Born to Breed

Yea those are more like what I was hoping for but as I said above I pretty much have to take what I can get. In my marine hatchery I used Cyclops-Eaze to bring out the deep color in my clownfish and others, it's loaded with astaxanthin. If I can source it I'll use it (either) but it's doubtful I'll find it, maybe in Mexico City

Where I live there are no LFS, there is a little pet kiosk in a local mall. Sourcing broodstock is not easy so I have been courting the owner of that shop, he has access to Mexico City wholesalers. I asked him to get me 5 Koi Angels, I was expecting more orange than yellow but in my position I pretty much have to take what I can get. Also they are bigger than I expected but that isn't really such a bad thing I suppose. Anyway he brought in twelve, I ended up selecting six which turned out to be a good idea since one didn't make it 24 hours 😞 After one week the remaining 5 are doing great, eating voraciously but ONLY at the surface, they want floating food. If it starts to descend they will follow it a few inches down but that's it. The one at the very top in this photo is the big dog on the porch, I'm glad because it's the best looking. The three larger ones are maybe a tad over 2" body length and like I say the one fish is pretty bossy so I'm thinking it may not take all that long for a pair to form. I'm excited !🤣 As an only tangentially related note can anyone tell me why my photos always come out sideways on this site? It's only here, not a problem anywhere else.

Yes this is already really frustrating for me, I am used to pulling nests and dealing with 100's of larvae that all come at once. That is actually much easier than this one here, one there style of raising fish. I've already realized that moving the fry to a separate tank is not practical so I'm going for the wild "let nature take it's course" approach 🤣 I removed all adult fish but the pregnant females and do have a fair amount of live and plastic plants in there. Also I added some guppies to sort of fill the gap between the adults and the new fry. There are one month and two month old juveniles in there as well. The adults don't really seem interested in eating fry, they even bump into them sometimes and totally disregard them.

Trust me I can get pretty creative. The 110L stock tank was under $40 at a local store and the storage tote sump was about $25. However the Sea Clear acrylic 40 was nearly $600 on Amazon.mex 🤑

The last time I bred and raised any FW livebearers like platys, mollies and swordtails I was in high school, that was fifty years ago 🤣 I've been strictly marine for the past 30 years or so but now I'm returning to my roots. I have a lot of experience breeding marine species but this is totally different. Is it normal for a female to drop just a few fry per day over several days? I thought they'd all come at once but no, I have 3 platy's and a molly all doing the same thing, a few per day for several days. ?????????

No LFS, too expensive to ship, what do you do? You build one!😀 I'm calling it a 22L, 95 X 30 X 30 cm.

We have two big stores that are like Walmart super centers, they sell groceries as well as household goods, tools, appliances, even motorcycles! One of them has a little pet shop kiosk, he has a few tanks but he's more about selling gerbils and dog food, he's not really a fish guy. BUT he has access to wholesalers in Mexico City so I've been cultivating a relationship, he got me 4 of the 5 clown loaches I have and with patience I'm sure he can get whatever I ask for, it's just that I'll pretty much have to take what I get whether I like them or not.

Sadly no, that was before the days of smart phones. I did have a digital camera but the computer any photos were stored on died long ago 😞

Hi Folks, David here, retired and living the dream in southern Mexico on the Oaxacan coast. Like many here I've been a tropical fish hobbyist since I was 7 or 8 years old but I did step it up a notch for several years in Southern California where I owned and operated a commercial marine ornamentals hatchery called Seahorse Aquatics. I raised seahorses (of course), several clownfish species, several dottyback species, some gobies and a few others. I had to give it up for financial reasons but now I'm retired and have nothing to do all day but play with fish tanks. Admittedly the bulk of my more advanced experience is with marine species but of course I started out with the same entry level FW fish as most people do and now I'm going back to basics; I have mollies, platys and swordtails going and I am trying to get some angelfish. There is no LFS here and no Live Aquaria so sourcing fish is difficult. If I can find them I also want to try some German Blue Rams. Also just for kicks I'm forming a colony of clown loaches, have collected 5 so far. My real goal is to farm tilapia aquaponically and grow food as well but I'm still in an apartment (looking for a site) so small fish in tanks are all I can manage at this time. I've watched a zillion You Tube videos lately and Aquarium Coop keeps showing up as a legit source for information so I'm hoping to become an active member. Thanks for reading, more later :)