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Lowells Fish Lab

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  1. GsFins started following Lowells Fish Lab
  2. Zeaqua started following Lowells Fish Lab
  3. Jeff4 started following Lowells Fish Lab
  4. Lowells Fish Lab
    In my opinion, absolutely they can still be shaking out. If it's any solace, though I would categorize CPD's in hindsight as one of the easier fish I've bred so far, there is something about them that is really irritating. For the most part they refuse to eat off the ground or the water surface. They want to eat out of the mid column which makes a dry food almost the hardest possible thing to feed them. It has to be right in front of their face and to make things worse, you need powder in front of tens of faces simultaneously. All that adds up to necessitating routine overfeeding that you then have to clean up after and hope you don't kill them in the process. The nitrogenous waste, the bacteria blooming all around the uneaten food, it's really a fine line to walk. You can find that line, get into culturing infusoria, or prep a smallish space full of plants and mulm and let that environment grow infusoria for you. There's many ways to approach it. Another thing I'll mention, albeit cautiously, is my opinion on nitrite poisoning. I say this just hoping I have the "science" right. As I understand it, nitrite binds to hemoglobin and essentially ruins the fish's ability to oxygenate its blood. As opposed to ammonia spikes which can kill fish quickly, nitrite poisoning can kill them slowly over many days. They can still die on you days after you've removed any measurable toxins from the water because it's still bound to their blood. I've also read that methylene blue can be used effectively to treat nitrite poisoning, and have done so myself with very positive results. I don't dose methylene blue directly, I just do a water volume appropriate dose of ich-X that contains some amount of methylene blue. I use ich-X all the time in quarantine. I know a normal dose won't kill fish, I haven't found it to kill my beneficial bacteria, so I just capitalize on it having some of the chemical I want. I don't personally know how to dose pure methylene blue into a tank in a safe dose. I've carelessly messed with filtration on a tank of cichlid fry and then caused a nitrite spike. I went from losing a few fry a day to an absolute halt in deaths immediately after getting some ich-X in the water. The fry grew up fine, no stunting, it was a big relief. Again, I say this cautiously because I don't want to steer you wrong. It's just my understanding, my anecdotal experience, and maybe something to keep in the back pocket. If anything, just take away that in my experience, a mistake made two weeks ago can absolutely be killing your fry today. That, and failing with early batches of fry also drove me crazy and is probably the reason that fish now run my life.
  5. Lowells Fish Lab
    One of the first times I bred CPD's I was doing well with a young group of 40-50 and then overfed them and caused what was measurable as a nitrite spike. Over a week or so I lost every one of them, even after cleaning up the water. I have a better understanding now of what happened and how I could have dealt with it but at the time I was devastated and convinced they were the hardest thing in the world to breed. They aren't, not at all, but it can feel like that when things go wrong. My best advice is to take a pause, let the tanks stabilize, let the fish relax, and try again in a few weeks. Breeding fish is a lot of fun but it's emotionally taxing when things don't work out. No one wants to care for living things and then watch them die despite their best efforts. They will spawn again, eggs will hatch again, and I'm betting the next time you get a good group growing, it will turn out better. If your intuition says "last time I fed too heavy," then go a little lighter next time. Trust yourself. you're paying attention and you're learning, even if it doesn't feel like it.
  6. Sharon M started following Lowells Fish Lab
  7. Lowells Fish Lab
    A couple of things jump out to me just based on my own experiences with Gardneri. I don't think I've met a fish that would choose a yarn mop over a similarly positioned live plant. I'm thinking some of your eggs might be ending up on the pogo. Same but IMO slightly less likely with the moss. They also can deposit their eggs loosely around the outside of the mop which, in many cases, ends in them turning right around and eating them. For me they haven't been quite like rainbows or ricefish where you can leave a mop in the tank for an extended period and find it loaded with eggs. More often I find a small handful. If you want to see them spawn and maybe minimize the time available for them to eat eggs, you can separate the sexes for a few days and give the females lots of egg-producing food. Then if you put them back together you ought to be able to watch them spawn right in front of you.
