I am not new to aquarium keeping. I have two larger tanks: a 65 gallon and a 72 gallon. Both are heavily planted freshwater with an assortment of fish.
I am trying to raise albino cory fry. I am using a 20 gallon tank with no substrate. I started with a sponge filter and took some media from my established tank's filter and put it in a bag. Once the fry hatched and absorbed their egg sac I added some moss from my established tank so they would have some microscopic stuff to eat. After that I fed them with newly hatched brine shrimp and "baby fish formula" by Nutrafin.
I do 40-50% water changes daily.
All was well until about the 8th day and I noticed the fry were not moving about as usual. I tested the water and the ph had dropped drastically to beyond my test's reading. I immediately did a 50% water change and added some crushed oyster shell in a bag.
Fry continued to die and I removed the oyster shell and the filter media, assuming that the sponge filter would be well inoculated by now.
My corys continued spawning so I added the eggs and have (had) a mixture of ages of fry.
Today the fry were again not moving about and some were dead or dying. The water was extremely alkaline to about 8.8 or maybe more.
What on earth am I doing wrong?
I added a HOB filter and put the media in there. I also bought a small piece of driftwood and added it as well as put a small piece of growing pellets for starting seeds made from coconut which dropped the ph of my tap water slightly into the HOB filter.
Any and all advice is very welcome.
I am trying to raise albino cory fry. I am using a 20 gallon tank with no substrate. I started with a sponge filter and took some media from my established tank's filter and put it in a bag. Once the fry hatched and absorbed their egg sac I added some moss from my established tank so they would have some microscopic stuff to eat. After that I fed them with newly hatched brine shrimp and "baby fish formula" by Nutrafin.
I do 40-50% water changes daily.
All was well until about the 8th day and I noticed the fry were not moving about as usual. I tested the water and the ph had dropped drastically to beyond my test's reading. I immediately did a 50% water change and added some crushed oyster shell in a bag.
Fry continued to die and I removed the oyster shell and the filter media, assuming that the sponge filter would be well inoculated by now.
My corys continued spawning so I added the eggs and have (had) a mixture of ages of fry.
Today the fry were again not moving about and some were dead or dying. The water was extremely alkaline to about 8.8 or maybe more.
What on earth am I doing wrong?
I added a HOB filter and put the media in there. I also bought a small piece of driftwood and added it as well as put a small piece of growing pellets for starting seeds made from coconut which dropped the ph of my tap water slightly into the HOB filter.
Any and all advice is very welcome.