tolstoy21

Here are some of my first attempts at macro/fish photography with my bridge camera, a Panasonic Lumix FZ200. Pics a little noisy and exposure wasn't the best, but here they is! (I touched these up a bit using Mac's built in Preview app).

So what's the best way to light an aquarium if your interest is photographing the fish specifically and not the larger aquascape? Lots of light from above from LEDs or using a flash suspended above the aquarium? Imagine money and portability are not part of the equation. Which works better? Does one work better for specific uses cases, and vice versa. I'm not rich (I wish!) but, like I said, just trying to get a pure perspective on how to best light the subjects (i.e the fish) independent of the cost and other considerations, like portability.

I have corys spawn and successfully survive it in planted, heavily barb-stocked 125 gallon all the time. I started with 2 salt and pepper corys about 5 years ago and have maybe 30 now. Not sure about plecos, but with the corys, the key is having a lot of cover lower down, like a dense carpet, or rocks they can hide inside the nooks and crannies of until they large enough to not get gobbled up.

Ok, fuzzy, terrible picture. I know. But I wanted to take a moment to share some information about my current breeding attempt at these guys (and gals). This is like maybe attempt #7, and it has thus far yielded decent results. In the past few days, a few dozen or so fry have emerged from hiding. I'm hoping many more will make their presence known over the course of the next week. My experience has been that every day, more have been emerging, and their numbers compound daily. Exciting stuff! What did I do differently this time? I left the adults in for a week. I also covered the bottom of the tank heavily with live sphagnum moss, java moss and Indian almond leaves, having observed that these fish like hiding in dense bottom-litter, unseen, for the initial few weeks after spawn. Seems you kind of just have to feed the tank and hope for the best with these guys, having faith during that initial period that someone is alive in there. Two days after I introduced the adults, I started feeding 3 times a day with a some turkey basters full of paramecium. After a week, I added vinegar eels and sera micron to the rotation. Once i saw my first fry, I started feeding BBS. A little at first, and now more and more as fry start emerging from hiding. I'll probably stop feeding paramecium and sera micron in the next few days. I'm unsure at this moment in time how many smaller fry are still in hiding. Still no note taking (um, I forget). Admittedly, as a lifelong sufferer of ADHD--yeah, um, note taking, who am I kidding. Not happening! 🙂 So how old are these fry? Yeah, I also forgot to write the date on the front of the tank! Tank params -- Ph wavers in the mid 6's. GH about 8. Temp 76-77F. Hopefully i'll have a nice large school of these blue beauties in the next month or so. Wish me luck!

I’ve spawned and raised a lot of apisto cacs in the past few years on bare bottom tanks, sand and gravel substrate. I keep a few in my personal tanks as well. My opinion is that apisto cacs don’t care about the substrate that much. They might prefer one over the other, but they won’t be harmed by fluorite vs sand. What they do prefer is plants, leaf litter, driftwood, hiding places, a cave, etc. I think you’ll be fine with fluorite as long as you focus on those other aspects. Situate things in the tank so they have lots of places to tuck away, like if you have driftwood, prop it up just a tiny bit so they can hang out under it. I find that that, and leaf litter is what keeps them happy as they like to pick through the leaf litter and forage for morsels of food in it as it decays.

The #10 is the one that comes with the hatchers.

I'm in the northeast, so as far as I know, there isn't large-scale use of pesticides or fertilizers like you might find in more agricultural areas. Lots of forest. I've been experimenting with deeper leaf litter in some breeding projects to keep Ph low and tannins higher to help control fungus, as well as provide shelter, shade and infusoria for teeny-tiny fry. I've used peat, which is either messy or you have to purchase in a cleaner pellet form. And I'm burning through IA leaves. I know people use oak and there is so much free oak leaf litter in my area I'd be silly to not try it. Anyway, thanks for feedback/advice thus far!

Yeah, that's top notch advice that you don't hear too often when you begin. Cranking up the lights on a bunch of new plants doesn't help establish them; it just creates problems with algae. On the plant front, I'd also suggest keeping it simple at first. A well-placed sword or two is an easy plant that, over time, grows into a lush wonderful-looking specimen. They are easy to prune and don't require a lot of maintenance other than a bunch of root tabs every few months. Anubias are also easy, but for the beginner, green spot algae and black-brush algae can be frustrating as all heck. I LOVE!!!!! anubias, but that aspect of them for a beginner who also dealing with bacterial blooms, diatom algae, learning how to tweak lighting -- that can be maddening.

