Arrangement Issue

[Tiger]

Hi All,
I am at a loss as to what should be the correct move, hope you guys/gals can give me a pointer.

Currently I got a set of 3ft tank, by 1.5'W by 1.5'H, 2 tier kind.
Got 2 set of melon fries, Set A about 34 pieces of 2 to 2.5" fries at the upper tier, Set B about 43 pieces of 1" fries at the lower tier.

But it seems SetB is not eating too well, only about 5-6pieces of them came out to feed during feeding time, whereas SetA are all hungry ghost.

So I move SetB up to be together with SetA to the upper tier tank, and all are happily feeding like more hungry ghost now.

But due to the large group, the water and I think the Bio Load is too great and water always cloudy. I change about 50% every night now.
The tank is now serviced by a eheim canister filter and 4 air stones to give more aeration.
Is this arrangement OK or will some of them become stunted due to this large group, should I split them up again to 2 tanks after some weeks or what sign should I look out for I make any changes.

Tks

[flukes]

Do you have test kits?? Check the nitrates and see how long it takes before they start too climb over 10ppm, if its too quick like under 24hours you'll need too seperate them, if not you'll have too do daily water changes to keep the nitrates down...

Any readings of nitrite or ammonia and you'll need more filtration or seperate the group..

[Merrilyn]

Tiger, that's a very interesting situation. I have had a two tier set up myself, and I always found the fry in the lower rack never did as well as the fry in the upper rack. Coincidence, maybe, but I found that by moving them around, the growth seemed to even out.

Now in your case, 80 young fish in a three foot tank is too many. You can improve the situation by changing 50% of the water twice a day, or increase to 80% once each day.

In a couple of weeks, you are going to have to separate them. I would put the larger fish in the bottom tank, and the smaller ones in the upper tank. Watch their progress and if you see any falling behind, then move them into the other tank.

[sunshinediscus]

Far too crowded, you are much better off to raise a more reasonable number of fry. IMO better to have 40 good fish than 80 culls and runts. A small tank like a 36 x 18 x 18 i would raise no more than 20 fish to 5cm.

JMO