Rearing tanks

Who has them?

Not really got much space or money so I'm planning on using plastic tubs, anything to watch out for, what makes a suitable one? Don't want to fill one with water and find my room flooded in the morning.

Also, what sponge filters do people use? or do you DIY them?


Got batch number 3 on its way too...

rearing tanks or grow out tanks are often the linch pin of a breeding opperation. With a good one the fry will be happy and healthy, with a poor one many of them will either become stunted or die.

THe things that makes a growout tank work...

-High flitration rate: this is an absolute must!! There will be lots of babies in there making lots of poo and lots of poo means lots of ammonia, nitrate etc. to counter this you need high filter turnover, upwards of 8x per hour to be sure.I have always had a big canister on mine.

-Lots of O2: again this is an abosloute must. There will be lots of fish growing in there and they will use a lot of O2 so you need to ensure they have enough. A sponge filter is a good option here. I have a sponge filter plus the outflow from the cansiter drops in from about 3cms above the water...lots of O2

-Space and water: they need lots of both! the more space they have the faster they grow (in theory). I would suggest 140ltrs+ minimum for a grow out tank as they need that amount of water so the fish can have some space and the tank will have some buffer against spikes of various things. the easiest way to increase the 'space' in a bristlenose tank is to add things in like rocks and logs. these add more surface area to the tank which is what they need.

Cleaning: depending on how good the filtering system is grow out tanks need to be cleaned regularly (unless you are doing what deano is doing ) getting rid of all that poo will help keep the tank healthy and the fry growing quickly. I do a 15% change every few days even with my 10x filtraton rate

tank or tub: Obviously, the better option here is a tank, glass is best. the reason for this is that they are safer, look nicer and hold the heat better. however, this is not to say that tubs dont work. I used a 140ltr plastic tub as my first grow out tank for about 4 months. you need to b cafeful about what tubs you use too. some leach chemicals into the water. Ironically, i have found that the cheepies from the local discount store dont, and this was tested at flinder uni chem labs by a PhD buddy of mine so im pretty sure they are safe. In fact i still use two tubs for some of my breeding tanks and quarintine tanks. if you go for a tub then treat it just like a tank. Oh, and make sure its elevated off the ground, otherwise you cant syphon from it :roll:

1 big one or several small ones: Ultimatly this is a personal call. For space reasons most people go wit one big one. It has advantages like being easier to clean, less water changes, less equipment etc. however, having several small ones does have some upsides too, like being able to seperate out spawns, less likely transfur of illness, smaller and cheeper tanks (or tubs). However, having many will mean more filters and more heaters...meaning more $$$ at the end of the day. And whoever pays the bills will notice.

Gravel or no gravel: again personal choice. lots of peple go no gravel for ease of cleaning. however, gravel is one of the places where good bacteria like to live. I go for a split, i throw a few handfuls of gravel in there so that the bacteria have somewhere to live while the tank is stoll easy to clean.

rocks and logs or not: as with any bristlenose tank, a bit of wood is a must, especially for the little ones. munching on the wood is very good for them apart from that i have a fair amount of other stuff in my grow out tank. but it is all easily taken out as having a bare tank is the easiest way to catch the fish.

Other things to conider

Light- they are not needed but i use one so that the fry are used to light and are more active for their new owners

UV- good option for preventing illness, i have one in-built in the filters

tank mates- when running breeding tanks of any kind it is best to remember KISS (keep it simple stupid), so in other words, it will make life harder for you

food- cucumber or zuchini, which ever one you use. i use cucumber as i find zuchii fouls my filters really badly. occasional feedings of alae wafers and flake food are good.


In terms of what sort of sponge filter to use. they all work well, as long as you have the air-lift principal down, making your own is easy

Brillaint Doug! Thanks!

I've decided to move all 100+ fry, parents, eggs, filter and tank mates over from the 70l tank to the 240l, get some of the bigger BN's off to the LFS, then get a another glass tank to rear them in...and after that make the 240 into a community tank. Was never quite prepared for so many fry.

no one ever is :|

sounds like a good plan though

keep us posted

For £10,000...

At roughly what size do Bristlenose pleco show their true gender?

a) 1 inch
b) 2 inch
c) How long is a peice of string?

C




some mature faster than others. By two inches i generally have a rough idea, but i would guess im still wrong 30-40% of the time. by 3 inches im usually wrong about 10-15% of the time. but even at 4 inches i have got it wrong before.

generally if you want to sex them thay have to be at least 6-9 months old.

