occasional loss, how much is "normal"

I know a lot of people can report almost entire fry survival rate, but I am seeing one to three losses about every other day or so. No ammonia in the tank and I am changing about %50 water daily and vacuum the glass bottom of debris daily as well. Not sure why after about two weeks with no losses I am seeing a few losses regularly. From about 40-60 fry. I am thinking I have lost about 10-15 all but one were albino. About how much is the norm?

i generally expect to loose about 10% of a spawn and yes, the albinos are genetically weaker than the commons.

i would settle down with the water changes, i do about 10-20% daily or every other day. wroks well without sending the tank into a cycle. at 50% water changes you are not letting the tank cycle. the other thing is to make sure you are scrubbing the bottom of the tank. bare bottom tanks are great to clean but you need to ensure there is not a build up of nasty bactria on the bottom by giving it a scrub about once a week. i got bored with this so i threw a few handfulls of sand into mine so that some of the tank was covered other parts were not and the sand shifted with the current. this got the baby fish up off the glass s they were safe but still maintained the ease of cleaning.

I do daily 10% treated Cold water changes in my fry tanks i trickle the water in through Air line so it does not shock them. and i heavily feed them so that i know they are all getting something to eat, and i always have Courgette in there but never leave the same piece for over 12 Hours (i go through a lot )

i also scrub the glass sides and bottom every couple of days to make so no bacteria builds up on the glass.

816johnv wrote:

I do daily 10% treated Cold water changes in my fry tanks i trickle the water in through Air line so it does not shock them. and i heavily feed them so that i know they are all getting something to eat, and i always have Courgette in there but never leave the same piece for over 12 Hours (i go through a lot )

i also scrub the glass sides and bottom every couple of days to make so no bacteria builds up on the glass.

Sound advice jonno...

Thanks for all the advice.Quick update I added a bit of sand per Doug's recommendation and I haven't found a single loss since, I don't know if any were eaten that I haven't noticed, also been doing less volume of water change too.

Great news

i would personally have some substrate on the bottom as bacteria can build up on bare bottom tanks and cause fry loss hope this helps steve

Keep up with the good work and it will pay off! Fingers crossed you don't loose any more mate