dylaneff1

Good call about the divider @Fish Folk, I'll definitely add that. @Colu I've already treated with metronidazole in the water twice. Not sure if it's safe to continue to treat internally... Where did you find the information about treating in food for 3 weeks?

Congrats, so exciting! Interested in any other details you want to share (diet, parameters, etc.). 🙂

I have a Gymnogeophagus caaguazuensis male whose head is deteriorating above his eyes towards his nostrils. I thought maybe it was hole in the head, but I'm not sure anymore. I feed a variety of food (primarily Xtreme bottom scratchers, vibra bites, repashy, frozen blood worms, etc.) so diet shouldn't be the issue, and my tanks run at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and < 40 ppm nitrate. Currently he's in a 10 gallon quarantine tank where I've treated with two full courses of API general cure (metro and prazi; 4 total doses) with no improvement. His color is still there and he's still eating most of the time. Any other ideas of what it could be or what I could use to treat? Nothing else in his regular tank has shown symptoms. Here's a pic of his tank and a profile view of him. I couldn't catch him facing me. Current quarantine tank parameters: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10 nitrate, pH = 7.0-7.1, GH 300+, KH = 80, temp = 74 F (23 C)

I'm going to take a wild guess that XXX is Brine Shrimp Direct because that's what all of this taken together sounds like to me. No need to say one way or the other. I personally like both companies. In my experience, BSD's eggs require higher aeration and temperature to get a good hatch rate and are less consistent than the Co-op's. The Great Salt Lake is going through some pretty serious ecological changes that seems to be affecting the quality of the eggs. I'm switching over to the Co-op's eggs exclusively, but if you want to try to get a good hatch rate from the BSD eggs, I would try more air and higher temperature. I can just let the Co-op's eggs go for longer to increase yield at a lower temp, but that hasn't worked for me with BSD's. I have to get them above room temp for at least part of the hatching cycle.

That would be super interesting! I'd like to see that. Especially if you have data on what was in the tank and what you fed, etc.

I do cull my shrimp because I like keeping a bright, deep blue in my blue dreams. That doesn't mean I kill them, I just put the less colored ones in a different system. I do feed a few of them to my waspfish, but the majority just live their lives in a "cull tank." I get some pretty interesting patterns and colors in there!

That's interesting! How much new stock do you/they introduce at a time? I don't disagree that this is probably a good practice, but I'm wondering whether it has a large enough effect to actually prevent inbreeding.

Did you end up ordering any online? If so, I'd love to hear about your experience! I'm considering ordering some myself.

Are those freeze dried tubifex? I've never tried those before. I've used other freeze dried foods, but none of my fish will touch them. Maybe I'll have to try those.

It's possible, but pretty unlikely. There's a much higher likelihood of introducing an infection or parasite from introducing new shrimp than it would be for your current line to show issues due to inbreeding. If you did want to try to add genetic diversity, you would either need to do it pretty frequently or change out a significant portion of the population for it to have an effect. I would highly recommend quarantining each time you get new stock in that case. None of the breeders I know (myself included) do introduce new stock regularly, though.

Super cool! I was shocked the first time my X. doadrioi gave birth too. Crazy that such huge babies can fit inside the mothers. It must be so uncomfortable for them! 😅

I agree with what has been said: multiple females per male and places to hide (e.g., plants). If you do decide to keep the male in a breeder net, it's super important to keep the net clean of uneaten food and keep the water turning over inside the net. In my experience, there's not as much water flow through the mesh/fabric as you would think. Any uneaten food will sit in the net and produce ammonia which can only be processed by your beneficial bacteria if it actually makes it to the bacteria. I've accidentally killed a few otherwise healthy fish by assuming that my established tank was processing any waste being produced in the net. Just something to be aware of! (As a side note, breeder boxes with flowing water like the Ziss one that the Co-op sells don't have this issue.) Have fun with them! Guppies are a great project. 🙂

Thanks for the advice! Is there any danger in dosing salt along with meds? Maybe 1 Tbs/5 gallons?

Sorry, I meant to include parameters in the initial post and forgot. Just added them. I'm going to do a water change to pull the nitrates down.

I need help identifying the issue with my Xenotoca doadrioi. A couple of them were getting what I thought was a mild fungal infection around their mouths, but the skin/scales are starting to pull off in a sheet, particularly in the male in both photos. The flesh underneath is just kind of whitish and a little red. I added a low dose of aquarium salt when I first noticed it, but two more have started having symptoms since then, and the male's skin started peeling as I noted. One of the other fish's gills are red and inflamed. Tank has been set up since late August, and I've had this line for almost 2 years with no issues. Nothing new was added to the tank and no parameters were changed. Temp is ~70 F, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, nitrates ~50. No idea if this is relevant, but I also have this weird whitish substance on the floating hornwort (see pic). It looks like bladder snail eggs in the pic, but it's not. I would appreciate ID and treatment advice if anybody has seen and treated something like this.