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.

I find that my shrimp won't start breeding in a tank until it has been set up along with the hardscape for several months, even if it has enough nitrifying bacteria to call it "cycled." It's the seasoned tank time thing that Cory talks about in livestreams sometimes. If your primary goal is to get the shrimp to breed ASAP, I would recommend leaving your hardscape the way it is. If your primary goal is to visually enjoy the tank or if the wood choice will bug you, then go ahead and switch it. It will be fine either way, switching the wood might only set you back by a couple of weeks. Or maybe not at all!

I don’t think you need to worry about hardness unless your water is just way off the charts. If you can keep freshwater fish in it, they’ll be fine. (I’ve even kept mine in brackish water- not recommended, but they survived.) The thing that has been most important for me is keeping nitrates low enough and making sure that they have a surface with lots of micro organisms to constantly eat on (like a sponge, plants, mulm, etc.).

While I love clown killies, I have found them to be more challenging. I would recommend something from the genus Aphyosemion for your first pair. I breed Aphyosemion striatum which I would definitely recommend, but they can be difficult to find. Aphyosemion australe are more common and fairly similar fish.

AquaBid: AquaBid.com - Killifish Auctions - Mon Dec 7 22:30:21 2020 WWW.AQUABID.COM AquaBid.com: Auctions for Killifish Category - Mon Dec 7 22:30:21 2020. Wet Spot Tropical Fish: Current Stock – Fish : The Wet Spot Tropical Fish WWW.WETSPOTTROPICALFISH.COM Tropical Fish I've gotten mine from my LFS, local club auctions, and Wet Spot.

When I had my clown killies (which I LOVED), I kept lots of live plants in the tank along with driftwood and a sponge filter to encourage lots of micro-foods to grow, and I made sure that they got prepared food every day. This was before I started hatching out brine shrimp so I just fed them quality crushed up flake food. I think the natural micro-foods were more important though since I had fry randomly appear and I never target fed them. They liked swimming through my salvinia roots. I would recommend live/frozen baby brine, the Co-op fry food, and Sera micron since that's what I have fed my other small killies. Good luck!

Wow, I must have a very generous LFS owner! I usually price my fish at 1/4-1/3 the price I assume he will sell them at, and it has worked well so far. I would definitely take the advice of those above as I'm sure they have more experience than I do, but also know that the LFS may be willing to pay a bit more assuming that you maintain a strong relationship (e.g., only sell super healthy fish, throw in an extra or two sometimes, make purchases from that store when it's practical, be respectful if they don't always respond to you or turn you down, etc.).

My breeding list is very similar to yours! Japan blue and purple Moscow guppies, blue eye lemon bristlenose plecos, red, blue, and yellow neocaridina, Limia perugiae, Xenotoca doadrioi, Aphyosemion striatum, Nothobranchius korthausae, panda corys, Pelvicachromis sacrimontis, and multifasciatus shell dwellers. I love seeing other people with some of the rarer wild-type livebearers! Best of luck with your new McCullochi and shrimp.

I'm wondering whether I should be feeding my Lepomis megalotis (longear sunfish) throughout the (Utah) winter in my small pond. Temperatures are regularly but not always below freezing. I've read on other forums that you shouldn't feed goldfish and koi below around 50 degrees (F) because they don't digest the food. Is that specific to carp, or does it generally apply to most cold water fish? I'm struggling to find info about this anywhere else. Thanks in advance!

I ended up losing all of the larvae. I think the oldest ones were probably 5 weeks, so they were getting close to morphing to actual freshwater shrimp. I was trying to raise them in a 2.5 gallon tank with just an air stone and ~20% water changes every 2 days. When I try again in the future, I'll probably either use a 5 or 10 gallon or change water daily along with a few other changes mentioned below. For anybody who is interested, here are a few observations from my several failed attempts. I totally think this is doable if you set it up correctly, it just takes some trial and error! I fed small amounts of Seachem's Phytoplankton daily, tiny amounts of Sera micron, and kept a strong light on the tank for ~16 hours/day to encourage diatom algae growth. I never saw them eat the micron, I was just feeding it because I had seen similar foods recommended. I will do without this next time since I think it contributed to water quality issues. I think the phytoplankton and diatom algae were the best foods. Some people recommend feeding plain dry yeast. I tried this a few times, but I never saw the shrimp gravitate towards it, and it just sat at the bottom of the tank. I kept my salinity at 34 ppt using Instant Ocean sea salt. I noticed significant die-off if it fluctuated much (not surprising). Toward the end I noticed them eating on the diatom algae quite a lot. Next time I try this, I'll set up the tank ahead of time so that the algae is established. They did best with a low amount of bubbles from an air stone. Too much flow caused them to blow around too much and not be able to settle anywhere. Part way through I added some caulerpa macroalgae to help control water quality since that's what I could get for free. I think it helped a little. Most people recommend chaetomorpha, so I'll probably try that next time. I found this detailed post to be the most helpful and consistent with my experience: https://gabhar.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/breeding-amano/. The video that Brandy posted above was also very informative when I watched it at the beginning of my Amano journey, and I would definitely recommend it as well. I'm not a super experienced breeder, so I think there are a lot of people here who could do a much better job than I did. I would encourage people to take a crack at breeding them! I think they have gotten a reputation for being impossible, and while they are pretty difficult and very specialized, I think it's totally doable if you dedicate yourself to the effort. I don't think they're feasible on a large scale, but if several people started trying it and sharing their experience we could learn a lot as breeders! Again, I haven't breed them successfully so I'm far from an expert, but I'm happy to share other details of my experience if anybody has questions. Happy shrimping!

I have a question for anybody who has ever tried to breed Amanos. Yes these are real Amanos- I've done the whole pipette the tiny larvae out of the breeding tank and transfer to saltwater, feed phytoplankton and diatom algae, change lots of water, etc. and I believe some of them are getting close to morphing! (This was my big project when quarantine started what seems like forever ago.) So my question is, how do you know when they have morphed? From what I understand it's fairly obvious, but I'm getting paranoid about not being able to tell and not transferring them back to freshwater quick enough. I'm also concerned because the oldest larva is moving around quite slowly... maybe it's just preparing to morph? Maybe I need to feed them something different at this stage? It's just been so much work to get them to this stage, I don't want to screw it up now!