  8. Lowells Fish Lab
    @Cory has anyone reported that the ACO tubifex are magically easy to squish until they sink? My finger soreness has declined substantially. I bet Eric Bodrock would love them.
  9. Lowells Fish Lab
    Sleepy pea puffer. Lights came on a moment earlier but it took a few before she woke up.
  10. Lowells Fish Lab
    They look great and I'm really enjoying watching this. I also think you have a great attitude toward feeling your way through an unknown. It's really hard to prescribe a perfect amount of anything, you just try things in increments and see what happens. Are they big enough to eat vinegar eels? Let's throw a few in there and see if they go for it. If not, no harm done. To my recollection and based on the latest photos I would say probably they aren't quite big enough. Pretty soon they'll start sprouting the features that make them look like something that might one day be a fish rather than a toothpick with eyes and I'm betting that's when you'll find them taking vinegar eels and then quickly the BBS. I would also add that while a planted tank without predators can raise a recreational number of fry for you, at least to the BBS size, there's something special about learning how to do it manually in fairly controlled conditions where you are responsible for every part of the process. Doing that with egg scattering species will make everything else seem trivial. That's been my experience anyway.
  11. lewk started following Lowells Fish Lab
  12. Lowells Fish Lab
    I'm a fan of placing mops in a fixed position closer to the surface than the tank floor and in the direction of water flow like the outflow from a filter. The cory species I've bred so far have all shown a preference for depositing eggs in a region with some distinct water flow. Not 100% of the eggs end up there, but a solid majority. Regarding eggs left to hatch on the mop, I think you'll find that the fry can find their way out, especially if the mop is moving around a bit because of the water movement. On the other hand, some eggs placed in a great spot initially can get covered and smothered as the strands shift.
  13. Lowells Fish Lab
    @magsie Congrats 🙂 I'm glad you were able to find some females. Now make a thousand more and spread them around!
  14. Lowells Fish Lab
    @modified lungThat's some gorgeous green water. I assume you figured this out over time but have you found P and K to to be critical?
  15. Lowells Fish Lab
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  16. Lowells Fish Lab
    Look for "San Francisco Strain Brine Shrimp." I have bought them from brine shrimp direct. Nowhere close to the hatch rate I'm used to from the coop brine shrimp but their small size is handy. Great thing to have in the fridge when needed.
  17. Lowells Fish Lab
    I think if you have males and females in the same space they'll start spawning whether they're super well conditioned or not, which is totally fine. The amount I feed (a lot) to make big healthy fish is the same amount I would use to encourage good egg production. If you look at your fish and say "wow, those are some fat, healthy looking fish," that's probably a good sign they are ready for some very productive spawns. If the adults are already in good condition and you want to separate sexes before reintroducing for a larger single spawning event, probably just a few days? And I think using the one male and two females is a good plan.
  18. Lowells Fish Lab
    @Guppysnail I think it's certainly worth a try. I've had blue rams spawn inside a clay pot tipped over on its side but they're a bit smaller so I get why you're thinking about bigger pots. Is it panda corydoras you'll be keeping them with? It occurs to me that at night time when the parents get less vigilant the Corys might snipe the wigglers. Have you considered leaving enough light on to keep the parents alert for a few days till the fry lift off the ground?
  19. Lowells Fish Lab
    Are you thinking they'll go inside? I've given them shelter like you would give blue rams and they seem to like that but I've never thought of them seeking out caves. I have no idea what they would do. Might just as likely spawn on top of them. That I have seen.
  20. Lowells Fish Lab
    @Guppysnail the pots are 4.5 inch diameter at the widest but don't let me give you the impression that they're picky. Once they get comfortable they'll spawn on just about anything.
  21. Lowells Fish Lab
    Looks to me like the left is male and the right is female.
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