anewbie
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Posts posted by anewbie
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This is a plant that definitely require strong light.
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On 11/22/2023 at 3:17 PM, Lennie said:
Their origin is not known. So we cant directly say if they are hybrids, manmade or exist in the wild.
To quote some info about this:
https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/rineloricaria-sp/
This fish may or may not be a man-made, or even hybrid, species. There are a few theories regarding this currently in circulation. Some believe that the fish are derived from a true wild caught fish, possibly of Paraguayan origin. These wild-caught red whiptails are supposed to breed true, producing all red fry, although there is no concrete evidence that they actually exist. The second possibility is that it’s a selectively-bred form of Rineloricaria lanceolata, but this would appear unlikely, as there exist no records of mutant red fry in spawning reports of this frequently-bred species. The third explanation suggests that the true red whiptail was hybridised with R. lanceolata, the reason being that, lanceolata females are quite fecund, and thus the fish could be raised in commercially viable quantities more rapidly this way.
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https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=747
"This red colour form is considered to be artificial although it is unclear what species or methods were used in its production. Aqualog introduced this fish with an l-number of L010a, it is very different from L010."
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https://www.fishipedia.fr/fr/poissons/hemiloricaria-lanceolata
This website had differences between its original French version and English version. This is the google translate version of the French one as this info does not exist on the English page if I am not mistaken
Perhaps for the original fish but most of the ones sold today come from asian farms; and i found numerous references that they are producing hybrids because they are easier to breed that way.
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I have 4; i keep them at 76 in a large community aquarium and no special treatment. No clue if they have tried spawning. At first i liked them but these days i generally dislike man made hybrids and so i probably won't obtain more. Also there are two types - the pure red ones and the more brownish red. The brownish red are easier to breed or cross breed so they have become more common. I don't do anything special in keeping mine but they have grown substantially the last two years so i guess they are doing well.
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So this was a yesterday thing. I moved the 29 onto the stone i posted above; i moved the 120 to where the 29 was in the room and we installed the 2nd stone (approx 135 inches long and 20 inches wide - just wide enough for a 40B 😉
So this is what we now have (you can see the 29 at the very end on the stand:
The 2nd stone is very different from the first but sadly the picture came out badly so i'll take another and edit this post next time i go down-stairs 😉
It takes a lot of pails to move a 120 - 2 for fishes; 4 for substrate and 1 for plants - and this time around i only have plants on the sides (mostly vals); last time i moved the 120 it was packed with plants and needed 3 pails just for plants. I put one lone angel-fish in the back 240 you see on the right side to get some biological activity in there - going to put wc discus and rams in there sooner or later so it has ro water but the angle didn't seem to mind he was just happy to get fed. I'll have to start testing the water for ammonia in a day or so - pretty large aquarium for a single fish and i'll add a pair of live sponge filters in an hour or so. Maybe. naw not maybe that is a must do.
Hum. My arms hurt.
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Picture of the stone - it looks a little nicer in person as there are blue spotches and the camera increases the contrast too much; the name of the stone is volga blue if you want to look it up - unlike the other stone this one is pretty consistent across samples (the titanium one slab can be radically different from another - some are darker some have more gold specs; red veins and white quartz - some are kind of grey - really is grey veins in black but sometime those vein dominate so each slab is totally different; stones are wonderful - everyone should visit a slab store once a week to see the wonders of nature - ignore the man-made stuff in the back corner. Some of the marbles are also pretty wicked but don't use marble where there will be lots of water drops you will regret it ...).
Hum. Guess the light angle was wrong to show off the blue - i have this other stone for a desk that is called jadore - it is a wicked green and like titanium every slab is different - some are rich deep green others are more translucent green with red veins. You never know what nature will provide.
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aqueon makes a decent metal stand; petco has a cheaper metal stand - it is not as cleanly done as the aqueon but is less expensive (amazon has both of these); on the high end rj-enterprise has a true wood stand (not particle board) that will fit most aquarium size; some come with canopy which i hate but some people like; but most sizes can be found without canopy. These are not really furniture quality but they are solid thick wood and $$$$$$. Most other stands that look like wood are partical board and over time as they get wet they will fail. On the less expensive size but ugly you can buy metal shelving with the appropriate load balance.
For me i made my own stand (or had it made):
Just a long narrow piece of left over slab; but if you go to a slab shop and want a fragment for the size of your aquarium they are not that expensive just takes time to find one that look nice.
