Fish Folk

Are you hoping to keep some fry?

Here’s a look at the first F1 fry to begin coloring up from above brooders. I did not spawn these, but acquired from a master NANF breeder…

Lost my male a few weeks ago 😒 Ordering a new pair this week 😊

While they are being bred a lot in FL, I'm not finding much technical taxonomic information on them. Here is a nice little overview. I would highly recommend feeding a diet that includes a lot of greens. Omega One mini sinking "Veggie" pellets are an excellent balance meal... I found that my Mbuna would actually enjoy eating duckweed from time to time. They were not as eager as goldfish, but the greens were excellent for their digestion. It appears like the younger the females are, the brighter yellow they'll appear. Once they mature, they will turn more of an orangish hue. If you've never bred mouth brooders before, you might enjoy looking up some simple methods for separating females out so that they will hold successfully, and "spit" their fry into a healthy, peaceful environment to thrive. I've set holding female Mbunas into structurally dense 10 gal aquariums before to hold. That's a nice size space for fry to begin life in. Once a breeding group gets going, some Mbuna fry will survive in an adult tank. If all you'd want is just an added new Cichlid now and then, you can let them go and just enjoy new little additions every once in a while. They'll likely savagely eat most of their fry. George Farmer has a some beautiful ideas for designing tanks with hardy plants that Rift Lake Cichlids will not utterly destroy. It's worth seeing his ideas!

They’re called “CryoPak Phase 22” because they hold temperatures to 22°-C (71.6°-F). I buy mine through my LFS. I think they can be bought online too. Here is technical info. The gel changes its consistency, and is designed to help keep insulated boxes at ca. 72°-F. With MRBDs, they can survive at temperatures in the 50°s, but this pak helps to moderate that drop. I add 72-hr heat-paks in cold winter, and Uline ice-paks in summer heat. The CryoPak Phase 22 is ideal for fall and spring shipping.

I gifted them all to a friend. They never spawned for me. That’s the quickest way out of my fishroom. He tells me they’re doing great!

Snapshots from the boxing up process… Catch large school with large net… Move to large specimen container, remove duckweed, cover, and examine… Prepare precise water volume for shipping and treat with Amquel… Count out precise numbers of fish, move to shipping bag, add O2… Close up box with Acclimation Guide and Shipping Notice, label filled out and covered with tape to protect from rain… Now to the P.O…

Here is what goes _in_ the box apart from fish… A. Acclimation instructions. This is crucial info. B. Shipping Notice / species care guide. C. CryoPak — maintains ca. 72°-F in box. D. Custom cut styro lining. E. Paper towel lining, and corner protection.

Yes! Because I’ve gone over details about what’s in each box elsewhere, I omitted that in this original post. Maybe I’ll take a few more photos and mention that here…

Alabama Rainbow Shiner F0 brooders looking 🔥 as temps drop in my basement…

I’m shipping out some juvenile F1 Mountain Redbelly Dace tomorrow. They don’t look like much yet — more like mini Siamese Algae Eaters at this stage — but they’re worth the wait… Setting everything out tonight, I thought I’d share a little enumerated checklist for how I ship day-of. This is not a full-scale review on exactly how I ship from top to bottom, but more of the practical process on go-day… 1. Large fine mesh net for catching the whole school in order to select the best for shipping. 2. Small fine mesh net for selecting the best fish to sell. 3. Paper towel for padding. I prefer this to newspaper. 4. Regulator for O2 tank. 5. Bernzomatic O2 tank I bought at Tractor Supply. 6. Small Lee’s specimen container. I use 1.5 of these for water volume in this particular shipment. 7. Plastic fish bags. I’m just using a double bag method with fish bags from my LFS. 8. Kordon AMQUEL. I add 3-6 drops per bag to counteract ammonia buildup in shipping. 9. Rubberbands for sealing up fish bags. 10. Skimmer net for removing duckweed before shipment. 11. Siphon hose with small pre-filter sponge fastened to the end for draining tank water into shipping bags. Avoids plants, etc. 12. Packaging tape. 13. Blank label (USPS Priority Mail) 14. USPS Priority Mail Medium sized shipping box, well insulated and taped up already. 15. Sharpie for labeling fish bags and completing shipping label. 16. Scissors 17. More packing tape. 18. ACO Specimen Container.

I miss my Betta imbellis…

Female Betta splendens will be ready to spawn on a regular cycle if they are well fed and cared for. If fed a rich varied diet of live foods, females can release HUNDREDS of eggs per spawn. I leave a light on for 48-72 hrs to let a pair spawn. Then the female comes out. Male guards until I can see free-swimming fry, then he comes out. I never keep them in a tank much deeper than 6-inches of water. Anabantid fry must develop their labyrinth organ to survive. You’ll have hundreds… then they’ll all mysteriously crash. Micro nematodes like Banana worms, Walter Worms, or Micro Worms are excellent early goods. Artemia nauplii (BBS) are staple too. If you can get them past 2-weeks, your chances are very good!

I'm messaging right now with a guy at CF in Knoxville, TN. Pearl Dace are only a rarity up there in New Jersey. "Extirpated" is a local issue in NJ. They are propagating elsewhere in the wild successfully. iNaturaliat has observation listings here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=map&taxon_id=105208

I messaged the guys down at Conservation Fisheries in Knoxville, TN. I also recommended them to the YouTuber. They could theoretically "ark" a population if that was needed. They specialize in rebuilding US native species where there is often only _one small place on earth_ where the species naturally breeds. I know that Penn State does do some conservation work, but I think that a dedicated breeding group is what is really needed. It's so delicate . . . if they're really _only_ in that pond, any number of factors could devastate the line.

This is awesome!! Wow!!!

Cheddar! It’s fall spawning season, folks…

You may need to wait for 7-12 attempts before a mature pair learns nit to eat fry / eggs. Hopefully not! Like you, I’d love to see them raise fry themselves. I’ve heard — cannot confirm — that brooders raised by their parents will take to raising their own fry. Be mindful that lights-out / lights-on often triggers a panic response in certain fish species. Leaving a low light on constantly may help the parents.

Here’s a thread on what I do… I always pull eggs, and hatch in an isolated container in the tank.

And here we go, making more…

They’re a really lively, active fish. Mine are happy to eat anything. Fry grow very slowly, so turn around on breeding is slow. They’re not very aggressive unless jousting for spawning rights. Almost impossible to photograph. I’ve only gotten a couple semi-decent shots of mine…

My fishroom is always near 80-F in the summer heat. They really suffer until temps dip into the 70s. Winter is their happy season! I'm hoping for a spawn sometimes soon. These RMDs and R-Shiners are getting old...

My NANF are so thrilled summer is over…

Pea puffers are probably best in a species-only setup. I wouldn’t put them with Loaches. An empty 20-long is an exciting space! What have you kept before? What level of experience are you at?

Sending out the bat signal for @Colu on this situation. Sounds to me like you're doing things right. My instincts say... something internally is diseased. But your treatments all sound like they've covered a wide range of possible problems. I'm going to be personally honest: After having kept many hundreds of fish over the years, I've adopted a slightly jaded mentality. I wouldn't tend to spend a lot on medicine unless it was a brooder. I'd just buy another EBA. I've kept and bred hundreds of them. I've had to learn that some fish are just not healthy. Here's a peek at some we've kept and bred... If it were me, I'd buy some new EBAs. Keep caring for this little one, but enjoy healthy fish meanwhile...