Large BBS Hatchery

[Tres]

I have been feeding my guppies bbs for some time now, however I am getting a little tired of the 2 liter method.

So, I ignored the common advice about not using a flat bottomed container and just started hatching them from a 5 gallon bucket.


This has been somewhat unsuccessful, but of course due to the flat bottom, all the eggs sink to the bottom and the air stone doesn't really circulate them that well.

I have a couple of solutions, and want to know what you think...

1) Get one of those flexible air "stones" and wrap it around the bottom in a spiral pattern. I think this will help circulate better, but I am certain there will still be places where the eggs collect on the bottom.

2) Find a larger cone shaped container and set it up just like a 2 liter bottle hatchery.

I think the 2nd method is where I want to go in the long run, but I just can't seem to think of a cone shaped container that can hold around 4 or 5 gallons of water...

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Tres]

Oh ya, one other idea I had was to use a small powerhead to circulate the water at the bottom, but I figure the impeller will kill the bbs....

Any ideas on how to circulate the water in a 5 gallon bucket without killing the bbs?

[toddnbecka]

Why not invest in one of the in-tank hatchers? Just drop in eggs as necessary, and the bbs swim out into the tank on their own as they hatch.

[Deanbetta]

i have seen bbs hatched without the use of air just by cutting a 5 gallon bottle in halves from top to bottom and add the required amount of salt to the volume of water in the half of the bottle and let it sit in the sun for about 18-36 hours and you will still get a hihg hatch rate. therefore i am saying just maybe you could increase the temperture in the bucket and see what happens:c3:

[Futureboy]

more bottles...

put like 4 or 5 of them on a rack

[Tres]

I had thought about using more bottles... I could do that but I can't figure out where to hang them , not much space to work with, doh!

I will try raising the temp a bit, but I am already at 80F and supposedly 86F is the max they can handle?


Why not invest in one of the in-tank hatchers? Just drop in eggs as necessary, and the bbs swim out into the tank on their own as they hatch.

Now that is a novel idea... where can I get one?
*Runs to google*

Thanks for the ideas!