CinGA

Yup. I heard more stories like that so I separated the males and females and have a small tank for breeding purposes with two unbred females in there. Since I learned they can store milt, they will forever stay in that tank. I just brought one of my two males over to visit for a day and we’ll see how that goes. He definitely was doing his little courting dance so I’m hopeful we’ll have fry in mid January or so. Once I can identify male fry, they will get moved to the male tank. Hopefully that way I can keep the numbers down while still having a little fun experimenting with line breeding.

I’ve never had endlers before so I can’t speak to whether they “self-regulate” their population. Everything I had read about them indicated not so much, but I have no experience with that. I would be interested in a little line breeding to see if I can strengthen the colors and patterns I have in my existing males but it’s a secondary concern. My only questions now are whether I should upgrade to a slightly larger aquarium for the breeding mamas and the fry until they are old enough to sex and separate, and to know when the females are old enough to breed safely - I don’t want to do it while they are too young and risk them dying.

I figured out that the females were constipated not pregnant. lol. Thank goodness. I have moved my males to one tank and most of my females to another. The only ones still in quarantine are the babies too small to determine if they are male or female yet and the female I intend to breed with the best of the males. I will keep 1-2 breeding females and their fry in the quarantine tank until the fry are old enough to sex and move them out. That way I can control the breeding and keep it under limits. Not really what I had originally planned but I hope it will keep me from having hundreds of fish in a short time. And I can still enjoy the beauty of them and enjoy letting them have fry and letting the kids see that, just not get overwhelmed with fish.

I may have made a mistake lol. I loved the look of endlers and loved the idea of breeding some fish at home because I’ve never successfully bred any fish and I’d heard Endler live bearers were easy. I have 8 juveniles in quarantine right now that I got from a breeder. And I’m suspecting that I have two females already pregnant - at least they have big bulging bellies already. so I’m trying to make an emergency plan to separate the sexes and try to keep this under control. And I could use some advice here. My initial thought is to move any fish I can already identify as male out and into the tank I’d planned for them. I will keep the rest of the juveniles in the quarantine tank. As soon as they can identify as male, I’ll pull them out. The females I want to move to another tank but I have to be sure they aren’t pregnant first. is this even workable or am I just screwed? Any other advice please?

Just for the record, wow, yeah, hydrogen peroxide melted it all! I’m still going to try the reverse respiration simply because there’s so many nooks and crannies in that wood, I can’t be sure I got it all off, but the peroxide did wonders.

Interesting! I’ll try it - that’s the first suggestion I’ve gotten that wouldn’t kill my moss too. And it’s doable in the time frame I have. Thank you!

I may have screwed up and I’m almost crying at the thought. I did a dry start method. Rocks, substrate and a lovely piece of driftwood that I put moss on and let it attach during the dry start. However, the wood has developed some weird mold and I have people telling me this is going to ruin my tank and I’ll be tearing it all down in a month. I am getting my stem plants this weekend and was going to flood it then. Please help! If I have screwed up, what can I do to fix this? Photo of the wood and mold for reference

It’s possible. I try rinsing them out thoroughly several times between uses and then shake any residual water out one more time before filling them but anything is possible. Im just so frustrated at all this. If my shrimp die this time, I’m going to assume caradina shrimp are simply not for me and give up.

Ok, more info because that strong ammonia reading confused me a lot. It’s possible that test was just wrong because that high a reading makes no sense. I ran a bunch of new RO water and tested it fresh from the filter. That’s the tube on the right. Then I remineralized it with SS GH+. That’s the tube on the left. You can clearly see the ammonia is higher on the left. Im going to leave the bucket to sit for a day or two and test again - usually my ph will sink if I leave it out. I’ll be curious to see if this changes. I don’t know what to do ya’ll. I ordered shrimp already because both my tanks were reading zero ammonia. Then I did water changes and it all blew up. I need at least one tank to be stable to keep the shrimp alive once they come (thank goodness they didn’t ship them this week!) will I have better luck if I use a four stage filter instead of a three stage (the four stage includes the mixed bed DI filter). Do I need to give up on caradinas all together because my water is sh*t and just stick to neo tanks with crushed coral in the filters to keep my water hard enough? (My large tank with cherry shrimp is doing just fine but I just change it with tap water).

Ok ya’ll. Im confused. I have absolutely tested my source water before and it was clear - no ammonia. But today I tested one of my tanks after doing a water change yesterday and I saw ammonia and super high nitrates when it was zero ammonia and low nitrates prior to the change. it made no sense. So I tested the bucket of remineralized RO water left over after the water change yesterday and got this. What in the world????!!! How does RO water end up with such high ammonia? I now understand why my tanks keeping showing ammonia after water changes but I don’t know how this happens or what to do to fix it. Help please???

I actually wondered about doing that when it comes time to replace it. After all, I don’t want it leaching for MONTHS in a stocked tank.

My tap uses chlorine, not chloramine. I’ve called the water department to confirm. I used an RO system to fill my tank, not tap. I have tested the water I put in - it’s not the source water.

It makes sense that it would take longer in a small tank - they are just so prone to missteps. But still, I was thinking it would be a matter of weeks, not months!

The only ammonia source is the stratum. I never had to add ammonia because it leaches so much. Early on, I was getting 4-5 ppm every time I test, it leached so much. 've been adding beneficial bacteria the last week or so. I will keep doing it. I can tell you I will NEVER use Fluval again in any of my tanks. It's ridiculous to me that it's been leaching ammonia for 3 months now. By the time it finally stops, it will be time to replace it because it will have worn out. I used Controsoil in my other tank and it never leached like this - - it's been much better on the whole.

Yes, meant to mention that. Water source is clear - no ammona.