I would say wait it out. The tank is going to go through some 'yuck' phases in the beginning, and the best thing you can do it just take it slow, don't run out and get a bunch of products to fix your cloudy water or clear algae. At most, adjust light intensity or timing, but in slow increments. And if you're dosing with ferts, maybe adjust those, but again in slow increments. I inherited a few aquariums from a friend of the family who buys them, then gives up in frustration because they can't make it through that settle-in period. They buy a tank, set it up, drop in a bunch of products, kill fish, then ask me if I want another aquarium. They reach out through my in-laws, so I don't talk to the directly, but I have passed on advice numerous times, and have offered to exchange emails. When we set up new tanks in my own home, I have to remind my wife - 'Yeah I agree this looks like crap right now, but you know how it goes, just hang in there.'

I've noticed the same with IA leaves (unless you've used those and noticed different). They don't start attacking them until they are soft and breaking down. I actually use IA leaves in my breeding tanks, and when they get real mushy, I'll net them out and drop them in the shrimp tanks. I guess as much as for food for shrimp, I'm also wondering about their tannic properties. Are they equivalent? Does one use more oak leaves, less? Will they attract squirrels? (Ok the last one was a joke, until that actually happens and then its not!) I could certainly experiment with this, but if someone has experience they can share, that would give me a direction. I guess I could also spend some more time on the googles, and see what the WWW has to say.

If you're talking about the plastic air stones that come with the Ziss Artemia Blender. I also use these inside uplift tubes for matten or under-gravel filter, as they are nice and slender and the perfect size for 3/4" tubing.

Anyone have experience with this? I have a bazillion oak trees around me and wanted to make the switch so I can stop spending on IA leaves. For anyone who has used both, are the comparable? Pros? Cons? (Aside from making sure they are clean and pesticide free and all that). Any observations would be greatly appreciated.

@Guppysnail has some pretty solid advice. If you snip your stems above a leaf union, new shoots will grow out from those. As you repeat doing this, the plants will thicken (in the bonsai world, this is known as ramification). This technique applies to a lot of terrestrial plants as well, roses, hedges, etc. This is why trimming a boxwood with hedge clippers produces such a thick hedge. It encourages denser branching at the place you prefer it to happen. In the rose world, this encourages a nice dense bush, full of flowers. Failing to do this encourages the plant to grow slender and tall and to concentrate all its energy towards the top of the plant. Snipping a stem diverts that energy into creating new branches from the leaf unions. Of course, this is also somewhat dependent of the variety of plant and its behavior, so being familiar with a variety helps as well. Personally, I would snip my plants about 2/3 of the way down, to encourage branching closer to the base, instead of higher up. If the plants are not well established, make sure to leave some existing healthy leaves on them so they have a way to continue root development and continue to have energy to branch. And yes, at the same time, replant the cuttings. Planned, directed pruning and replanting cuttings together will produce a nice, thick patch of plants. These beautiful gardens and aqauscapes we see are typically not the result of letting plants do their thang. They involve a lot of direction and intervention from the humans tending them.

I was finally able to get about a dozen fry from these fish. I bred them by putting 2 adults (males/female of course!) in a 2.5 gallon filled with java moss, Indian almond leaves and some peat pellets in a small media bag. The Ph was pretty low, under 6.0. The KH or my water is near zero naturally. I didn't record the GH for the tank because I didn't take notes (like a dope) and I forget if I cut the water with RO water. My GH is normally about 8. So GH was under 8. Water temps were about 78F. I put the adults in the afternoon, left them overnight, visually watched them spawn at first light the next day, and then pulled them. I could see eggs scattered about the tank bottom. The subsequent fry that resulted, however, were so small and secretive I was convinced I had failed. This would have been failure number 5 or so, but I blindly kept feeding the tank paramecium for about 2+ weeks, hoping for the best. I began noticing fry after week 2 (maybe this was week 3?) after I intentionally disturbed the java moss and leaf litter to see if anything living was in the aquarium at all. My limited and initial observations suggest to me that these fry will stay in the bottom of the tank, hiding under leaf litter for quite a while before making their presence known. I didn't see any fry clinging to glass or hanging out in in the java fern or java moss I had floating mid-water. And I had looked every day extensively with a magnifying glass. Once the fry were big enough to take brine shrimp (around week three? four? I need to take better notes!) I started doing water changes, preparing to move them and acclimate them to the water in the rest of my aquariums. I now have them in a breeder box, hanging on the tank that is the next phase of this experiment. My new goal is to determine how to breed these in larger numbers. I'm still not sure how many eggs are released in a day, or if these fish just release small numbers daily. Right now, I have 2 adult pairs in a 20 gallon. The bottom of the tank is covered in IA leaves and java moss. I have live sphagnum moss floating at the surface to provide subdued lighting and help regulate the PH, as well as peat pellets in the filter. This tank is on auto-water change, so the Ph has yet to drop below 6.4. But I think that's a reasonable place for it for the time being. Time will tell. (Maybe I should take notes?). (** Note to self, take notes **). 😜 My current plan is to leave the adults in for a full 2 weeks, then pull them. Then just keep feeding the tank paramecium, then some vinegar eels, until I see evidence of fry. I'm fairly certain the adults wont eat the eggs or bother the fry in these initial 2 weeks, as they rarely go to into the java moss, and these fry are super-hiders. Anyway, just figured I'd document my experience for anyone interested.

