess?

Can't really help - as I haven't had that problem myself.

Generally bloat is caused by internal bacterial infection, which is often a secondary disease.

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Mats

Thanks Mats. I guess maybe the died microworm cause this problem. It is very hard to estimate the correct quantity of food to feed them each time. Especially, when they are this small. Also, I have read last night in someone' s article about cory fry could not tolerate salt (mainly from bbs). Do you think this also could be a concern for sterbai?

If you put a teaspoon of 3% saline solution into a 10l (2.5g) tank, I'd expect you couldn't even tell the difference. I wouldn't put SALT into the water, but after all, the salt you have for BBS is fairly small amount, I'd expect. Particularly as you are replacing a lot of the water.

I'd be more concerned with the bare-bottom. It is known that Loricariidae fry suffer from infant-mortality when exposed to bare-bottom tanks, supposedly caused by the bottom of the tank being covered with a film of bacteria, which if you have a substrate is not so much in contact with the fish.

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Mats

Thanks again！I don't put salt in my tank. I think I didn't state it clear, the bbs I feed to my cory fry are rinsed in cold tap water about 1 min or so, I was concerned maybe there is still a small portion of salt trapped on bbs before I throw them in fry tank. I know this might sounds insignificant, but fry are small as well. I guess I just have to experiment with it a bit to see whether it is a real problem. I do agree that it is very difficult to keep the bottom clean when there is no substrate. My mainly concern with substrate(I use sand) is that I thought the food might fall into the gaps. Well, maybe I just worried too much. Today is the 6th day since the first fry hatched. And so far I lost about 15 of them and still have about 100 left. I did actually poured them out and cleaned the whole tank. I hope this could improves survival rate.