H20CultureLabs

The White Cloud and CPD fry are growing up so fast! Just starting to see the red in their tails now. In other news the Bluefin Killies continue to do very well; dining on brine shrimp and chasing each other around the riccia.

I huge load of eggs today! Let's see how many become fry.

There is a real solace in aquariums that is only rivaled by gardening. They have many parallels and the feelings of each are similar. After a difficult nightshift, a quiet moment enjoying the rack greeting a new day is truly cathartic.

The Bluefin Killifish continue to thrive! For anyone out there catching wild fish, baby brine, like usual, is absolutely magic for turning a shy fish into an outgoing one. I wish they weren't so difficult to photograph but im working on it. Very fortunately it seems I have several females so hopefully I can turn this into a colony through which others can enjoy this beautiful fish.

Finally, after much trial and error, the "fry factory" is finally taking off. I have about 10 Golden White Clouds and 10 CPD fry right now, with more eggs going into the aquarium every day!

Ok, a few updates. We are now on Day 5 of the Bluefin killifish and they are still vigorously accepting baby brine. This is a much better start than last time; the heavily planted tank is providing a huge difference here. They are incredibly shy, but hopefully that changes in time.

An update on the Bluefin Killifishes. They really appreciate the extra cover and have been absolutely crushing the baby brine I am giving them. Cory is correct, baby brine is absolutely magical for fish. I am having much higher hopes for them this time around!

@Beardedbillygoat1975 Sorry for the delay, the matala mat is the substrate for them to crawl around, I am not using additional foam. To feed I suck them out with a turkey baster or a syringe. I feed them the cheapest fish food I can find, just a tiny pinch a day and so far have had success without water changes. Happy to answer any additional questions!

@Beardedbillygoat1975The design came to me as a lark although I am sure there are similar setups out there. After observing the worms in the substrate I wanted to see if Matala would make a sufficient substrate for them. It is filtered with a layer of Salvinia floating plants at the top of it.

Fortunately, I was able to catch a very nice group of Bluefin Killies as well! Headed home today, hopefully this group is able to acclimate more successfully than the previous group. (EDIT: I am not sure why the picture is upside down, but I will fix this when I get home)

Its amazing the amount of biodiversity one can find in some Florida water plants. Dip-netting around this patch, I caught gambusia, least killifish, small crappie and panfish, flag fish, sailfin mollies, golden topminnows, a baby bass, grass shrimp, and small crayfish!

Switching gears, no trip to Orlando would be complete without a quick collecting trip! I went back to my spot where I caught Lucanea goodei (Bluefin Killifish) to try them again. This time I have a very heavily planted aquarium for them to hopefully grant me greater success. Here's what the "ditch" looks like.

@James BlackThanks mate! It was a great show and honestly a much larger turnout than I expected. I sincerely hope you can attend in the future. There will certainly be YouTube creator content about it, but the two highlights for me were seeing a White Fly River Turtle and a beautiful low boy filled with Blood Red Cleaner shrimp. (Apparently a personal favorite of Julian Sprungs, per the vendor).

So excited to be at Aquashella this morning in beautiful Orlando!

An update on the worm farm. I am very please so far with the results! I would say that the number of worms has easily tripled. You can see from the picture that there are distinctive "colonies" of worms growing on the Matala mat. I would like to see how quickly the worms continue to fill in the mesh from here. I will probably still be some weeks yet before I start feeding from it, but the results so far are very encouraging. I think if one was to set up a 10 gallon with a similar set-up, you could grow a very large number of worms. This would be quite useful for anyone looking into breeding Corydoras.

Also, the young male Elassoma gilberti are finally starting to color up. These fish are really special with a blue maze sparkling along their sides. I can't wait to see them fully colored up!

Upgraded one of my egg catchers to a rectangular shape. So far the larger size and long shape seems to be working very well, especially for the CPDs!

Was able to trade in 10 of my Crypt Pink Panthers for this beautiful variegated buce. It is my thought to see how large of a bunch I can get over the next couple of years and maybe make a little tree with it. We'll see how it goes!

I cleaned out the Blue Dream tank yesterday. Wow, was it worth it! A tank full of dreams, pun intended.

@HobbitPreviously I was doing the "catch all and sort" method every 8-10 weeks. I would place all of them on a white bottomed container to better view how much color was in the legs and tails. I would then sell the "cull" shrimp as regular cherry shrimp for a very inexpensive price on Craigslist to quickly move them out of the aquarium rack. Presently, the colony is producing mostly high quality shrimp so when I see a less than ideal one I remove it and place it in the Elassoma/Badis tank.

@Anita ありがとうございます!

An update on the Cherry Shrimp. The colony is really taking off and I am very happy with how this line is turning out. It can be tedious removing the less colorful shrimp, but the results are well worth it.

@HobbitI think they were in the riccia I placed in the tank, but I cannot confirm that. Needless to say, they now have been placed into their proper aquarium.

A fry disaster was discovered today! I noticed that I was not seeing the number of fry that I should have in my green water tank, so I drained it to discover 2 least killifish that I had no idea were in there! They must have eaten most of them, poor little fry. I swear, I'll become good at raising fry one day.

Right on schedule, white cloud and CPD fry are appearing at the top of the greenwater tank! You can barely make them out as the camera has significant difficulty focusing on them, so I've circled it in the photograph.