CPD Breeding... because why not?

[jwcarlson]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:49 AM, Guppysnail said:

As long as it’s lots and lots of movement. Unlike the coop or even other eggs I’ve used these sink and stick to the bottom and lower sides of my Hatcher 

Yeah, I noticed that.  And I kept them suspended, but it did take A LOT more air than I normally would use.  It's also not in my normal hatchers because I can't really "afford" a bad hatch at the moment.  I mean, I have frozen BBS that I hatched, but it's not ideal.

Thanks for the tips, I will give them another shot tonight.  By the time I get it sorted out they'll be big enough to eat the ACO ones. 😄

[jwcarlson]

Very good hatch rate again on this batch of CPDs.  

Got SF strain eggs to hatch as well (TONS of air, thanks, @Guppysnail).  Some of the CPDs at least ate pieces of them that they bit off.  

Edited December 16, 2023 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

Geeze these things grow so freaking slow!  Still feeding powder to the older set.  CPDs are a royal pain to feed.  I think I need to mount a light over the trays so that the BBS swim up and try to get to the light.  Once they hit the bottom they are snail food.  Coincidently, the bladder snails are bright orange once they get some BBS in them.  The fry are really hard to count, but I don't think I've lost any appreciable amount at this point.

Laid 12/2:

Laid 12/13:

[Guppysnail]

You don’t even begin to know slow yet 🤣. These are so slow its Maddening 

[jwcarlson]

Combined the two batches of CPDs down into a single, but bigger, tray.  These are about a month old.  My phone did some weird stuff, so I can't get an accurate count.  But I think it's close to 60 total.  I tried to spawn them this weekend and got ZERO eggs.  Which is strange.  I'll give them another spin this weekend.  They're certainly spawning in the tank, saw some eggs in the plants.

[Schuyler]

On 1/11/2024 at 8:07 PM, jwcarlson said:

Combined the two batches of CPDs down into a single, but bigger, tray.

There's no risk of cannibalism is there? I did this with killis and the big ones grew really fast but the small ones disappeared.

Also, where did you buy the trays? I tried looking once and they were all too big

[jwcarlson]

On 1/11/2024 at 10:13 PM, Schuyler said:

There's no risk of cannibalism is there? I did this with killis and the big ones grew really fast but the small ones disappeared.

Also, where did you buy the trays? I tried looking once and they were all too big

They're only about 7-10 days apart and of not dissimilar size.  Well, at least I don't forsee any risk.  I guess I'll find out.  

I don't think CPDs are capable of growing fast. 😄

I got some trays on Amazon and some from Walmart.  Let me dig up links.  Unfortunately, the ones I got on Amazon were all the bigger size, which is OK when I "upgrade" the tray.  But too big for initial spawns.

The smaller trays from Walmart.  Actually quite a bit cheaper than when I bought them right now: https://www.walmart.com/ip/iDesign-Linus-Plastic-Fridge-and-Freezer-Organizer-Bin-with-Handle-11-5-x-4-x-3-5-Clear/28212825

There hasn't ever been small ones that I've seen on Amazon.  But there's the middle and larger size.  The middle size is worth having one of, I think.  The big ones are too big, probably.  

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BRXYQW/

 

[KyleL]

Any updates on this current current batch? Any major die off? What did you do differently this time?

I’m currently raising a batch of approximately 50 CPD fry. The first two weeks were great. There were all eating Hikari Fry Powder then looking great. Slowly had 1-2 daily deaths. Tried feeding BBS but they wouldn’t take them. Hopefully I can identify the probably soon before they all start dying. Water quality is within normal limits. Temp 75. Every other day water change/vacuuming. 

[jwcarlson]

On 1/31/2024 at 3:21 PM, KyleL said:

Any updates on this current current batch? Any major die off? What did you do differently this time?

I’m currently raising a batch of approximately 50 CPD fry. The first two weeks were great. There were all eating Hikari Fry Powder then looking great. Slowly had 1-2 daily deaths. Tried feeding BBS but they wouldn’t take them. Hopefully I can identify the probably soon before they all start dying. Water quality is within normal limits. Temp 75. Every other day water change/vacuuming. 

No major die offs, one got sucked up my little tray siphon and there was a snail shell and it got pinched.  Otherwise I think there's still 50-60 (hard to count).  They're still in the fry tray, actually.  I really need to get them into a bigger tank, but I've been moving fish all over the place and they're just taking a back seat for relocation.  There's still a 37 gallon reservoir pumping water into their tray continuously, so I'm fairly confident it's just a space issue, not water quality.  Doing at least three 90% water changes on the fry system every week.  

