Ben C.

And a video of them meeting their parents:

Pictures didn't go through so here's some, in their container and then full tank shot:

Well, that's a wrap for this journal! First group moved in to their permanent home today with their parents! Second group will move in a month from now.. While I wasn't as successful as I would have hoped to be, I now have 11 danios all together to be one happy family, successfully recovering from the initial bad shipment of 10 (disease reduced it to 4) that I got of them. It was super rewarding watching them go into the aquarium and immediately join up with their parents, see them check out the other fish, and settle right in. Guess that's what it's all about! Thanks everyone that followed this and helped out!

6 weeks today. First batch look like mini full grown fish now - spunky lil guys. About the size of a chili rasbora. Will probably give them another week or two and move them over to their permanent home! Second batch is stable and eating baby brine. Not much really to report anymore, will continue to show their growth but I won't deliberately spawn any new ones. Thinking to set up shrimp or endlers next, something easier...

@Torrey a lot of work but sounds totally worth it! Even smaller danios means bigger schools of em!

That's actually really cool, while unfortunate for the fish, very cool. Would've never known haha

you really have this down to a science! I gotta get me some more equipment haha. That's really cool about the dwarf line - sounds really interesting! What is the fainting gene though?

5 weeks old today, got all their fins and they're beginning to fill in. Beginnings of more active behavior! A little disappointed though as the second batch failed - not sure what went wrong, but the fact that they were so spread out I believe was the issue. It was hard to target feed them, leading to more wasted energy swimming around, and me overfeeding. Just carelessness I suppose. I've caught out the final 3 remaining and moved them into the Co-Op's specimen container until they get bigger. Fortunately, if all of these fry make it, I will have a nice sized school with the adults that spawned them added together, which was my ultimate goal. These are really not a "for profit" fish - the labor of all the feedings, etc. does not add up for a fish that regularly sells for $1.99 or so...

One additional outcome of all of this is I've really got my baby brine shrimp "recipe" worked out - I was using my tap water or aquarium water, and being Texas water, it's just so incredibly hard. I realized that adding reef salt, with all the additional minerals was causing a ton of dead shrimp before I could even collect them. Now that I'm using RO water (my brother does saltwater tanks so I just grab some 5 gallon buckets from him) and adding the reef salt, plus a dash of Prime both when I set it up and at the 24 hour mark, and it's night and day. Great hatch rate, and little waste. Experimenting with adding garlic oil, vitachem, spirulina powder, etc. for fun, but it's nice to know I can use less eggs to get more shrimp now!

First batch is now 4 weeks old - their eyes are the most radiant baby blue, along with a matching stripe right down their body. Hard to believe this is what they look like as youngsters - I'm going to miss it! Still impossible to photograph with my phone, but alas. Second batch is about 10 days old now, feeding micro foods 4 times a day. Hard to monitor in such a large space, but if I walk away with more than the first, I will be happy.

I teach in my home studio, and I have an aquarium in both rooms I teach out of. So if the day isn't going so well...I just gaze wistfully...feeding time though is probably the most fun. Once you get a confident group of fish, they all come running! er....swimming. edit: forgot to add my fry tanks are on the ground of a spare closet. So I spend also a lot of time just laying on the ground and watching...the cats have learned that they also can come lay on top of me and watch too. It's very hard to stay awake after that.

Are those crypts? Pretty normal to have die back on them at first, even with submerged growth just going from tank to tank even. Most of the crypts I buy will melt back, and then I will see distinctly different (submerged growth) leaves growing slowly after that. But it's a slow process with them. As long as they still have strong roots, they should be fine. Are these from the Co-Op? If so, I believe they are snail free from the get go, but someone is welcome to correct me!

They grow up so fast...

Definitely will try either a wild type or female someday. Thanks for the suggestions!

I didn't think of the vitachem, that's a great idea! Definitely going to try adding the prime too. Thanks!

Greatest Surprise: Doing less sometimes means more. I was messing with my aquariums too much - doing 30% water changes, religiously cleaning the everything, testing all parameters, trying different co2 things, yada yada yada....once I just...stopped, things took off. Plants are doing amazing, fish are more confident and happy now, and plot twist, it really doesn't get that dirty once it's settled. Greatest Disappointment: Bettas. Got in the hobby to keep some, and they just ended up a mess. Maybe I just got super unlucky. Too aggressive, all couldn't be kept with any other fish, and one couldn't even be kept with snails as he flared at them so much that he ripped his fins constantly. Maybe someday I will try them again, because I loved having the "wet pet", but they just caused so much frustration.

Thanks for the response! Yeah I'm definitely going to tone down how much I'm hatching - with how much was coming out, it was enough to feed my two tanks full of adults 3 hefty feedings, at 24 hours, 36 hours, and 48 hours after hatching...I've been mixing hikari first bites between brine feedings, and will hopefully move onto the Co-Ops fry food soon.

Question to the hive mind of those that may be following - as these new babies are hatching out, I'm worried about flow being too high. I'm currently using an aqueon air pump 10 with a sponge filter in a 10 gallon aquarium. As they are taking their first little swims, they're being blown around, which worries me - I also worry about them ending up too spread apart to make feeding simple. I've turned off the pump for now, but will that negatively affect the water or their development? For reference, it's a bare bottom, been seasoned for 8-9 months now, with the water surface covered in a variety of floating plants, plus with hornwort for nitrate control. Thanks y'all!

Thank you for a very detailed response with a very apt username! Thanks for clarifying. I have heard of gut loading, such as with spirulina, for herbivores, and may have to check it out. My brother keeps a marine tank with a couple young tangs that may appreciate that anyway...

I'm realizing the sheer amount of BBS it makes now...I have the sieve too! I got it because I really don't do any water changes - and figured the salt would build up sometime, even if years from now...makes it that much easier. Plus my water is already so hard. Thanks for the input!

Thanks for the input, particularly the ice cube trays 😂 I've already taken over some of the fridge for frozen food...and some of a cabinet for microworms..I'm sure nobody will mind...right?

"Not deformed" I love it 😂 yeah, my mantra so far has been variety is key, so I feed a huge blend of foods normally...I'll cut back on how much I hatch out and mix in my usual stuff for peace of mind.

I would recommend netting out the inhabitants before pulling everything out. Who knows what might be under that gravel, and I know some anaerobic bacteria can take hold in denser substrates, and when you disturb the covering, it will gas your tank basically. When you do switch it out, I recommend putting at least some of the gravel and maybe the gunk that was with it as a first, bottom layer, and then topping it/covering it with the new stuff to make sure the organics that you've built up already get transferred over. After that, give the water enough time to settle, as free floating silt/particles can bother the fishes gills, and check for ammonia to make sure nothing spikes. Hope that helps!

Hello! As the title says, I'm raising up fish fry so I have baby brine hatching every day. It feels like a waste to hatch out just a tiny amount to sustain the few fry I have right now, so I always make some for my other tanks. They're happy as all can be eating it every day (and so is the hydra...), but am I keeping them on a permanent "cheat" day? I still feed veggies to my tetras to balance that out, but it's been about 3 days of straight baby brine and I'm wondering if I should cool the jets... thanks!

To add to the list, I have leopard danios (just a color morph of zebra danios) with some endlers, and the endlers follow them around all day like little brothers 😂