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laritheloud

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Everything posted by laritheloud

  1. He will likely be okay. I only have one honey gourami left right now -- my male -- and he's a bit shyer than he was with ladies in the tank, but he's actually become a very pleasant and curious fish and doing very well on his own. The breeding hormones made him want to chase a lot. If you do choose to get more thicklips, it's honestly very difficult to sex them when they're very young and in the store. I tried to get 3 females and 1 male and ended up with 3 males 1 female; the others grew their fin extensions and male characteristics late. Just something to be prepared for.
  2. Yes! My Easter egger lays blue and my Opal legbar will lay blue. I have an olive egger too!
  3. Aw, thank you. Caring for animals is honestly my joy in this life The older 'grayish' girl with the beard is Gertie, the younger gray chickie with the mohawk/crest is a Crested Opal Legbar named Bobbie, which is a new color variant to the Crested Cream Legbar. My latest batch I picked up from a small local breeder, and they've been doing very well for us. And they really are caring and smart. I'm not vegan, but I have become very conscious where my food comes from, and I have the privilege of having the ability to be conscious. I'm very lucky to live in the middle of a farming community so I can source pretty much all of my meat, fruit, and veggies from local, ethical, sustainable farms -- and families that I interact with personally. I respect you for going vegan. I tend to do a lot of weightlifting and my kids are very picky eaters, so this house would have a very hard time swinging to plant-only protein sources. Maybe someday when the kids are more grown I'll work on shifting to a more plant based diet, but for now, I'm at peace with our family's choices. I could never eat my chickens, though. Bless the folks strong enough to raise meat birds because I couldn't do it. Love them too much! What a HANDSOME fella -- both of them! Blackie looks like a sweetheart. Sorry he got you but glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Roosters can do some damage. I always hear that roosters can be a mixed bag of aggression; some will try to show you who's boss and others are the cuddliest guys ever. We technically don't have an ordinance against keeping roosters where I am, but I don't think it's a good idea for us to have one since we live in town. We're dreaming of retiring to a small hobby farm when the kids leave the nest, though, and then we'll get our large flock of chickens with a rooster. 🙂
  4. Chickens are wonderful creatures. I don’t care what anyone says, I think most animals are much smarter than people give them credit for, fish and chickens included. We can’t understand them as readily as a mammal because they are so different from us but when you get to know them and watch how they think and behave it’s so beautiful. betsy is one of my best girls - she’s the black australorp. Cuddles and clucks with me every day. Eleanor the speckled Sussex is chatty and loves to hound me for treats, super quirky. Gertie the egger is very calm and a steadying head hen. we just incorporated our new chicks to the flock and they are doing so well respecting the hens. No visible damage and I am monitoring them, but very happy with how it’s going!
  5. I also want to add that I lost my middle aged kitty, my love bug, my cuddle muffin to a thrown clot and kidney failure extremely suddenly last December… we ended up with two kittens to add to the family, Pandora and Thalia. They’re both almost a year old. The old man tabby is my oldest cat, Theo, who will turn 19 in October.
  6. I sure do! Expanded the flock this year too ❤️
  7. Yes, thank you for the tag and for remembering that I keep Nanochromis Splendens! I absolutely love my little nanos. I kept them in a 20 gallon and they stay quite small and sleek and petite. Originally when I was looking around I was searching for a smallish pair of cichlids that would work as fry control for my Platy colony — and if you’re looking for something similar, then these would definitely do the trick. They are super swift and decisive fry hunters. Plenty did survive to sustain the colony because my tank is heavily planted, but honestly, it was very neat to watch them zip around and search for a snack if you have the stomach for it. Since they are river fish I put a powerhead in the tank with them and they enjoyed the flow. Aside from the fry eating, I found them to coexist just fine with snails, a panda Garra, and a growing pleco (now moved to my largest tank). I hoped I would see breeding activity but despite seeing the two pair off, they never had a successful hatch. I have very alkaline water and suspect they need softer water to breed. If I were to try them again I’d use RO water and remineralize to see if that’ll encourage successful breeding. Nanochromis are also very shy fish. They adore caves and nooks and crannies to call their own. When my pair wasn’t pairing off, they would choose separate caves as their home base for sleeping and hanging out. Don’t be surprised if they spend a lot of time on there between begging for food during mealtimes. right now I’m down to only my female fish — I lost my male pretty recently to what I assume was old age. My fish were wild caught and full grown upon receipt, so I have no way of knowing how old they were; he and she were incredibly fascinating to watch darting around together during the year or two that they lived with me. She’s doing well by the way! Out during mealtimes daily and zipping gracefully from cave to cave. if anyone has any specific questions im happy to answer them. They’re definitely a unique and super cool alternative to kribs that stay quite small and slim. If you’re not looking to have mountains of cichlid fry, I found the literature to be correct in that they are more challenging to breed and require specific water conditions to do so. Hope this helps anyone looking at this genus!
