[Red Lizard Whiptails]

Well, I am still not sure why this happened but my first batch of fry unfortunately didn't make it. This happened right after a water change, so I suspect my water company may have more more chlorine/chloramine than usual in the water or something, but one by one they would randomly start freaking out, dart back and forth across the breeder box, and then fall dead. Only two of the original fry have made it and they are readily eating dry food now supplemented with live BBS. My original batch of fry was only about ~10 fry.

About a week ago, I started seeing new babies in the aquarium again. I've been moving them to a different breeder box over the past few days and today I wasn't able to find any more fry in the aquarium with the adults. All in all, there are 54 fry that I was able to count. These fry have already been alive longer than my first batch, so I'm more hopeful. I'm feeding them 3-4 times a day with Sera micron like @Lennie mentioned. I also have some New Life Spectrum fry food that I use for them every once in a while. Any uneaten Sera micron ends up clumping to the bottom, trying to hone in on how much I feed to prevent this but every few days I remove these clumps. 

I'm also running a bit of an experiment that I saw on KeepingFishSimple's youtube channel on how he raised whiptails. I got a tupperware container, filled it with dirty filter water, and put some catappa leaves in it with some aeration. This should expedite the development of biofilm on the leaves that I can put into the breeder box so the fry can also have that to munch on. Not sure how this will go, but I will also leave an update here about that.

Hopefully I'll be able to raise these guys more successfully vs. my original batch! This is also the first time I'm raising fry by myself (and apparently whiptails aren't the easiest fish to raise), so definitely have a lot more to learn.

[Feeding Sera Micron]

On 5/28/2024 at 11:07 AM, Flavoi1 said:

IMO it depends on the kind of fish you feed.

Some fry are very stationary and wont go looking for food, in this case your way of feeding allows for precise placement of the food to where it needs to go. Other fry are quite active and in this case the "sprinkle on top of the water" method works just fine.

To accurately answer your question about the nutrient content you would need some pretty specialised equipment. Water is a solvent and it for sure deminishes the nutrient content of a smal foodparticle like sera micron after some time. 

If you wanna be a pioneer and help us find out if there is some big drawback to it you could split your next batch of fry in two identical groups and feed one group with fresh food and the other one with food that was soaking for a while.

Gotcha, it makes sense how the nutrients would get diminished if left in water. That is a neat idea for an experiment. This is my first time actually raising fry though, so I may save that idea for when I get down how to raise fry in general haha.

[Feeding Sera Micron]

I was wondering how you guys feed Sera Micron? I take a small deli cup and fill it with some tank water and then mix in a bit of sera micron. I take a pipette and feed the micron/water mix directly to my fry. I'm curious if this is a good way to feed the fry or if there's a better way? Is it okay to leave this micron & water solution out for the day to feed multiple times through the day? Or does the food lose its nutrients over time if it's sitting in the water?

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

Thanks for all the help @Lennie, your information has been invaluable when it comes to these guys!

Quick update on my fish: I was able to find and scoop out 9 of the fry that I was able to see in the aquarium. My aquarium is very dense with plants (and hair algae), so I think it's safe to assume that there are still fry in there that I haven't seen yet. Whenever I pass by the tank I always try to see if there's a fry out and about, but they're honestly super hard to spot.

Either way, the 9 that I caught have been placed in a fry tray by @Lowells Fish Lab. This is also my first time trying this tray and I honestly love it so far! I'll try to take some pics once I set things up more permanently. The first day the fry were in the tray, I just fed some crushed pellets since that was all I had on hand. The day after I fed BBS, and the day after my sera micron came in. So far, these fry seem to be doing okay! I've been feeding twice a day and plan on feeding BBS every other day. From my reading online, it seems like the mistake people make when raising whiptail fry is not feeding enough so hopefully I'm feeding these guys enough to grow and thrive. All nine seem to be doing okay, I'll leave any updates here!

Just out of curiosity, how many fry do you guys get in a typical batch?

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

On 4/29/2024 at 4:45 PM, Lennie said:

Good idea. Yours seem to be around 2-3day old I believe. They consumed the egg sack. So feed them asap before they starve. Here is a pic from my tank when they recently hatched:

Be careful ,they are gentle yet surprisingly can hold on to the surface quite well.

 

 

Thank you for the pictures! What do you feed your fry? I just put in some crushed pellet food I had on hand. Hopefully that's enough but it seems like whiptails are notoriously hard to raise from what I'm seeing online.

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

On 4/29/2024 at 4:35 PM, Lennie said:

Hello Surreal,

 

I raised a couple of batches successfully.

