Other Fry Subjects:

Nursery Setups

 Feeding Fry

Raising Fry

Fry Environment

Nursery Setups

I'm attaching a drawing of my nursery set up as well as a photo. Don't laugh! I'm no artist.. but hopefully it gives the idea. Mostly I stole the ideas from other set ups (mostly David M)  Basically it's two of the drum shape plastic fishbowls (from Wal-Mart) set on a shelf in a 10 gallon cycled tank.  I use live rock and caluerpa that have been treated with Panacur or boiled (not the macro) to avoid hydroids and other nasties. 

The bowls in my first nursery sit on what they call eggcrate that's a grid for fluorescent lighting.  I find the eggcrate hard to clean of nuisance algae so in my second nursery I have set the fishbowls on Tupperware containers filled with clean saltwater (leaks will not cause a problem) and removable for ease of cleaning.   Note:  my latest setup uses a deep sand bed under the bowls.

An airline comes in 1/2 way down the rounded sides with bubbles about 2 per second.  With the water level very high in the bowls, the bubbles follow the sides of the bowl and are pushed towards the top middle pulling the water in the same direction and causing a very gentle "Ferris wheel" motion that keeps the fry and food in motion which keeps the fry away from the surface and they cannot snick air.

There are 2" holes in the flat sides of the bowls for water flow. These holes are covered with mesh to keep fry in and slow the exit of food critters - be sure to silicone the mesh to the inside of the tank and do not leave any bits loose - fry will find any opportunity to get into trouble.  I recently heard that some people put these holes as high as possible and actually raise the fish bowl during feeding so water level is just below the holes to increase food density and then lower it after feeding to allow the "food" to escape into the main tank.  The hang on filter on the back of the tank has a hose (airline) into each bowl to bring in filtered water that then flows out the side hole. I keep the water dark green with phytoplankton and keep as many pods as possible available.