Sammy

Those hinges work... PITA to get the old ones off though, razor blade and siliconelube made quick work of it. I only rebuilt one... then just bought acrylic sheets and made my own. Ended up being cheaper than the glass ones so that's just what I do now. The hinges don't bend as well as the originals but I usually remove the entire lid anyway - auto feeders do the daily tasks. Once I figure out a good 12v dosing system for nano fry, my workload will be more of a "check up and enjoy the view ".

Love those Luminatus. I swap out floating plants for floating spawning mops and put in an egg harvester that I use on CPDs and get eggs in both systems. Hit them with live Grindals and chopped blood worms then swap in a couple gallons of cooler conditioned water one evening. It's a good trigger.

I used an eg trap to a breeding box for my CPDs and pick Daisy's Ricefish eggs from floating spawning mops... but there are still some blue eyes in my CPD grow out tank. So, yeah, 1 species per tank is better. 5 gal tanks make great breeding/ grow out tanks and are easier to manage

Thanks so much @mountaintoppufferkeeper, @tolstoy21 & @Phirefase This is exactly the information I was looking for. Currently, I suspend the wheat berries and rice bran with yeast wrapped in a cheesecloth in a black aquatic plant holder that is kept floating by closed cell foam. I think I'll use my 1 gallon jugs for feed supplies and top them off with the paramecium stock & water from the big carboy jugs (my wife suggested I have them drilled near the bottom and insert a bulkhead valve for easy filling. I use a Marina/ Fluval external breeding box to drip aerated water into the box, the outflow goes into the grow out tank. I think I'll continue to feed the nano fry in it as they're already set up. Once I get a test system going and regulated, I'll give it a test run on the CPD fry first as I get 200 a week with the egg harvesters on the parent's tank (runs beautifully while I'm gone to work for a week). Huge Kudos to Nick at Keeping Fish Simple... I've watched a lot of his videos but never saw that one. Big thanks to @Phirefase for that. I LOVE the ACO brain hive!

Thanks for that video! Exactly the direction I was going! I do want to try to keep it on my 12v battery bank but I can always figure that out later. As I use 5 gal carboys for green water, paramecium and daphnia cultures, I'll just have to experiment a bit to get the volumes right. Daphnia are not going to be fed via the pumps, it's too easy to put a bunch in every day as they just cruise around feeding until they get eaten. But the feed lines can be moved according to food size required by the fry size in the different tanks.

Right! I forgot about those! Hope I can find one that can run with the source above the pump. My wife had one once but it must have the water source level or below the pump because they are impeller driven and don't stop flow. Thanks for the reminder!

I would likely use open-ended tubing as I THINK the pump rollers would seal it off enough so as not to siphon out the entire tank of paramecium above the grow out tanks. Daisy's Ricefish fry are hard to get past their 3rd week- they're prolific breeders but I would like to get more past the micro-fry stage, currently a bit better than 50%. 200 fry eat a LOT 😲

Anyone have a peristaltic (dosing) pump on a timer to feed infusoria/ paramecium to nano fish fry? My paramecium tank is above my Ricefish, CPD & Emerald dwarf rasboras fry tanks. I started to just use a siphon hose setup with valves but it is still time consuming to get the right amount of feed at consistent times. Would a DIY dosing pump be possible? Does anyone have a setup like that? I have a solar/ battery bank setup for power outages for air pumps but I'm not sure where/ how to hook these up for regular use. Any pics or places that I could get a start with?

I have a 5 gallon pail I keep for infusoria... snail overpopulation goes in there, along with all plant trimmings. As I don't actually feed that pail, the snail population only increases when their numbers are 'culled' from other tanks and deposited in the pail. The lid sits on top loosely, if that makes a difference. Occasionally, dirty filters are shaken in it at cleaning time (as I have huge amounts of biofiltration, this happens maybe every 3 months per tank) which seems to be enough of a food source. That pail has fed hundreds of nano fish fry for a couple years and the snails do not breed beyond their available food source (there's an inch of empty shells on the bottom) and the water is clear... except under my hobby microscope, it's teeming with paramecium, rotifers and the like. I keep the snail population in check, they feed the microscopic food for my nano babies... win-win. Just my long-winded 2 cents

How did it go? They are great breeders. I took 70 fry out of the breeding tank because i forgotto clean it out before i left town for a week.... the first 40 are already on BBS and dry food. Horny lil buggers

Sydney Aquatics, Blake's Aquarium, etc on YT have great videos on how to build one on the cheap. I make small ones out of dual sponge air filters for 5 gallon breeding tanks. They come apart easy... silicone tubing and hot glue extend the piping for separation between the hornwort cups with plastic craft mesh bottoms. Air lift tube deposits the eggs in a Marina breeder box. I feed and fatten them up, then plunk them in a 3.5 gallon el-cheapo half-moon betta grow out tank with water from the parents' big tank. In 5 weeks, they join the parents or get put into the bare breeder tank to be sold or traded at 10 or 12 weeks.

I started mine out with infusoria from my plant clippings bucket and vinegar eels. Started them on microworms at about week 3 and occasional mini- feedings of BBS... They thicken up fast from that point. Put them in with the adults at around 6 or 7 weeks.

Yeah, I love the little greenies... Microdevario Kubotai (not Green Neons tetras) are a fabulous tall aquarium fish in good numbers. I have 18 that like to shoal throughout my 37 tall... and they get along with the Embers and Daisy's Ricefish very well. They never bother the Amanos or the few Sunkist Neos in the tank. They're only downside is they need to be in a large school (even with same sized nano fish) or they get too shy and don't feed well. A well planted tank with tall things to swim around and they're fine. Wish I could breed them regularly but I've had very little success with them... but I'll keep trying.. 😊

Orange shrimp bottom, Ember Tetras for upper... couple Bacopa Carolinianas for tall column feeder color

You nailed it. Same here. Most of my stock eat a bit of algae (or the critters in it). All my fry tanks have algae in it - free food. I use a razor blade holder now but the Ikea scrubber was effective. WHODAT