I have never seen any making it by themself in the species only tank no matter how established the tank is and how many biofilm, algae, leaf litter, wood or basically any surface for them to eat on. They are very bad at finding food. They die from hunger if not by being eaten.

So I highly recommend hatching them in a container and raising them there until they reach around at least 2-3 cms. I fed mine sera micron and kept them in a fry container with numerous leaf litter and some live plants. Then, after a couple days, I feed live bbs. They start hunting live bbs by grazing around surfaces even when they are tiny in size.

 

I dont think they will find and eat any commercial food in the tank. Once they consume the egg sack, they die from hunger. IF they make it through the first days and hunt for live bbs, they may have a chance, as bbs tends to accumulate around the glasses in my experience and these guys love to spend time around glasses.

Oh wow, thank you for the warning. I was planning on letting them graze like you mentioned, but after what you said I'm going to try my best to scoop all of the fry out and put them in a fry tray. I have a 3D Printed one from Lowell's Fish Lab, hoping that will do the trick.

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

It took half a year, but I got some red lizard whiptail babies! I got these guys wanting to breed them right off the bat, but I didn't have much luck. I initially set up the aquarium with three of the whiptails as well as some forktail blue-eyes. I thought having these as dithers would make the whiptails more comfortable, but I guess the forktails were harassing them too much. I recently took out the forktails and placed them in my community tank, and about a month later I saw these little free swimmers roaming around the tank! They're still super small, maybe 5 or 6 mm in size, but there are more than I can count in the aquarium.

I don't have another aquarium at the moment to rehome the adults, so hopefully these guys will be okay growing up with the adults. I guess that'll be the next part of my experiment.

As far as care goes, I have the tank heavily planted on two sides with just sand and cholla wood in the middle. The tank they're in is super filtered with both an internal sump in the back as well as an Oase Biomaster canister filter. This tank was custom made and is about 20x24x12 inches (around 15 gallons). I specifically planted with plants that have broad leaves on them since I noticed these guys like to hop on the leaves and sway in the aquarium, kind of cute.

Their diet is really varied and I don't really follow a set schedule for feeding except for brine shrimp every other day. On the days I don't have brine shrimp, I feed NLS pellets, XTreme Nano Pellets, Frozen Blood Worms, Freeze Dried Tubifex, Hikari Vibra Bites, Repashy Soilent Green, and Repashy Community Plus.

Attached some photos to this post that I took with my Canon. These guys are still super small so it was hard to take decent pictures of them with all of the extension tubes I had to use, but hopefully they'll grow up and be easier to take pictures of soon. 

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

On 11/25/2023 at 4:05 PM, Lennie said:

Looks great. Let mine stay at your hotel too!

my only worry would be your group having a dominant male in the future and not letting other whiptails to use the other tubes  around. But you can easily remove the tubes and put all around the tank if that happens

The going rate at Casa Whiptail is 1 blackworm cube per night, make sure you leave a deposit!

And yeah, I might make smaller versions of these if I see aggression happening but so far they all seem to tolerate/hang out with eachother in the aquarium.

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

Since this seems to be the official red lizard whiptail thread: I just wanted to show off this little hotel I 3D printed for them. From what I can tell these fish like the half inch PVC pipes that are 6 inches long, so I designed these tubes with slots that can be put into this little hotel. They can slide in and out easily individually, and I can just take all of the caves out at once if needed. I didn't put it in my aquarium yet since I'd still like to do a little post-processing on them a bit, and maybe glue some moss on the outside so it doesn't look like a black brick haha. Hopefully the little guys will like this though! 

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

On 11/22/2023 at 4:48 AM, Lennie said:

Hello Surreal, 

In terms of diet, mine did not really show interest to veggies much so I stopped feeding it to them. Maybe you can try to see how yours react to it.

I give them small frozen foods, tropical insect menu, krill flakes, and algae tabs that are rich in both algae overall and includes different algae types. I dont think they are picky eaters at all.

They dont exactly school or schoal but I think they are social and like to have their own kind around. So good to hear you got a group. That being said, I have to disagree with them being extremely peaceful. As adults, males can be territorial a bit

I keep their tank warm. Currently at 29C due to raising ram babies with them. I wouldnt go higher than this, but also not too low. When I move ram babies to another tank, I would still do around 26-27 C.

They like small pipes that are open on both end. However existence of such hiding places significantly decreased their activity level in my tank. That is a sacrifice to consider making for their happiness :,)

Mine liked playing around plant leaves and woods. Especially as juveniles they were jumping from one crypt leaf to another.

In terms of flow, you may have some but I think they are fine no flow. That being said, as they like their tank warm, I do keep at least two sponge filter to increase the surface agitation in a 50x40x25cmh breeding tank. In their community tank they had a Hob also. So I would suggest a good aeration of your own style. 
 

