Green Water for Fry

[Crabby]

Hey! 
I’m planning on breeding my Honey Blue Eyes (pseudomugil mellis) soon, and I was cleaning out a 5gal for the fry when I got to the sand level, stirred it up and saw algae and green water release into the water column. That’s the water pictured in the thumbnail. 

I’d like to use this, as I’m sure it’ll be good for the fry. My question is, do I try to get the water to evaporate and make a powder food from it for the fry, or do I just put it back into the tank and put the light on a bunch (and maybe add ferts?) to allow the green water maintain? What would be the best way to maximise this?

Cheers!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 12/6/2022 at 4:42 AM, Crabby said:

Hey! 
I’m planning on breeding my Honey Blue Eyes (pseudomugil mellis) soon, and I was cleaning out a 5gal for the fry when I got to the sand level, stirred it up and saw algae and green water release into the water column. That’s the water pictured in the thumbnail. 

I’d like to use this, as I’m sure it’ll be good for the fry. My question is, do I try to get the water to evaporate and make a powder food from it for the fry, or do I just put it back into the tank and put the light on a bunch (and maybe add ferts?) to allow the green water maintain? What would be the best way to maximise this?

Cheers!

From what I’ve heard you put a transparent container with some mulm or dead plant matter in on a windowsill. Eventually microorganisms turn up and start breeding, along with algae cells, which then creates green water.

Feed fry with pipettes of green water, tea or tablespoons work OK. 
Please post some pics of the babes once they’re hatched 😁

[Crabby]

On 12/6/2022 at 5:10 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

From what I’ve heard you put a transparent container with some mulm or dead plant matter in on a windowsill. Eventually microorganisms turn up and start breeding, along with algae cells, which then creates green water.

Feed fry with pipettes of green water, tea or tablespoons work OK. 
Please post some pics of the babes once they’re hatched 😁

Interesting; I’ve heard from multiple sources that you simply keep the fry in a body of water that is producing green water, but from what you’re saying that would result in the system not maintaining itself.

The good thing about that is that it sounds like I could use what I have as a starter culture for some green water?

[TheSwissAquarist]

🤔In theory…yes but I expect there’s gonna be something annoying…

[modified lung]

On 12/5/2022 at 10:51 PM, Crabby said:

Interesting; I’ve heard from multiple sources that you simply keep the fry in a body of water that is producing green water, but from what you’re saying that would result in the system not maintaining itself.

You can do either one. Keeping fry in greenwater can be tricky though. Greenwater eats CO2 and KH so you have to make sure pH doesn't start getting to 9 during the day over time. And that the greenwater has enough nutrients to stay alive but not so much that there's a lot leftover in the water.