My first batch experienced die offs like you're experiencing and my take on it looking back on it is that I was WILDLY over feeding fry powder.  Which I think is extremely easy to do.  

I need to spawn mine again and get another batch going, but a few weeks ago I had a massive die off of plants in the parent's tank, then a huge amount of hydra (never seen them in this tank before), and then about a week ago my biggest female was floating dead.  No testable water quality issues in the tank and I have no idea what to make of it, unfortunately.  I don't think it would be old age, but perhaps it's a set-up issue that's causing her stress overtime.  She was the only mature female for about a year, so it could be related to that.  

If you go back through this thread there was some chat about nitrite poisoning and it's long term effects.  Might be worth reviewing (posted by Lowell's Fish Lab).  At least I think it was this thread.

[KyleL]

Congrats on no major die offs!

 

At this point I’ll try anything so I’ll give the Ich-X med a try. How often do you feed your fry (feeding schedule)?

[jwcarlson]

On 2/1/2024 at 11:22 PM, KyleL said:

Congrats on no major die offs!

 

At this point I’ll try anything so I’ll give the Ich-X med a try. How often do you feed your fry (feeding schedule)?

Now, live BBS twice a day.  When they're first hatched, Sera Micron twice a day.  Maybe three times a day on the weekends or days I'm at home, but I wiped a ton of them out when I did that on my first batch.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I bet I was feeding ten times the fry powder compared to what I feed now.  

Edited February 2 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

Upgraded from the tray to a 10 gallon where they'll get daily 50-100% water changes.  There's so many of these things.  Very light colored, but they've been in an all white tray, so I am interested if they color up.  They have the pattern, just washed out.

[jwcarlson]

 

[Guppysnail]

Looking fabulous!

[Sammy]

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 

[Guppysnail]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:52 PM, Sammy said:

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 

I am definitely not as detail oriented as @jwcarlson. Kudos to their dedication and detail.  I do things the easy lazy way. 
 

The easiest egg catch method I have found is so easy it makes me laugh. I use cheap glass Childs jewelry beads with holes in them to line a container.  the holes are large enough eggs fall through easily but the parents are to large to get to them. 
I like to use the shallow square ones that presliced deli meat comes in (thank you hubby for taking deli meat to work lunch). The larger container more easily catches eggs.  I lose to many from scattering using the round deli containers . 
I stick a clump of moss over it using a plant weight. 
I make 2.  I put 1 in for a week then in the morning after spawning happens move the entire thing to a seasoned hatch tank and put the new one in the breeding tank.

I do not collect the eggs  I simply set dish and moss in the tank. 

I remove the second after another week to the hatch tank. You can continue this until the first fry are large enough to eat the eggs and wigglers  

Ive already sold some out of this tank but this is my last collection. These are the beads and one of the dishes from this collection. Total rough count before selling some looked to be between 60-70

 

[jwcarlson]

Your CPDs don't get stuck in everything, @Guppysnail?  I've narrowly missed losing a female when I tried using course sponge.  Had a young one die in the ACO sponge in their grow out.  I feel like mine would jam their heads into the beads and die. 😄

@Sammy mine are going well.  I haven't spawned them again, but the babies are coloring up nicely and I can tell the sex of most of them.  They are excruciatingly slow to grow, however.  I suppose they are about sellable size.  I think they're about the size that I bought from AquaHuna.  I need to start moving some of these fry (and others).  I've never tried to sell to a LFS and I'm cripplingly introverted/socially awkward.  What the LFS owners don't know is that if they just stare at me long enough I'll give all my fish to them for free and leave quietly just to avoid eye contact. 😄

[Guppysnail]

On 3/19/2024 at 10:50 AM, jwcarlson said:

Your CPDs don't get stuck in everything

No.  The adults have lived with canisters, HOBS, and coarse sponge. They like the flow.

In this hatch tank I have 2 HOBS, and 2 coarse sponge filters. I can say I have never found a perished fish or baby in any filtration or moss.  
Part of this batch hatched in the 15 when I moved the parents to the 40.  It has a penguin pro 125 with coarse sponge prefilter  and 2 aco coarse sponges.  The fry glide right through the flow even at the eyelash stage. 

[jwcarlson]

Mine must be extra dumb.  

[Guppysnail]

I actually just remembered at one point I move an aco sponge to a new tank.  2 weeks later I had CPD babies all over the new tank. The parents had spawned on the sponge filter. That was about 3 years ago.