They LOVE leaf litter. I add so many different leaves. I added a huge piece of banana leaf from my garden two weeks ago, they enjoyed it very much. Catappa leaves are their number one fav still.

I also have wild type neocaridinas with them. They live together peacefully

The ph is  7.5 in their tank if Im not mistaken

If you have any questions please ask. I just wrote down a few things that came to my mind

Wow, I absolutely love how open the aquarium community is with their information. Thank you so much! I'll definitely let you know if I have any more questions when it comes to these guys. I've only had them for about a week so far and absolutely love watching them! I am also going to get more plants for them since like you mentioned they really seem to prefer planted setups.

Thank you again for all of the information! I really appreciate it.

[Red Lizard Whiptails]

@Lennie Don't mean to revive an old thread like this, but have you come to any more conclusions when it comes to these guys? I just picked up a few from my LFS and love them as well, want to make sure I give them the best care I can!

[3D print request.]

On 11/13/2023 at 9:19 PM, Aguinaga said:

@Surreal well she finally finished it. Thank you for the file 

Looks awesome!! Super weird to see something I designed on someone else's table haha. I hope you like this better than the default stand!

[3D print request.]

On 11/3/2023 at 9:24 PM, Aguinaga said:

Tonight’s update. @Surreal
 

Almost there!

[3D print request.]

On 10/31/2023 at 3:31 PM, Aguinaga said:

Instead of making a new thread I thought I better continue on this one. Babys sets but it is getting there. Thank you @Surreal

 

Exciting!! Would love to see how it turns out in the end! Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone else print something I’ve designed so definitely curious how this turns out haha.

[Stocking suggestions for this 20 gallon cube?]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:40 PM, Marcelo said:

Are You Going to have plants ? Rocks or only fish ?

 

All up for debate really, I have a lot of hardscape, sand, potting soil, plants, etc. just laying around, but I'm not opposed to having a bare bottom tank for example if I'm breeding plecos.

On 10/16/2023 at 10:55 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Cool tank. Perfect Dutch small scape for 12 small Rasbora.

Thanks! Definitely would want to get some sort of really small fish that I can have a large school of if I go the planted route.

[Stocking suggestions for this 20 gallon cube?]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:40 PM, Marcelo said:

Are You Going to have plants ? Rocks or only fish ?

 

All up for debate really, I have a lot of hardscape, sand, potting soil, plants, etc. just laying around, but I'm not opposed to having a bare bottom tank for example if I'm breeding plecos.

On 10/16/2023 at 10:55 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Cool tank. Perfect Dutch small scape for 12 small Rasbora.

Thanks! Definitely would want to get some sort of really small fish that I can have a large school of if I go the planted route.

[Stocking suggestions for this 20 gallon cube?]

Hey all, I have this empty aquarium that I'm looking to get some stocking suggestions for. Right now I am leaning towards trying to breed some sort of pleco and celestial pearl danios in it as my first breeding project, but I am also considering just making this a planted pea puffer aquarium with ~6 pea puffers. Do any of y'all have any suggestions?

[Tips for culturing black worms?]

I have a 10 gallon aquarium I am wanting to turn into a black worm culture. So far my plan is to add a very thin layer of gravel on the bottom and throw in a seeded sponge filter. There are a few things I am a bit unsure about though. Should I use dechlorinated tap water or should I used aged aquarium water from a water change? Do black worms require a photo period or will they do fine with just the ambient light in the room?

Any tips anyone may have would be greatly appreciated!

[How much of a nerm are you? Take this test to find out...]

On 9/25/2023 at 9:57 AM, Tanked said:

Good Job!

Going down your list it dawned on me; that drilling holes in the baseboards for fish only electrical outlets is a structural mod. I picked up another 10 points.

#23 how many pieces of backup equipment... should be a changeable number instead of a checkmark.  It also doesn't change the score.

Good catch! Just fixed this. It was pretty late when I was finishing this up so I was expecting a few errors haha.

[How much of a nerm are you? Take this test to find out...]

I made this into a little website for people! https://nermquiz.netlify.app/
 

Let me know if anyone has any suggestions or anything

Also, my score was only 37.5😭

[3D Printed stand for the Ziss Brine Shrimp hatchery]

Hey everyone! The hate for the ziss brine shrimp hatchery stand is pretty universal, so I decided to design this 3d printable stand that I designed. Makes it way easier to turn the nozzle, it lifts the hatchery itself up a bit more, and it has a drip tray that you can print so you don't get your table dirty. If you're interested in printing this yourself, here's the link to the files.