If people are asking you for different sexes, tell them to wait a bit longer and buy a larger, more expensive speciman. either that or buy 4 and take a chance

Set it up a few weeks back.

I emailed a comapny to see if they use foodgrade plastic, so if anyone else is interested in tubs Wham is a suitable option.

Some bad quality pics.






I've noticed a few dead fry/juvenile (2.5cm) in the tank, is it normal for some to die at this stage?

yeah, its normal. natural selection

just get them out asap as the will foul the tank pretty badly.

I generally expect about 10% of each spawn to die before they get to sellable size.

Few days ago now...

Everything in the tub dropped dead within 5 hours.
No idea of the cause.

damn!! that sucks buddy!!

Have you tested the water? most likely an ammonia spike. one or two dead fish trapped somewhere out of site can cause hell in a tank. It has happened to me before too never feels good.

Keep the tub running so that it is nice and cycled for the next lot

did i miss a post or are we still waiting for the parameters?

what size is the tub? I had some in a square haribo tub floating in the top of the tank but had to change the water daily due to the small volume of water

Readings were something along the lines of 0.5 ammonia and 1.0 nitrite (I was told this was because the bodies had been decomposing for a while?).
I was doing a wc every two days and taking parameters before each. Always had 0 ammonia - 0 nitrite- 20ish nitrate

The tub was about 40l had around 60-80 BN's in about 2cm each.

Rehoming the adults temporarily now.

might be leaching from the tub, poor oxygen levels

I've had occassions where my nitrite and ammonia was sky high, generally when adding a new batch of fry into a grow out and filter not had a chance to catch up, or when not kept onto of the cleaning
However my BN's do not seem to care about it, never seen any losses.

Went on hols recently and my dad was looking after the fish and he noticed one of my grow outs which also had discus in had spiked, took him 3 days to bring it down and did not loose a single fish.

I tend to find in one of my tanks if it needs a good clean out the BN's let me know as I have huggings of them on the side of the glass on the side where the airstones are whereas when I keep onto of the water changes they are happy swimming on the bottom over the bogwood etc which a handful on the glass

Had an airstone running in the tank, as I was worried about oxygen levels in the first place.

Can anyone recommend a good sponge filter (for next time) as I can't be bothered to DIY one and don't want to mess about with womens stockings?

Been posting this on another forum...someones said it might've been down to malnutrition?

you forum hussy!

what were you feeding them? I have a bit of cucumber in my tanks for them change it every other day or when they finish it. never had an issue with malnutrition.

all sponge filters work, ebay some. try to get decent sized ones.

I would suggest that 40ltrs is too small. I used to used a 150ltr one for my temp grow-out tub before i got the second 4fter.

I love me internets.

I guess it wasn't malnutrition then, going to use the 70l as a grow on tank once I set the juwel 240 up.

Ordered a sponge filter, can I run it in the main tank for a week then add a few fry every few days or so?

Its always a good idea to run a clean filter in a matured tank to get the bio bacterias growing...Yes you can...If you use some bio starter that would help greatly, something like Seachem Stability.

Got the sponge filter, going to run it in the tank for 3-4 days, would've used stability but I'm very tight on money right now. Train fares are costing me a bomb because I haven't got a pass yet.

You might give the filters a little longer to seed in your established tank. Two week minimum is what I go by but I usually try to leave it there longer.

Check with stephan at swisstropicals for sponge filter material.

Poret Foam

This is the best filter material I've found.

if you really want to give the filter a good kick along in the bacterial side of things, clean your old filter and then soak the new one in the waste water (all that brown water is bacterial gold).

then run it in the old tank for a few day to really lock them in.

The reason I suggest a larger tank is that grow-out tanks are always heavily stocked. added to that baby bristlenose are eating and pooing machines who can make a nice clean tank dirty very quickly. there needs to be enough water to take all that waste before it begins to go nasty. Added to that there will always be a fry or two tat dies and ends up in a place you cant see. the tank needs to be big enough to deal with that ammonia spike.

I find this forum a wealth of advice...

and Doug is one of the most helpful guys on here

wolverine wrote:

I find this forum a wealth of advice...

and Doug is one of the most helpful guys on here

Don't think you can get better info on plecs on any other forum, what I learn here I give on other forums
and too true, Dougs been a great help.

More bad news today though...half of the new batch died - a few every hour, down to about 40 of 80.
As usual, water params fine.

Adam, I may be moving up to hemsworth soon, so if you have any problems your welcome to buzz me for extra help

kind regards

LJ