H20CultureLabs
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Posts posted by H20CultureLabs
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The finnage on your long-finned one at the bottom is absolutely superb! Here are my two males for this year; my best gold and my best yellow-finned Rachel O'Leary meteor. Your yellow-finned one is also of excellent quality. Did you get that line from Rachel as well?
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Almost like they knew I was posting about them! My Dario magically appeared after I finished the last post to court in front of me.
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Another beautiful Elassoma fry picture. I need to pull these soon to try and get my Badis to breed again, but I love watching them too much. Its fun to watch them prowl around and display to one another. In many ways they are like tiny, underwater peacocks.
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@HobbitI feel very lucky as I have never had much trouble growing green water. I find keeping a dedicated backup culture really helps.
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The mixed Golden White Cloud and CPD wigglers were transitioned from the methylene blue "incubator" into the green water "nursery" today. Lets hope many of them survive. I counted at least 25 at the bottom of the cup; there could be more in there! Every single one of the "black dots" you see are eyes from a single fry. Hard to believe how tiny they are!!
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@HobbitThat probably has something to do with, I also imagine the microfauna are eating the crayfish's waste as well. I bet a similar system could be done with dwarf crayfish and smaller pipes for a higher overall yield.
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More wigglers today, they seem to be doing well! I've diluted some of the methylene blue now that the eggs have hatched.
I made an interesting discovery today. In one of my egg traps, I noticed I was having large amounts of copepods and daphnia in it, which didn't make sense to me since the white clouds and danios in the aquarium should have eaten them all. On closer inspection, I found the source of them; Tateyama the crayfish's pvc pipe cave! You can see in the attached picture the daphnia hanging out just above him.
For people into making refugium and microfauna, it seems that some fish will not go into tubes to hunt prey, which can act as a sort of incubator for these microfauna. I hope this discovery helps someone else out there!
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Exciting finding in the methylene blue cup today, wiggler fry! No idea which species they are, but they are TINY! You can even see their small yolksacs as the buzz around the cup!
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Update on the eggs. 48hrs, no hatch yet, but no fungus either, which is a huge plus! We'll see if we get any hatch!
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Got some methylene blue today, lets try hatching some eggs again!
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I got a new toy today! Honestly, I'm now 100% on board with using a bag-sealer. I havent shipped anything with it yet, but the professional seal it makes is next level!
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I'll be going to Aquashella in Orlando!
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Here are the worms I am seeding it with, and the second picture is the finished product! I'll let y'all know how it goes. I'll probably put some salvinia floating plants at the top to prevent the water from fouling.
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I had some Matala mat lying around, and I cut it to fit one of the many "to-go" containers I have lying around. To this I cut a hole in the bottom so the bubbles could find a way out of the media. The idea is the worms will cling to the Matala mat and if I want to remove the culture, I can grab the to-go container and pull all of it out.
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Here's a fun project from tonight, let's build a worm farm!
In one of my shrimp tanks, I have a huge population of detritis worms. Since the Elassoma and the Badis love them so much, I've decided to culture them.
Now that I've upgraded my brine shrimp hatcher to the Ziss one, my San Fran Bay one has been sitting idle; no longer! Here's how I repurposed it.
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Also, if you have never done it, co-culturing Moina and Neocaridina is amazing! The moina keep the water crystal clear and provide an awesome snack for badis, elassoma, and other small fish!
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A quick update on the rack. No fry yet, from that last hatch, but the water they are in is very, very green, so I'm uncertain if any have hatched yet. The crypt beds are looking amazing and I'm excited to slowly replace the pellia with pink crypts!
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A couple more random thoughts about breeding badis. Obtaining a moina culture is very, very helpful but unnecessary. Also, consider trying to breed Ellasoma (pygmy sunfish) first. They are hardier and easier to breed, with similar care requirements and habits. A nice fish to make sure your system is going to do well before you pull the trigger on an expensive group of badis from an online auction hoping to obtain just one elusive female. Hope this helps!
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@erererThanks for the shout-out! I have bred them, happy to discuss the details with you (or anyone) via DM's. In summary, buy a group of them from another hobbyist (Aquabid is a good source), raise them up until you are certain you have a female. Set up two densely planted aquariums. Feed the adults baby brine and microworms. Once you see the female become fat, then skinny (she has laid eggs), move the pair to next tank. You should see very small fry in about 1 week. Continue to feed microworms, hold the BBS until the babies are a bit bigger. A good tactic is to keep the aquariums stocked up with cull Neocardina shrimp, that way the adults can snack on the babies and encourage more breeding. Good luck!
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Loads of eggs this morning! Let's see how many fry will hatch.
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Here is the egg trap in the aquarium with my Golden White Clouds and CPDs.
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I built a new egg trap yesterday and found eggs in it this afternoon! I think these are CPD eggs, but I won't know for sure until they hatch. Enjoy!
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Another picture of one of my photogenic E. evergladei males. The iridescence of their aquamarine is otherworldly; very similar in appearance to the blue of a morpho butterfly.
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Vinegar eels *too* wiggly?
in Fish Breeding
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@HobbitAll good ideas! Instead of jars of decaying lettuce, rabbit food pellets (which are mostly alfa-alfa) work well as a green-water/infusoria food source. May be more palatable than a jar of decaying lettuce. My greenwater "jugs" can be found at Walmart for $6.
I personally love the idea of sponge-filter "squeezing" to feed the tiniest fry. Bombarding them with a diverse range of foods like this is a great way to feed fry of all sizes. Thats what saltwater breeders working with planktonic fry do. If you have a local LFS or breeder, ask for a bag of sponge filter/mechanical filter squeeze; they are usually happy to give you some.
Keeping "pure" cultures of anything is difficult but polycultures are easier. I keep a jar of greenwater that I place seed-shrimp, daphnia, copepods, and any other interesting small critter I can suck out with a syringe; the strongest critters survive and then get fed back to the fish. It also acts as a great aquarium/pond inoculation culture.