Sammy

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

I have my CPDs and Emerald Dwarf Rasboras in 5 gallon tanks with nothing but rocks on a bottom matten filter UGF. I hook up a dual sponge filter with cut down soda bottles and 10ct plastic craft mesh glued to the tubes with the sponges taken off(most just pull apart), and add some silicone tubing to increase the distance between the 2 intakes. The air lift tube goes to a exterior breeders box hanging on the tank (also with plants for the eggs to rest on). High oxygen content in the breeder box limits the egg loss to fungus. Fatten them up for 2 days on Grindal worms, last evening feed of chopped blood worms and throw some Java moss or fine leaved plants in the bottles over the mesh and go to bed. Next morning is the start of the rigorous breeding... the eggs are drawn down through the mesh and carried by the water flow into the exterior breeder box where the parents can't eat them. As soon as I see a dozen babies in the breeder box, I remove the dual sponge 'nests' and the parents back to their home... 3 or 4 days later, there 40 or 50 babies in the beeder box. I feed them infusoria & paramecium (if I've got them), then homemade powdered food and powdered egg yolk, then banana worms/ microworms. Once they are taking BBS and microworms steadily, I submerge the breeder box and release them into the 5 gallon to grow out. I have 2 tanks doing this all the time for CPDs alone. 1 month tops in the breeder box then a month in the grow out before I put them in the big tank. I sell 50+ a month to recupe my food costs (worms are super cheap to culture)... and pay my son for feeding the worms and fish while I'm away... or buy more tanks and UGFs 😊 The emeralds are pre-bought by my LFS. Any fish that likes to lay or scatter non-sticky eggs could probably be harvested this way. I'm going to try Red Neon blue eye Rainbowfish next with larger in tank egg catchers. Lowell's Fish Lab on YouTube, aquariumscience.org and Aquarium Co-Op get all the credit.

Once the matten filter is mature, the decomposition rate is equal to the deposit rate. The beneficial bacteria growing in it just reproduce to a level that it does not clog. Any tiny area that even starts to plug, the material is softened and consumed by the heterotrophic bacteria and clears the plugged area. It happens on such a regular but minute scale, I doubt it could be calculated. Swisstropicals.com has a great write up about the brown gunk being alive, check it out. (Wish I could afford their foam in all my tanks but shipping to Canada is atrociou$ now) aquariumscience.org gave me the final push to go with foam as it taught me to do my own surface area calculations. 30ppi foam has one of the highest surface areas available in filter media. Great for high biofiltration area, good mechanical filter too. Makes for low maintenance, super clear water. I'm older and way more lazy than I used to be... scraping the front glass and light water changes is a once a month job instead of a weekly thing... more time to build/rebuild more tanks. 😁

I originally used 40ppi on the bottom matten filter... it caused me to vacuum the bottom about once every 2 weeks as flow started to lessen. 20 is definitely too coarse and the Cory's and cherry shrimp even have a hard time getting food out - when I checked under the UGF, you could see mulm starting to build after 3 months. 1-1/2" of 30ppi in tanks under 20 gallon (air or powerhead driven), 2" of 30ppi in 20 and 30 gallon , 1-1/2 of 30ppi on 1" of 20ppi in my 37 gallon tanks. New 20gal has a thin seam of black silicone to hold it in place and keep snails and baby cherry shrimp from getting down into the foam, which they WILL do. I also added an "egg crate" mesh under the foam for easy removal in case of emergencies (aquarium leaks) and hidden handles... wish I'd done that from the start (I will never buy a used aquarium "resealed" by a previous owner again - hard lesson). Haven't vacuumed any in 3 years... not even this ramshorn & Amano shrimp tank. Plants have no problem rooting into 30ppi... the Ember tetras, Glowlight tetras & Harlequin rasboras barely produce enough waste to feed the plants, Panda Corys clean up any leftovers. Nitrates stay low and I leave all the algae alone for the natural look. I feed mostly live foods or high grade feed so there's little waste.

1-1/2" of 30ppi over under gravel filter - its awesome. I use a powerhead on one tube on 5 & 10 gallon tanks or air driven on both tubes (for calm water in grow out tanks). Also have 3 37gallon tanks with this setup. I even sculpt things out of sponge to hide the lift tubes. I'd rather lose a bit off the bottom than a portion of my viewing area. 20 gallon with Tiki lift tube covers, 'rocks' and coconut tree trunks (to be topped off with java ferns). I'll put glass beads and crushed coral in the "river" areas on the bottom... Here's a pic...with apologies for the reflections on the glass:

Add a little more food to the yeast maybe... I'd be surprised if that doesn't work well. I'm interested to see how this goes...

