Can i put BN eggs in a egg tumbler to hatch ?

i just had my pair of bristle nose pleco lay eggs in my main tank. i dont have a tank set up for them yet... they cant lay in this tank since the fry can get sucked up into the over flow box.

but i was thinking about taking the male away from the eggs in like 3 days and tumbling them with air bubbles till they become wigglers.. or i can keep tumbling them till they are about 1/4 inch or so then let them go in my brown pair tank.

or i can just move the male and his cave to the other pair tank till the babies hatch and come out. then move this male back to the main tank.

I tend to put the male and cave + eggs etc into a different tank if I think tank mates gonna eat um

ya i do think the tank mates will eat them also. i have angels in this tank

this male i think is new to raising babies. he has been sittin out front of the cave not in it... the eggs are there i see them...

i think i will just put him in with my brown pair to be safe. i wont move him for 3 more days though. so the babies are more grown out.

but i was thinking about taking the male away from the eggs in like 3 days and tumbling them with air bubbles till they become wigglers.. or i can keep tumbling them till they are about 1/4 inch or so then let them go in my brown pair tank.

Tumbling babies ? Not sure about that.

i mean havin current go over them

My first hatch I pulled at 3 days to a growout tank. Almost all sold now. They did fine

this is my 2nd albino short fin pair. i hope they produce albino babies. my other pair produces nothing but browns.. over 200 fry so far from them and all brown....

I'm still growing out 300 ABN's from my first pair. Going to give the female a break soon. Working on my Calico's now. Got some fish in at the lfs where I work that were ordered as Gold Nuggets and I think they are BN's and not commons either. Black with white spots. Still can't figure out exactly what they are but I know I want to breed them. Probably gonna snag those up as well. Would be nice if it was a male and female. Dang these fish are addictive !

I have tumbled BN eggs plenty of times without any problems, even up untill the point where the fry are just depleting their egg sacks. Remember tumbling is a very gentle process, the eggs should not be bouncing about, but just gently swaying.
I also only tumble when and if the male kicks the eggs from his cave.

ok so i came home today. the male is out side the cave fighting the other male in the tank. i took the male with the eggs out of my main tank. put him in another pairs tank. i need to buy a 2nd pair of tanks for my angel pair and my BN pair. but i cant afford it right now. so these 2 pairs share the common tank. but the BN spawned earlier then i thoguht. figured since the male is small and kinda younge it wouldnt be for a while for them to spawn... but they did and im kinda in a panic to get him a safe place to spawn.....


should i take the other male out of the tank ? (he also is ready to spawn, his 2 females been hangin out in front of his cave for almost a week)

should i put the male that spawned in the common tank and steal his babies from him and tumble them ? figured id use a 2" piece of PVC that is about 6-7 inch long. put an air stone in the side about 1 inch from the bottom. this way the watter can be sucked into the tube at low volume and the eggs should be fine.


or just leave the male alone and let them do what they do ?

While I have siphoned babies out of my community tank, I've never tumbled them. I just put them in a small enough tank so they can find food after their yolk sac is absorbed. ..I've actually kept them in a 2 or 10 gallon tank for a short period of time, and when it comes to timing regarding breeding, so far it seems to come down to when the female is ready. At least, if she has been spawning on a regular basis. Hope this helps.

well i have this as a set up.

i have the following tanks

20 gal with a long fin BN trio in it.

20 gal with a short fin trio

60 gal community tank with a short fin pair / angle fish pair ... this tank also has a over flow box that can suck in fry

40 gal with my discus and some angels in it. ... this tank also has an over flow box on it...

i plan to put 3x 20 longs and 3x 29 gal tanks on a custom stand. so my pairs all have a tank to them self. but i need money for that.

maybe in the meantime, invest in a 10 gallon tank. Cheap enough and might give you some wiggle room with your babies until you get the rest of your setup up together.

Aleishoo wrote:

While I have siphoned babies out of my community tank, I've never tumbled them.

You don't tumble fry. You tumble the eggs.

. [/quote]
You don't tumble fry. You tumble the eggs.[/quote] Lol, I like that quote. Whenever I have a young inexperienced male, they usually kick out the first one or two clutches. I have a marina breeding box that I put the eggs in. It has constant inflow of tank water and provides a gentle current for the eggs. I get a good hatch rate from using it.

well my worries are over. the young male kept coming out of his cave during the day. so i thought the babies were going to die.... i woke up this morning and my big male was in the cave tending to the new wigglers. the young male is in the old males cave.... so i moved the young male back to the common tank.

the tank they were both in was the old males tank. so he will stay and tend to the new wigglers. looks like maybe 2-3 of the eggs died. not a big deal but still sad.

the young male - this is his first time producing for me. so this worked out alot better then i had expected. hope he does better next time. also hope to have a tank for him by then also.

I HAVE AROUND 1500 BN AND I HAVE USED A TUMBLER THE LAST 2 YRS ITS THE ONLY WAY TO HATCH EGGS AS FAR AS IM CONCERNED. YOU CAN GET THE MALE BACK TO EATING GOOD AGAIN SO HE CAN BREED WITH ANOTHER FEMALE. I KEEP 3 FEMALES WITH EACH MALE THAT WAY HE IS BREEDING ABOUT EVERY 2 WKS. WHEN I PUT THE EGGS IN THE TUMBLER I JUST BARELY TURN THE AIR ON SO THERE IS WATER MOVING THRU THE TUMBLER , AFTER ALL LOOK AT HOW MUCH WATER THE MALE MOVES OVER THE EGGS WHEN HE IS FANNING THEM. TUMBLERS ARE THE ONLY WAY TO GO IF YOU WANT TO GET THE MOST BABYS OUT OF YOUR BREEDERS

Personally, I like to leave them with the dad. I find that I have a better survival rate with dad and it also allows me to better manage his work load. It sounds like with the tumblers you might be over working your fish.

if you don`t keep track of when they lay then yes you can over work your male but i let him spawn with all the females once then i remove the breeding tube for a month that gives him a rest before i start them all over again.another reason i like breeding this way if i have 3 females with 1 male then i can get all 3 females to lay in less then 3 wks and i have a really big spawn to grow out rather then just eggs from one female i been doing my fish like that for almost 3 yrs now and not one of them has complained about the work load yet. ha ha would you complain if you was locked in a room with 3 girls ?

i dont think this is for me. i like the way they been going as of now... the new male has a spawn. i move him with the older male. the older male fights him out and takes over the spawn. then the older male's female spawns on top of the first spawn. so he takes care of 2 spawns at the same time. then he has a 3 week cool down b4 they do it again.

yea its fun to watch daddy take care of them but when you breed them like i do then you have to do what gets you the best hatch % and the most eggs per yr. don`t get me wrong i love to watch how he takes care of them and some times i let my L 144 raise their babys if i don`t have a waiting list for the babys.