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The lady has new eggs; each time she gets more creative where she puts them:
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There are three or four really nice 2-3 inch pleco. another one that looks really interesting is "LDA01" "Gold Tiger Pleco"
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So when i had some counter tops put in i had left over slabs and i got the slab store to cut me some long pieces - 130 inch long and 18 inch wide so i could make ad-hoc aquarium stands for 20 long/29/30 long and similar:
We got the first one setup today and tomorrow i'll move the 29 on-to it so i can move the 120 to where the 29 is in the room then i'll setup the 2nd one. This is what the stone look like - sorry about the glare it looks nicer in person
Here is a close up but for some reason the phone seem to be unable to capture the contrast of the original stone (this is a natural granite stone with lots of quartz elements - it is called titan if you want to look up a nicer picture). The deposits have lots of red and gold flecks and other goodies in it but the base portion is blackish.
You'd have to see it in person to capture the full scope of the rock. Pity i don't have an aquarium large enough to hold it.
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update:
Did a google search and found this image:
https://titangranitestl.com/gallery/kitchens/titanium-granite-kitchen/
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Just be aware that as a natural stone each slab can look radically different. This particular slab had a lot of red/gold specs mixed in but others were mostly just white and black. Everyone should visit their slab store now and then and look at the natural stones - some are really quite lovely. The other piece i have is volga blue. One of my favorite used for the fish room counter is Jadore.
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On 11/13/2023 at 4:44 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:
I think @Guppysnail had a typo and was trying to say "jeweler's lens". Did you take that photo through a loupe? It looks like it. If not, what were you using?
Took it with this cheapo $5 thingy:
I think it is like 4x but the part circled in blue is higher mag - either 6 or 8x - it isn't that great. I have a $200 20 year old high quality loop sitting in a box somewhere from my photography days; well $200 20 years ago - that thing is optically fantastic with extreme clarity. Probably should re-purpose it after all i dont' even have an analog camera any longer (it was mostly used to examine minor details in slides and negatives and to need very low distortion to enable detection of lens flaws.
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On 11/13/2023 at 4:30 PM, Guppysnail said:
@anewbie your photos are so good and clear. They are awesome. I love the jewelers Ken’s angels.
Ken?
Those were my babies ! 1/2 were gold and 1/2 were black - mom was a platinum and daddy was a wonderful black. I rescued that poor black when it was a wee wee near death and he was such a darling.
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I have a few pictures of frys here and there but one i keep handy is this one of angelfishes;
And i found this one of kribs:
and this one of cockatoo:
And this one of a. pucallpaensis.
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I have around 20 sterbai; the males do stay fairly small - around 2 inches but the females can get massive - quite wide and approach 3+ inches. I two that are just monsters that all the little males constantly follow around. My newer ones are only a year old but the old ones are 5+ years. I had a bunch scattered across different aquariums and when i moved i collected them all and put them in the 450 together.
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Honglosi like most species of apistogramma are loosely polygamous which means that the male at any time might try to drive away a female not interested in breeding. They are not as aggressive as some other species in this before like trifs but it does happen. The nijjensi complex is the major group of fish that are more pair forming but pairs do break up. There are other species that are sort of pair forming but i forget which ones out side the nijjensi complex. There are a lot of interesting species in the nijjensi complex that are quite handsome but these mostly require relatively soft water to have any chance of successful breeding which makes them a bit less popular.
There are several but the only dwarf cichild i know off the top of my head that pair bond for life are keyholes - a wonderful dwarf cichlid that are very curious and relatively smart.
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apistogramma is a genus with many species; some prefer water with kh and gh near 0; others require water with kh and gh near 0; others prefer water with kh 2 or 3 degree and gh from 1 to 5 degree; some ....
so.... the answer is that it depends on the species not the genus. Having said that borelli are fairly flexible both with water quality and temp though like most fishes in the genus apistogramma you are far better off with hobby bred or wild caught as oppose to cz or asian farmed.
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Probably the last weekly update on my bedroom tank as these must be redundant after a while - but once again i did a weekly sunday water change and took a few pictures:
Not a great picture - too zoomed in but a lovely Cryptocoryne balansae; i have a lot of these and they all seem to do well once establish. Quite lovely plant even if it is a lousy picture. The plant behind it is POS and i gotta say the POS love this aquarium - it has grown into a giant forest that covers the back 1/4 of the aquarium (that is roughly 65 inches long and 2 or 3 inches deep); makes a great mop if someone drops some eggs.
