[Killietalk] RE: Planning to do something with those fry?

["Koran, David HQ02" <David_Koran at HQ02.USACE.ARMY.MIL>]

It is hard to estimate what you need to have success with a species but
allow me to take a stab.  Whatever the volume of tank you handle your
breeders you should probably figure an investment of twice that in support
space to handle offsprings.  That volume of water is also probably best
handled in about 5 containers of various sizes.

I breed natives, Aphanius and pupfish mainly in 10 gallon tanks (in an
outdoor building mostly and during the warmer months of year).  I breed
annuals and African killies in 2 gallon plastic tanks.  I am an egg picker
for all but the annual killies.  Equipment is a few hundred petri dishes,
one pint clear food containers to receive the hatched fry, 1.5 gallon
(Rubbermaid) shoeboxes to rear fry in the early stages, 3 gallon
(Rubbermaid) Clearbox sweater box (these are the workhorses of my fish room,
unfortunately the folks who own the Rubbermaid product line at this time
believe you need legs on sweater boxes and have made these containers
discontinued except for the Menard's Home Improvement chain in the upper
midwest), 7 gallon Rubbermaid flat Clearboxes to "warehouse" young fish and
the occasional 10 gallon tank not used to handle breeders.  Sterilite 7
gallon flat storage boxes with flat bottoms do occasionally appear and can
be used in place of the Rubbermaid ones.

During the last three summers I have set up 45 to 70 10 gallon tanks for
breeding purposes in my "outside" room/greenhouse and produced an average of
about 4000 young fish (counted at about 6 weeks of age when I brought them
indoors).  That translates into about 100-125 3 gallon containers of fish
each November to find space for!  The loss rate is about 25% during the
first year about half of which I attribute to "survival of the fittest" and
some young overly aggressive males with the other half being deteriorated
water conditions not addressed soon enough.  I do move a large number of
fish during the winter and spring to other individuals but surprisingly I
retain 50-60% of the counted fish to the start of next breeding season.  I
estimate 60 10 gallon tanks of breeders is supported by 200 3 gallon and 40
7 gallon and maybe 30-40 1.5 gallon containers plus some additional
seasonally variable amount of containers--the effort is to maintain
sustainable populations of species of 50-200 each.

Dave Koran

To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/