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As mentioned on another thread, my son will be doing a breeding project for his third grade science fair. One of my biggest concerns was that mom or dad would eat the babies. Based upon our research, this is what I was able to find out:
1) Parents might eat young.
2) Placing mom in a breeder box might cause stress resulting in birthing complications.
This got me thinking that if I could find a way for the fish to always stay in a large birthing box mom could do her thing without being bothered.
Important note - I don't have any fry to test this yet, so try at your own risk.
Here is the setup that I built.
I bought the Tetra Aquarium 5 gallon starter kit. This kit comes with:
Aqua-Tech 5-15 HOB filter
5 gallon glass aquarium
Hood and light
misc. goodies
The HOB filter has a U shaped intake tube that hangs down into the tank. The outlet pours back into the tank from the other side. Simply stated, the outlet and inlet are on opposite sides of the filter.
I then cut a plexiglass divider to seperate the intake and outlet sides of the tank. My plexiglass divider has a small opening at the bottom that allows water (and very small fish) to pass through the divider to the intake side of the tank. It is my hope that the fry would find themselves getting sucked through to the intake side of the tank and would be naturally seperated from mom and dad. I also covered the intake with a piece of sponge so that the fry would not get sucked into the filter.
Here are some pictures.
Picture of the opening in the bottom of the divider
Top view of the divider which seperates the intake and outlet
Side view of the same
The real trick here is the size of the small opening. Hopefully mine is the correct size. I will post back here after I have fry and see if the idea actually worked.
I would appreciate any input.
1) Parents might eat young.
2) Placing mom in a breeder box might cause stress resulting in birthing complications.
This got me thinking that if I could find a way for the fish to always stay in a large birthing box mom could do her thing without being bothered.
Important note - I don't have any fry to test this yet, so try at your own risk.
Here is the setup that I built.
I bought the Tetra Aquarium 5 gallon starter kit. This kit comes with:
Aqua-Tech 5-15 HOB filter
5 gallon glass aquarium
Hood and light
misc. goodies
The HOB filter has a U shaped intake tube that hangs down into the tank. The outlet pours back into the tank from the other side. Simply stated, the outlet and inlet are on opposite sides of the filter.
I then cut a plexiglass divider to seperate the intake and outlet sides of the tank. My plexiglass divider has a small opening at the bottom that allows water (and very small fish) to pass through the divider to the intake side of the tank. It is my hope that the fry would find themselves getting sucked through to the intake side of the tank and would be naturally seperated from mom and dad. I also covered the intake with a piece of sponge so that the fry would not get sucked into the filter.
Here are some pictures.
Picture of the opening in the bottom of the divider
Top view of the divider which seperates the intake and outlet
Side view of the same
The real trick here is the size of the small opening. Hopefully mine is the correct size. I will post back here after I have fry and see if the idea actually worked.
I would appreciate any input.
)
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