Cultures are down to 9 Grindal worm & 6 White worm batches. Cut 2 of each in half and add new substrate - no crashes yet. Paramecium batch was a wash out. Not sure why. New batches started. 200 baby fish cut into my green water/ infusoria big time. Another big breeding round would likely cost me so I'll wait until they get going again. Wheat berries/ yeast didn't work out as well as seined rice bran and milk drops did before but ya gotta try new things. On that note, tried a new fish food. VitaComplete. Impressive. Might even grind some up and try it on the little ones. BTW, egg harvesters are the best thing ever!

As good as it gets for pics on the new 20gal. The 37 gallon tall are full of wood, plants, fish, decor, etc. They stay super clean. One has a hair algae problem because it's right near the south window.

Thanks for the sponge matten bottom on the under gravel filter idea, @gardenman. The powerheads on the lift tubes super-charged the filtration too (I also hook my drain tube to the powerhead outlets for easy, small water changes - doesn't stress out the fish at all). I now sculpt Tikis, cliffs, rock formations with the sponge foam and they are the cleanest and most stable tanks I have. Plants root into the foam easily (although I use mostly 'easy' column feeding plants) and I make "ponds & rivers" to put crushed coral ( my water needs the buffer), lava rocks and even 4-5mm glass beads into for added punch, I even hid a UV filter behind a 'cliff/ rock formation. No more tedious substrate vacuuming! My wife lets me have all the tanks I want because we're not buying expensive dirt/sand/substrate and spend so little time cleaning tanks (which she despises). Grow out tanks with that setup are by far my most stable and productive - no worries about tiny fry being sucked into intakes or vacuum tubes. Cherry shrimp love it too. Just started a 20 gallon CPD "Tiki Tank"and even my teenage son puts down the video game to snip/ cut sponge with me. He cut some long pieces to look like coconut trees (gonna top the off with java fern) 😁 If this old, stupid tablet would let me attach a pic, I'd show it to you... Anyway, thanks again. It's made me enjoy aquarium keeping again. Super low maintenance, tons of biofiltration area... that was a great "oddball" idea. You rock. 👍

Perfect plan. Mature filters are underrated in a world of instant gratification chemicals.

Mine got fat and started spawning because of the Grindal worms that got past the Glowlight Tetras and Harlequin Rasboras I was conditioning for spawning. Feed lots, they'll get them all! Grindals are so easy to breed and no stink (I feed my Grindals a mix of rice baby food & spirulina powder and then Mazuri gel food for Omnivores). Every year the used dirt/coconut coir/coral sand mix goes into my herb and vegetable planters and I mix up another batch. All my tanks get the extra Grindals weekly for snacks - overpopulation is the enemy with them. Have your baby cory food ready for when the fry show up! 😊

Crushed coral to buffer? I swap or add once a year, cull regularly and add new adults once a year. I avoid chemical buffers so can't comment on Seachem. Even after cleaning out my blue velvets' tank, I now have blue velvets in my Daisy's Ricefish tank. Recycled substrate & coral probably housed a few tiny babies. 2 Epsom salt crystals every 2 months was a magic potion on that tank. Blues look so cool on crushed coral 😊

My cherry Moms are fat too. Not trying to breed them but they're full anyway. I feed mostly frozen and live food so they are primed. Not sure if they absorb them or expel them... the other 30 fish in the tank would make short work of the eggs anyway. 4 males & 8 females but no fry unless you try 😉 Cherries should be in a group though. Nice, friendly (except to anything that fits in their mouths), low maintenance fish 👌 Gorgeous in a school,of 12 or more.

Small, abrupt temperature change made my killies start. Gorgeous Fundies, BTW Have TONS of paramecium ready when they do. I used six 1 gallon jugs by the time they started taking banana worms. Never though something so small would eat that much.

Split the cultures again. Now have 4 Mother cultures, 4 growing cultures and 4 starter cultures. Every tank gets a feed every 3 or 4 days. Keeps the CPDs, Daisy's Ricefish, Ember Tetras & Kubotai in prime condition. Add 1 light feed of chopped blood worms and everybody is on their spawning grounds in the morning. Gel food for Omnivorous fish is the bomb - less mess than bread, yeast and yogurt combos. No mold to clean out with gel food - it's gone before it molds. White worms love it too (but I like to keep up with the fish flakes/ spirulina/ baby cereal combo rotation). That food experiment seems to have just increased their size and numbers. I freeze any gel food leftovers (after 4 days worm feeding) and grate it into my community tanks, they love it. Corys and Plecos go nuts on anything that gets down to them. Zero waste. LFS said they have requests for Grindals and white worms... all those unused deli cups are about to come in handy ☺️. Going to supply the gel food mix too. I dont know if gut loading actually helps the fish but the Grindal worm population is large enough to sell/ trade in under 2 weeks. Now to finish the egg harvesters and grow out tanks... and start the Paramecium farm