Picture of my lace apogoeton. This is actually a large leaf lace and they get super large with a bit of co2 but since i've not turned on the co2 (yet?); the leaves are well constrained in size but it is really growing right now with 4 or 5 new leaves the past 2 months - one of the reason i'm not sure co2 is needed. The blue circle is the larger piece of pinto anubia (last week i photo'ed a smaller piece that had rotted off. The rot actually happened about 1.5 years ago so it wasn't a new thing and both pieces have been slowly growing.
While taking these pictures i got distracted by this little guy:
While it is just one who came to check out what was happening the aquarium actually has 25 or 30 of them but they don't come out as often as they used to - havent' really found their nest yet but every now and then i see them group up and fly around like little bumble bees. In the old 40b i knew exactly where to find them because they all lived together in the back right corner but now who knows. The orange laser are even more annoying - i have around 20 of those - some as much as 5 years old and in this aquarium i'm lucky to see 1 or 2 a week.
However one fish i see every day every hour every few minutes are the puppies:
(sorry for the blurry picture - didn't realize....). While he looks angry he is really happy as a puppy can be happy. This particular one insisted on swimming up the python not once nor twice but three times....
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borelli are generally passive but i've seen some cockatoo get pretty aggressive even if no females and they are much larger than borelli....
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I have a bunch of Nannostomus mortenthaleri - around 15. They are worse than rummy at feeding time; i havent' noticed any fighting among them but i've only had them for 2 months - also they are in my blackwater tank which was darker than coffee the first month - it has lighten a bit due to water changes. Dont' really have much else to say about them. Well now and then they do try to snatch food from just about everything include the a. bitaeniata; not much more i can say about them - they love to eat.
Also my blackwater aquarium is fairly large - 48 inch by 30 inch so there is lots of room for folks to spread out if needed.
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I spent the whole day taking one lousy picture:
And for those who want a closer look:
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On 11/9/2023 at 7:40 AM, TeeJay said:
Thank you... Going to try and get some new larger caves ordered this pay. I know they are right at the edge of being to small....I don't wanna see another pleco in a apistos cave incident like before 😆
My apisto never bother with the caves i give them - they always just make their own and ignore the ones provided - here is an example:
In this picture you see the back of the tank with a piece of drift wood that curves towards the front. The bottom of the driftwood actually touches the substrate in the front and behind it she dug a little cave and declared to all that this was her home. The male can't see her from the other side which makes it perfect; sadly i couldn't get closer to her to get a better picture as it made her nervous (she is a D50 female).
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Ok. Just took these - not great but whatever:
male angel:
female angel:
They are a pair but the festum always eat their eggs; so of course egg eating festum (I have 7; i think 2 female 3 male and 2 undecided):
It is really hard to get great pictures with this large aquarium because the glass is so thick.
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black neon tetra are fry predators so if you want to breed apisto you probably don't want to keep them with black neon.... i've bred apisto with great success with ember tetra; they probably snagged a couple of frys but more than enough made it.
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slowly working on setting up the 180 i have in the basement (72x24x24 inches); I think i'll put wild caught discus and gbr in that aquarium with a few geo (not sure which species). Kind of a pity to put such fishes in it as it is in the basement and will not get much viewing time - maybe i'll just think about putting them in it but never actually pour the water.... gotta think about; always wanted wc gbr.
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On 11/8/2023 at 2:30 PM, Odd Duck said:
Wow! Those are massive for festivums! I’ve read they can get that big but never seen one that big, so good job growing them up! I know they can stinkers to each other but wouldn’t have thought they would be that aggressive towards other species. Should have known they’re still cichlids. 🤷🏻♀️
My mistake; i measured the largest male and it is closer to 6 1/2 inch front to back fin; but it is only about 18 months old (well i've had it for 18 months; probably closer to 24 months old); so they have time to grow larger. The thing is they are not like angles - they are big heavy fishes. Thinking about putting a pair of chocolate cicihld in there with them but undecided - they are bigger of course. They were cramped in a 120 but now i have them in the 550 with a lovely pair of angels and a bunch of loaches - mostly clown.
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Depends on the composition of the white bands; frequently they are calcite which will react with water and raise the ph. You can test with acid. Not all zebra rock has calcite but vendors sometime sell stuff that looks like zebra rock that has a large amount of calcite.
Miller's Journal
in Photos, Videos & Journals
Posted
I want to see next year entry; can you have it done by tomorrow ?