The Oto Journal

Think I'm gonna bust a theory here. I had a gallon of aged and treated water ready to go. This morning I placed an air stone in the jug to get it well aerated. Just a while ago, I performed a 10% water change. Since I was getting a little slag on top of the water, I placed the air stone back in the tank after the water change.

Within minutes, I lost two fry! WTH! I just don't get it. Temps were fine, parms were fine, all was fine. Just a simple itty bitty water change. Dang that ticks me off. I think what I am going to do now is just do routine top offs while there is fry in tank. I need to go back and review my notes to see what I'm doing differently and back all the way up. I believe my best results came with little air stone usage.
 
Update 29-mar-2010

Counted (14) wigglers today. Didn't find the other older fry. I think they may have perished with that last water change as well. Very odd.

Running the air stone for about an hour to break the surface. Debating on whether I should continue the 10% wc/day test. I have a gallon aerating as I type. If I decide to do the change, I'm going to trickle the new water in the tank. This should hopefully avoid any major swings.

Prepping more zucchini for the tank.
 
Here's some parting shots from today:

Eyes haven't developed quite yet on this guy.
BabyOto3_032910.jpg


Wee one with Mama Tiger keep a close eye
BabyOto4_032910.jpg


Here's a little interesting one. I didn't notice the little surprise guest up top until after I was going through the pics.
BabyOto2_032910.jpg
 
Unfortunately, I have only had a couple make it to the juvie stage of late. This is what my focus is on at the present time. Looking to get a smaller tank (no bigger than 5g) to establish a new hatching tank.
 
Spring rains may have an impact on your water although 10% is not much. Discus keepers often age & aerate new water to get rid of dissolved gases, not something I'm willing to do. You can test it by checking pH then aerate for 24 hours & recheck.
 
I already do that as a precaution. ;o)

My routine for the main tank calls for 1g jugs. I turn on the cold water (cold only) and let run for several minutes to flush the lines. Add 3 drops of Prime to each jug, fill and cap. The day prior to a water change, I will drop an air stone in the jug and let it run up until time to add the water to tank.
 
Since young fish fry are so sensitive to changes in the tank the first few weeks, don't you think you should be adding a gallon of same temp water rather than cold water? Do you know how much temperature difference there is in the gallong of water vs. the 10-gal fry tank? Even only 1 gallon in a ten gallon tanks is going to create cooler water column pockets until it's all blended.
 
Good point on the temps. They are at room temp prior to adding which is still cooler than the 78 that the tank is accustomed to. I'm thinking this is where the trickle fill will come into play. I will be running a test on it today to verify as the slower rate of entry should have little to no impact on the temp. The trickle line will be directly into the HOB as well so there will be no "dead spots" in the tank where the temp could fluctuate.
 
Update 31-Mar-2010

Another 10% water change today. This time I drew the water out slower and trickling a new gallon back in. It is half way done now....an hour later. Better safe than sorry. The interesting thing though...my snails obviously know the difference even at this slow drip rate.

Only found (5) fry today. On the brighter side of things, found (23) new eggs. I don't think I'll add any additional food today. I still see fragments floating around.
 
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