  8. Male/Female pair of sunset thicklipped gourami. I'm pretty sure all "red honeys" are actually thicklips. EDIT to add: This is a full grown, mature pair. They are lovely to my eye!
  9. My marble betta developed very bad tumors along his face, behind his gill plate, and in the stomach area. As long as he was still interested in food I cared for him. When it was clear he could no longer swim or eat, I knew it was time. It's rough -- they're so personable, all of these fish are! I just wish breeding and supply chain practices really kept the health of these animals in mind and not just looks. I'm having a hard time justifying getting any more 'fancy' domestically bred labyrinth fish at this point, though my male honey is still doing well (almost two years in the tank now!). If I were to get more, I'd go for the bigger species of gourami that are closer to their wild coloration, like a three-spot gourami, moonlight gourami, pearl gourami. For now I'm really happy with the cichlids I'm keeping (don't have too many, most are small species except for my electric blue acara), so my focus has shifted a little bit.
  10. Oof. Looks like an internal infection or a tumor. Personally, I’ve never had success with medically treating these kinds of things. If I were you I’d give the sweet fish supportive care and feed/change water as normal; likely the condition is not contagious if no one else in the tank has a problem. Let them live out their little lives for as long as they will. you CAN try to treat, but in my experience, it is more stress than it is worth and the outcome rarely improves. You’re allowing the fish to live happily and that’s what counts — gouramis are often the luck of the draw when it comes to longevity and health. I only have one honey gourami and one thicklip left at this point, and it was nothing I did wrong — they are simply from a supply chain that doesn’t raise them up with health and longevity in mind. I’m sorry I don’t have better news!
  11. Those pictures are excellent! I’m still going to maintain she is female, though not a honey sunset or a honey gold. She looks wild type to me. When she colors beside a male (during courtship or dominance) she will darken to a deep rusty brown and MIGHT get an outline of a beard, even — but she’ll never color up as vibrantly as a wild type male. id also be prepared to never see breeding colors. Despite having males and females I have never had a successful breed. I never tried to do it intentionally, but they won’t necessarily get it done on their own.
  12. Just to demonstrate how subtle the male/female honey gourami fin shape difference is: The only way you can 'tell' is if you compare side-by-side, and even then, I had both males and females in the tank and couldn't distinguish a difference in shape. I now only have one male honey gourami or else I'd show more pictures of my own; I had both wild-types and sunset/gold-types. Also, the orange rims on a female are pretty pronounced. It's not foolproof, as I mentioned, but it should be a pretty stark difference even with the male's slightly orange tip vs. a female's: I also generally notice that a female's body shape is different than a male's, and females will be more interested in puttering around the tank for food while males are more likely to act like they're patroling.
  13. The most reliable method -- not foolproof, ime -- is to check the 'rim' color of the dorsal fin. If it is lemon yellow, male. If it is orange, female.