Well, to be fair, I either saw this on YouTube or read it on a post somewhere else. So I can't take credit other than the credit for passing along the tribal knowledge. I've done this a bunch and it works well.

@Manny You can also create a little basket or box out of egg create / diffuser. Put the shells in that and suspend it up near the surface of the tank. (I suction cup mine 3/4 of the way up). The multis don't prefer being elevated. When you leave and they come out of their shells, they will abandon the elevated shells and swim to the bottom. Of course, you need a second tank to do this. But I guess this could work in a bucket just as easily.

I find the Buce Plant java fern “mother pots” to be decently sized plants.

How long are the power outages you’re anticipating? I have my main display tank on a UPS to deal with shorter term power disruptions that affect equipment, pumps, etc.

I’ve used both crushed coral and Seachem alkaline/ acid buffers + equilibrium to good effect in these situations. Crushed coral is a longer term, slower acting, acting solution. The Seachem products are very good for mixing into your change water, much better than something like ph up. My preference these days is crushed coral for tanks I have something to put it in, like a box or hob filter.

Aquabid is a safe place to buy fish. Just base your choice on the seller’s ratings. I got multis from WetSpot a few years back. Great healthy fish. I’ve since sold a bunch on aquabid myself, as well as eBay, and am currently growing the colony back up again.

@gjcarew Thanks for linking that podcast. I just gave it a listen and it's very good. I don't find his accent that thick. I'd be inclined to say 'what accent?', but maybe that's because I also live in NJ (born and bred, Jersey Strong! and all that). His voice reminds me of my grandfather's. Hearing his accent against @Randy's is a nice contrast in the two coasts -- patient, grizzled wisdom compared to bright-eyed enthusiasm and optimism. I'm wondering if the sphagnum moss he uses in his tanks is live or dried? Or does it even matter?

Thanks for the response. I have a false bottom setup for Odessas and get pretty large spawns using this method. They lay a good number of eggs in one go However, I’m working on breeding Inpaichthys Kerri right now, and want to take a crack at chili rasbioras. The tetras, at least, spawn every morning in moderate amounts (at least this has been my experience thus far). I get and raise fry, but so far just in small numbers since I don’t have the time nor containers to collect and hatch the eggs laid every day. I was going to try to just leave the fish to their own devices over a giant bed of java moss and some catalpa leaf litter and see what comes from that. I’ve observed that the fry like to spend their first weeks under the leaf litter, and that the tannins also help a bit with fighting back fungus. Meth blue works better in my experiments, but this requires me to collect and separate the eggs.

What's the best way to get decent numbers of fry from fish that scatter eggs daily in small amounts (as opposed to those that spew a bazillion eggs in one go)? I've been collecting eggs from some of my fish by using a glass dish with java moss, and this has been successful for small numbers, but this tedious and I have only so many containers to keep the variously aged juveniles in. Dos it make sense to just leave the adults in a tank full of java moss and leaves and other plants that offer ample hiding space, knowing some fry and eggs will get eaten, but that many will survive? Do this in a tub? What are people's experiences with ways to maximize their breeding efforts with fish like Celestial Pearl Danio's etc?

I often wonder about this after accidentally drinking tank water, or getting a mouthful of substrate sludge while starting a siphon. My next thought is usually something like ‘meh, something will kill me eventually, might as well be this.’

I'll probably move into the tank with the parents when it gains some more size. I have a betta in there that might find it a tasty snack at this moment in time. The tank it's in now has a ton of java fern with lots of roots, and a bunch of leaf litter. So it has ample hiding space. Probably how it got this far and grew big enough for the adult female apisto to ignore it.