# Infusoria for sparkling gourami fry



## Cherries (3 Feb 2021)

Hello all ☺️

Since I have noticed my sparkling gouramis nest today, I need to act fast to make some quick infusoria for fry that soon will hatch.

I’m unsure where and how to start with this. I have one empty lucozade bottle tht been laying around for weeks and I could use it. What do I add to the bottle and when infusoria will be seen and be usable?


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## ScareCrow (3 Feb 2021)

I'm not sure if you'll be able to culture them in time, there maybe some people on here that have away of speeding it along but there is a guide here. Not the most concise but does cover the process and there are lots of other fish breeding/rearing videos on his channel. Description of the process starts at about 3mins in.


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## Gill (3 Feb 2021)

you can make infusoria in as little as a jam jar. Tank water with a lettuce leaf, leave it in a nice sunny window and you will see the water become cloudy overnight. this is infusoria. 
If you have an LFS nearby that sells live food i would also get some daphnia from them and you can use that. 
If all else fails then just use Egg Yolk. Just a hard boiled egg, and take a pea sized amount of the egg yolk and mix it into a paste using the tank water. And just put it into the tank, and the fry will find it. You can feed egg yolk for up to a week until you can sort out another food source.


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## dw1305 (3 Feb 2021)

Hi all, 


ScareCrow said:


> I'm not sure if you'll be able to culture them in time,


There are a few sellers of "Paramecium" Ebay. They are a bit of work to keep the cultures going long term, mainly because of contamination issues. 

<"Vinegar Eels"> (_Turbatrix aceti_) are a very low maintenance alternative, although even they are too big for newly hatched _Trichopsis pumila_ fry. 

<"Green water"> is what you really want for very small fry. Easily cultured in a coffee jar etc. on a sunny windowsill, start with some pond water, with a small amount of fertiliser added (<"Miracle Gro" is a good cheap one">).  You have the same issues with contamination, which is great for the fish fry, but means you have to carry on sub-culturing it to keep it green.

cheers Darrel


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## Cherries (3 Feb 2021)

Thank you for all your fast replies 😊

Green water sounds easy to make as much as the infusoria but I don’t have any lawn fertilisers at home, Tetra Planta Min is the only one I have and is for fish tank plants. 

But I’m not sure if it would work out..? But if it would how would I feed the fry with it?

Infusoria sounds good so far, I will start preparing it after my live lessons ☺️

But I should be safe for now with food, the nest seems empty for now and fresh. I don’t know how fish can confuse me haha.

I will look at the nest in the late evening to see if something has happened, but I heard them click before.

Pretty exciting


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## dw1305 (3 Feb 2021)

Hi all, 


Cherries said:


> Tetra Planta min


You can try <"that one">, it doesn't contain nitrogen etc.  so it isn't ideal. 


Cherries said:


> But if it would how would I feed the fry with it?


You would need to transfer the fry to a small container (<"usually floated  in the tank">) with a a small amount of water in it  add a snail and some moss, floating plants or hornwort etc. and then feed the green water into the container, you need to swap the water out every day, really carefully. Once they've grown a bit you can transfer them back to the tank. 

I use a <"different "method" to raise a few fry">, and that is leave them in the tank but feed some very small food even if I don't have any obvious fry. I <"keep *very weedy* tanks">, which makes fry survival more likely.

cheers Darrel


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## Cherries (3 Feb 2021)

I’m not really sure on what the different method is..and how big the container should be? Okay, I may start producing green water today as well 
As in weedy tank you mean loads of algae in the tank right?


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## zozo (3 Feb 2021)

I had Pumila fry surviving on its own devices in a mature aquarium that had leaf litter and Alder cones in it.
It was pretty densely planted and I actually (unfortunately) never noticed the parents nesting and never noticed any fry... All of a sudden to my surprise a saw a few tiny Pumila's about 5mm big venturing out of the dense vegetation. Obviously, the aquarium was mature enough to raise a few on its own. There also were other fish that seemingly never got the chance to get to them when they still were fry.

So I guess having leaf litter etc. in the tank already can help a great deal...

And now that spring is near and the temps are getting better if you have a garden then put a tub/bucket with water outside with leaflitter in it... It might be a matter of weeks or even sooner and all kinds of goodies are in the bucket ready to net it out. Looking at a drop with a pocket microscope may reveal that you could scoop some water from the bucket containing microorganisms and add this to the tank.


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## dw1305 (3 Feb 2021)

Hi all,


Cherries said:


> As in weedy tank you mean loads of algae in the tank right?


No, <"I just means loads of plants">, normally I don't have much algae, but in terms of the fish it doesn't really matter <"what the plants are">, you just need <"a thick mass of them">.  I'm a fan of <"leaf litter"> as well.

Have a look at the last couple of pages of <"Windswept Eternity">.

cheers Darrel


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## Cherries (3 Feb 2021)

Right, just a heavily planted tank?
I may add my other bits of hornwort to the tank, tank is quite densely planted now. Looks like it. The hornwort started to fill in 
Maybe I just should let the fry that hatch try to survive on their own?


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## zozo (3 Feb 2021)

Cherries said:


> Maybe I just should let the fry that hatch try to survive on their own?



As said in my case it was a few and completely incidental without me noticing any...  I don't know the results if there were no other fish in the tank probably snacking fry for breakfast...

And I have no idea what your plans are if you like to have the maximum survive you might need to add extra food as by suggestions given above... If you don't mind any result even 0 then sit back and see what happens... Adding leaf litter and alder cones etc. will help to grow a larger microorganism population the fry will snack on. And hide under the leaves... Not cleaning the tank and let algae grow where ever it wants to grow also helps to provide food... 

In my case densely planted looked like this.




It actually is something you can not see if a tank is mature enough to sustain a small fry population on its own. But some tanks do if mature enough... I have another planted aquarium that has no longer any fish in it so I thought. Thus I didn't put any food into it for months... And all of a sudden I see an old Hara jerdoni appear again that I haven't seen for even longer. Obviously, it's surviving and eating something without my help.  Years ago there were over 10, today i have no idea if there are more than 1 left, they are seemingly very good in hiding.


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## Cherries (3 Feb 2021)

Very nice tank! Better than mine haha 
The filter I have in that tank currently, it has been running for almost three years I think and it’s been cycled so I’d guess it is mature but not balanced hence the algae, I’ll add the other bit of hornwort to the tank and remove the guppies and will not clean it at all for now and see what happens


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