Tinting Fry Tank Water - How Much / How Long?

[SnowDog]

I'm making some progress on my clownfish breeding "adventure" and have a few that have made it to day 14 now. A second hatch is three days old but not that many hatched and more did not make it past the first day.

One question I'm struggling with is how much to tint the fry tank water and for how long should I keep it tinted? I see a lot of videos where the water does not look tinted at all or very very little. Any tips or suggestions would be really helpful.

 

[WesleyC]

I always keep mine green for as long as I feed them rotifer. You can keep it as dark green as you like. At one point, mine got so dark that I couldn't see the bottom for my daily maintenance of sucking up poops at the bottom of the tank. I knew I've gone too far that time.

Regarding the reason of tinting the tank, first think about your feeding procedure. Before we feed rotifer to the fish fly, we always soak them into phyto for 10-15 minutes first. Then we dump the phyto along with the rotifer into the fly tank. Why? Rotifer is just a shell and has no nutritional value. That's why we want to stuff it with phyto first. For any left over rotifer in the fly tank that has not been eaten, they will eventually become empty and has no nutrition again. So, we want to always keep some phyto in the tank for them to eat. Also, less chance for them to starve to dead and create more pollution in your fly tank.

Checkout some of my video here. You can see their stomach is stuffed with rotifer. Their stomach is almost as big as their head.




Very green.

 

[FLAquaTech]

are you raising the fry in glass aquariums or plastic tanks? the reason I ask is that the contrast between your live feeds and the tank wall will help the fry track down their food. Phyto works well if you are using a glass tank (not blacked out) but unless you are using live phyto you are degrading your water quality with anything you add. Live phyto is beneficial for when you are feeding the fry rots but a commercial vitamin enrichment like selco or s.presso is a better option. has way more nutrition and the gut loaded live feeds are usually orange colored from ingesting the enrichment and highly visible in the tank to the fry.

 

[FLAquaTech]

are you raising the fry in glass aquariums or plastic tanks? the reason I ask is that the contrast between your live feeds and the tank wall will help the fry track down their food. Phyto works well if you are using a glass tank (not blacked out) but unless you are using live phyto you are degrading your water quality with anything you add. Live phyto is beneficial for when you are feeding the fry rots but a commercial vitamin enrichment like selco or s.presso is a better option. has way more nutrition and the gut loaded live feeds are usually orange colored from ingesting the enrichment and highly visible in the tank to the fry.

 

[SnowDog]

After some trial and "error" I was able to set up a drip system to continuously add new saltwater and keep it properly tinted. I'm using RGComplete and also cleaning out the tank every day. The end result is a 20% water change daily with the drip system and cleanout. So far it seems to be working and the fry got through meta and are growing like crazy.

 

[Mike N]

I know it's been a while, but how about an update on this?
I found this thread while trying to figure out if rgcomplete was suitable to tint the fry tank water.

 

[FishDoc]

I know it's been a while, but how about an update on this?
I found this thread while trying to figure out if rgcomplete was suitable to tint the fry tank water.

RGComplete and other prepared algal foods are suitable for tinting the water column to provide contrast for the feeding fry. Not all are created equal however so be cautious with the amount you add otherwise you may run into issues with water quality.