Thanks for this write-up. Just started the VPD fry journey and caught myself on a couple errors already. Really helpful. My CPDs breed constantly and I've seen fry trying to hide in the water lettuce roots but I don't see them around for long. Building a egg trap and transfer system into the large hang-on breeder box. I hope your brood is doing well. Thanks again

Well, the separate tank feeding may be difficult to gauge. While showing my son the cultures, I noticed that the sheer volume of Grindals has exploded - the gel food is almost gone while 50% or better of the cereal/ yeast flakes remains. The difference in the numbers of worms is noticeable- many small/baby worms are visible on the gel food. As for the Daisy's (and a CPD tankful where the excess goes), the fish don't care either way. They attack the worms voraciously. None reach the bottom of the tank. Cost estimate for Grindal worms feeding with Mazuri on three 20gals (36 fish) = $0.0085/day. With that kind of ingredients gut-loading, I wish I could feed the Grindals to the fish every day... high quality, clean & cheap

Don't know if it's gut loading or not but the Mazuri Omnivore gel food disappeared faster than any previous food source - gel food chunks the size of the 1/2 dog food pellets were gone in 12 hours in the Grindal worm cultures. Loaded up the same size last night, all gone this morning. The Grindals moved right off the Weetabix/ nutritional yeast flake combo (which they've always loved) and onto the gel food. I'll do a feeding this morning and see if the numbers increase as well. Started 3 new cultures last night on coconut fiber scrub pads (trying to get cleaner feedings as opposedto substrate). 1 with 2 feeding zones - gel food and flakes/crushed cereal sides (because I'm used to the volume the yeast and cereal produce). 1 each with only the yeast/ cereal mix & Omnivore gel food. If the cultures become stable, I'll feed each gutloaded worm to individual tanks of Daisy's Ricefish and see if health and egg production are affected. Should be interesting.

I'm thinking along the same lines. Unless I harvest them moments after they feed, digestion alters all the compounds (the law of conservation of matter). I still believe in feeding them properly and avoiding unnecessary bacteria. Keeping them healthy and breeding is enough. ... but I'm still going to dedicate 2 cultures and try it for myself. I just can't help myself. Gotta tinker.

My cultures are all doing fine but after reading some threads about gut-loading just prior to feeding my fish, I'm still unclear on a couple points... Firstly, I find that people want to increase the proteins, color-enhancing properties, etc but I feel that once these items are consumed, would they not be broken down quickly by the worms digestive system and be "altered" (for lack of a better word)? Secondly, has anyone tried moistened gel fish food to gut load worms? I use a commercial high grade gel food to feed fish from CPDs to Discus and it has the highest protein available to non-commercial users. If I did use it, would it be better to feed it in its raw form moistened or the prepared, gel form? All anyone mentions is that the food needs to be wet/ moistened. Thanks for your time and consideration. 😊

Clumping is bacteria. Early death is bacteria too. I mix in 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom salt (plain) to the water. Make sure it's premixed before adding to the water. I also add 2 drops of bleach - eliminates the bacteria before they can multiply and use up oxygen- the chlorine gasses off before it can affect the BBS. Not my idea, found it here: https://www.tfhmagazine.com/articles/freshwater/a-scientific-economic-and-commonsense-approach-to-brine-shrimp-hatching

White & microworms and BBS get all my females producing eggs next day. I put 1 male, 2 females in a hang-on breeding box with an egg separator & a bit of yarn with small clamp-on fishing weights to keep it down close to the egg separator bottom (though few fall through). Feed every 8 hours, remove breeders when eggs are visible, put mops into hatching box (same as breeding box, just smaller), put new mops and breeders in. In a week I have 40 eggs (25 average are viable and hatch). Once the fry are feeding well, I pour the hatch box into a grow out tank. Keep the same "week" brood stock together - if some grow bigger quicker, they sometimes eat the new little guys. The hard part is feeding the babies. Infusoria & moina are hit & miss with some broods. Good luck

Medaka/ Ricefish. I LOVE my Platinums and they don't even care about the shrimp. It's fun watching them share the same plants to breed and feed. In a tank with lots of easy plants, it makes it even better. Just my 2 cents 😊