Anybody have an easy way of catching fry without

[planted90]

Hi, anybody have a way of catching fry without doing a major teardown?

I have a male and two females that have been breeding steady and i would hate to disturb them to catch the fry and have the parents stop breeding

I went with a large tank setup to give me a cushion with the water parameters, but with all my rockwork and area the fry are very difficult to catch without doing a major teardown. Anybody ever try a minnow trap for catching bait?


Thanks
Bob

[har_eh]

Hey Bob,

A few post down you can see I have a rock-heavy setup, I'm experiencing the same problems as you do catching fry.
for me the best catching method is getting all the rocks out from one side. This will force the adults to move to the other part of the tank.

The fry however won't do the move over the open space, they mostly group together under the remaining rocks.
When only a few rocks are left I lift them and hold a big net below, the fry will in most cases not let go of the rock and with the net below it's easy to shake them off.
After I just put back a few rocks so the adults can move there when I do the other side.

I'm also curious if there are better methods out there like some kind of trap, but I'm afraid most traps will result in dead fry.

[planted90]

Hi har_eh

Wow that is some set up!!!

Thanks for the advice i'll have to give it a try.

I have a lot of rock but i used nothing but black slate in mine, so nothing but a bunch of flat pieces stacked up on top of caves

My only worry about doing any major reorganizing in the tank was the chance of the breeding stopping.

After you did this did the zebras stop breeding or did they just carry on?

Thanks
Bob

[planted90]

Hi har_eh

I have one other question on the one pic with the two fry on the side glass.

They kinda look like their fins are more straight then curved. Is that just the way the pic came out or is that a defect? I saved two eggs and when they hatched the looked like those in your pic. If that is actually the way they looked in the pic, did their fins correct themselves latter?

thanks
Bob

[vanillarum]

I had the same issue catching my L400 and L450 fry in my heavily rock and cave tanks. I solved the problem by taking a 16 oz empty water bottle, cutting off the top 2" or so. Then invert the top into the bottle, drop a little food in it, and submerge it. I can catch upwards of 20 fry in a single over nite. For the more stubborn fry, I will not feed the tank for a day or 2, and then they will show up. I've been using this method for a coupla years and have yet to have a casualty. Good luck.

[planted90]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
That sounds like it might work on my zebras. I have held off doing anything in my tank because i really don't want to interupt the breeding if i did not need to.
Maybe i'll be able to use it to trap trumpet snails while i am at it.

[michaelyzf]

Hello

I use bottle method successfully to catch bristlenose plecs.

Cheers Michael