How often should I change the water in a 55 gallon with 200 three week old fry? It's been about a month since a change but they are so tiny I'm afraid to use the python hose. I have a filter sock on the intake filter so they don't get sucked up. Most of the time they stay in 2 equal sized groups or get under the gravel but during the day they're all over the tank. I give them 1 ounce of First Bites baby food a day...powder mixed with water.

Fry need very good water conditions so you should be trying to keep your nitrates as low as possible. I wouldn't have thought it would difficult to keep them extremely low since I wouldn't thought we would create much waste. So just test the water every couple of days and carry out changes accordingly. I would say keep your nitrate below 20 ppm

I just came back to the computer after doing a partial change using a bucket. I don't want to lose a single one of them. This is the 7th batch of eggs and none have made it this far so I'm trying to leave them alone as much as possible. I took Mom and Dad away the day after the eggs were laid so they wouldn't eat them again and lost some to the white fungus. It worries me that they dig so deep into the gravel but they keep coming back out. I'm afraid they'll get too big, go in and not be able to get out. I can see me moving gravel piece by piece to help them out lol.

Tie some tights around the end of the tube, that should stop any getting sucked out.

I have a filter sock on it to keep them out. If any did get in the canister filter would they die? would they come back out the inflow? Mmmm, I should go look and see what's in there

If they are real small i suspect that any that get sucked into the filter are not gonna have enough strength to swim back out and would die, but it depends on the size and power of the filter and the size of the fry. If you are really worried about this then make a plastic box with lots of small holes in and fix it around the filter intake. This way the flow of water into each hole will be a lot less than around the filter intake and make it less likely that any fry will get sucked in. Watch out for the holes in the box getting blocked by gunk

I've had the filter sock on since they started swimming, it's fine mesh so none could get through, I'd just hate to know one or some were in the filter in a panic trying to get out. I checked, I don't see any so I can relax. Yes they're tiny but I can see growth almost everyday. That tank is gonna look so cool with so many little ones swimming, I'll post pics