Bbs hatchery question.

[Flyin Jawaiian]

Aloha everyone, I had a quick question about bbs, for a hatchery I’m just doing a simple liter bottle method, I’ve already harvested some of my hatchlings to feed my tanks, but I was wondering can you keep adding small amounts of eggs into the hatchery to get a constant supply of bbs? Sorry if this is a stupid question I was just thinking that the unhatched eggs will hatch soon then by adding more, in another day I’ll have another colony of hatched bbs that’ll just increase my amount I am able to harvest? Any ideas or thoughts on this?

[Daniel]

2 hours ago, HanaHoo808 said:

 I was just thinking that the unhatched eggs will hatch soon then by adding more, in another day I’ll have another colony of hatched bbs that’ll just increase my amount I am able to harvest? Any ideas or thoughts on this?

It is a good thought but the idea that the unhatched eggs will hatch soon has not been my experience and before too long the unhatched eggs will be bothersome. Also the liter bottle operates as a nano-aquarium that gets pretty nasty without water changes or some sort of biological filtration.

Some things for different reasons work better in discrete batches like cooking or driving. With my automobile I could put in a couple gallons daily, but I find it better to do one whole batch of gas once a week. Not really a good analogy but I hope you get my point.

[Brian]

Yes.   The eggs shells and the eggs that didn’t hatch with rather quickly start to degrade the water conditions.  

[Hobbit]

There are no stupid questions here! 😊 Welcome to the forum!

[Flyin Jawaiian]

Ok now I’m a lil stuck, what’s the easiest way to do a water change with fry I. The tank. There’s so much bbs I want to try and siphon some of  them out with a mini siphon I made with air tubing and a metal straw but I’ve done it before and accidentally sucked up a few fry so what would be a better way to do water changes to the bbs doesn’t ruin my fry waters 

[Hobbit]

@HanaHoo808 I would go ahead and use your siphon. If you suck up a few fry, that’s fine! Just look through your wastewater bucket before throwing it out and scoop any fry back into the tank. Getting sucked up is probably quite an unexpected thrill, but it doesn’t hurt them. 👍

[Flyin Jawaiian]

So I tried to siphon one tank out on my

lunch break and within a 40% water change I probably sucked up maybe a quarter of my fry😭😭 I did scoop them back up with a fine net but that didn’t help with removing the bbs as they ended up back in my net🤦🏽‍♂️ The fry are not making it any easier by laying on the floor with them. I tried to run the siphon through a small new not the fine mesh but the little bigger one and it didn’t work. I was debating on moving the fry into a small plastic tank til I can clean the spawn tanks out fully but looking closer each spawn tank has probably 60-100 fry it’ll be pretty tough getting them all. Any tips? I definitely don’t want to leave them in the tank longer than today as I’m starting to see a lot of bbs settling down probably dying off by now.  Damm soo pissed at myself small little mistake and could possibly cost me both fry batches 😭😭

[Flyin Jawaiian]

These are the two spawn tanks. You can see the babies in one tank they’re all over the water columns but the other either has them cruising on the floor or on the top 

[Hobbit]

Hmm. Maybe letting the bbs die off a little will actually make this easier. Since they’re at the bottom of your tank now, can you siphon them up without getting the fry? If you partially plug the end of the hose with your thumb, you can make it siphon really slowly. That way any fry will be able to zip away from the siphon, but you’ll get most of the bbs up.

For live bbs, you can attract them to one corner of the tank with a light, and then siphon them out as a group.

The goal wouldn’t be to get all the bbs, just enough that you avoid the ammonia spike.

Don’t beat yourself up. We all make mistakes! Remember that losing a quarter of your fry to siphoning is better than losing all of them to bad water quality. Though test your water before you assume there’s a disaster. You may be okay even with the bbs die off.

Other thoughts: adding live plants, particularly floating plants like salvinia, will help guard against ammonia spikes and nitrate build up. Also, if you have or can get any cherry shrimp, they’ll happily eat some of those dead bbs and leave your fry alone. Plus they’re cute!

Edited April 12, 2021 by Hobbit

[Flyin Jawaiian]

Thank you so much @Hobbit so much great info, so I tried again and did cover the end with my siphon and I swear some fry just want to go for the ride and will literally sit in front of the tube they’ll zip away but slowly come back but I was able to get most of the dead bbs out, and the net the fry that went through there was about 20-30 fry maybe 5 died out of both tanks which was a lil bummer but seeing all the fry in the tank free swimming happy makes it soo much worth it! As for cherry shrimp, I definitely want to try get some, I live in Hawaii so it would have to be shipped to me possibly discreetly lol 

[Hobbit]

Yay! I’m so glad it worked!! Fry are so fragile. They sure make us sweat trying to keep them alive.