  14. I hate this graphic, LOL. The top fish in the graphic is a male sunset honey gourami, sure. The bottom fish is indeed a female fish, but that is a thicklip gourami, not a honey gourami. The points in the fins are not reliable indicators for honey gouramis with regard to sex. Ever. In any case, OP, you definitely have two males (sunset or golden type) and one female (wild-type) by my eye. Enjoy! EDIT to add: It is normal for female wild-type honey gouramis to have a bluish/blackish tint to the front of their anal fin. This occurred in all of my wild-type females. You should see her color up from time to time when doing a courtship/dominance shimmy with the boys; she'll get an orange-ish tint but not intense or vivid like a true male. Most of the time she'll stay that silvery color!
  15. I currently have a single honey gourami remaining in my 29 gallon tank. He's just fine, but he is less 'out and about' than he was when there was a handful of other honey gouramis with him. He tends to be pretty shy and likes to swim around the clusters of dense plant life in my tank. He is totally peaceful, though, his color looks great, and he's still doing his thing. I'm not planning on getting more honey gourami right now so he's my main man in that tank. If you choose to add more to your 29, you can probably add up to 3 more. Some people put up to 6 honeys in a 29, but four or five should be fine. You'll see a lot more activity from these fish when they have company, and they will form an hierarchy amongst themselves. The dominant fish will do some chasing of the others on and off but that is totally normal for the species. There shouldn't be any injury from the chasing, and provide some small areas of cover for the females to seek refuge when they want a break for a bit. Good luck!
  16. You have 1 female 3 males! And yes, this is about as rough as they get. The female (faint stripe down the side, still yellow but paler overall, orange fin rims) is flirting with the men and trying to figure which she likes best. The male with the black beard is the current dominant fella. The other two kinda do the same motions as flirting (wiggling side by side) to determine their pecking order. Super sweet fish, right??? I still have my own sunset honey gourami male! He's by himself now as the center of my 29 gallon tank but still wonderful.
  17. My JTS had one live birth at a time, but released multiple babies over the course of a week. For some reason my babies never reached adulthood. My baby rabbit snails are no longer babies anymore, though, and the three of them are about an inch and a half long and over a year old.
  18. Just a heads up, you will see the male chase the female on and off when he's in a nesting mood. He'll chase, chase, chase, and then eventually bubble nest and try to lure the female to his nest. This is normal behavior and nothing to be concerned about. Good luck and enjoy your sweet fish!
  19. Both of these fish are male! I’m also going to add they should be fine as a pair of dudes. Don’t add only one female or you will have issues.
  20. I've always wanted Spixis but don't know where to source them locally. They are so cute! Let me know how they do for you. Mystery snails never live very long in my tanks, but I'd love to try these guys if I can find them.
  21. Gertie, one of our Easter eggers, just laid today! Two layers!
  22. Hmmmmm I'm not convinced that's fin rot, necessarily. If it's a small online retailer you can try reaching out to the seller and asking for advice on what you're seeing. I've found small independent retailers to be quite helpful about these things. Good luck! EDIT to add: I wouldn't do anything other than salt and water changes for the fins. Not sure I'm looking at ich, either. There's some spots but it's not a lot, and if they aren't spreading like wildfire in a day I would not think it's ich at all.
  23. Betsy squatted for 2 to 3 weeks before finally laying an egg. A bigger tell for us was her serious nesting behavior the day before her first egg. She kept scratching around and cluckcluckclucking on elevated surfaces like our woven patio chairs. It was very different from her prior behavior, and so long as you know your girls you'll notice the difference. It's fussy hormonal scratching around seeking a nest. It's really cute to watch, but they do appear a little frustrated about it. 😁 😊 We have another pullet scratching around in the nest a lot, too. Betsy ended up laying the egg in the main coop area and NOT the nest box, but I bet she'll figure it out. We have dummy wooden eggs in the box to try and encourage them in the right place.
  24. This video is from 3 or 4 days ago, and shows how friendly Betsy can be. She'll act like she's had "enough" then come back and squawk/cluck for attention again. I hope your orpington lays soon! I hear they take their time getting started, so I'd expect somewhere closer to 6 months before she starts. 24 weeks is close to six months as it is, lol!
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