Crabby

Thanks @Mr Gumbyand @Slick_Nick, that’s good news. Luckily I’m in lockdown for the next little while, so I’ve got the capability to do regular small water changes that could take a while. You both mentioned the bottom getting dirty - while I don’t have any shrimp available to put in there (well, I only have one, and he seems happy in his tank) and I can’t source any due to lockdown restrictions (can’t leave our 5k radius), I did just have a spawn of bristlenose. Could I pop a few babies in there to help out, or would they just make it worse? Also Nick, you mentioned substrate - I put them in a bare bottom tank (I was trying to breed bettas in it), that should be fine though, right?

So I harvested my eggs and fry today. I think I left the trap in there for a couple days too long, because there were more fry than eggs. Actually, as I was sorting out the eggs and fry, I found 3 fry in the middle of hatching. By the time I finished, they were fully hatched! Wish I had put them under a time lapse camera! Looks like I have around 40 eggs and fry - 27 fry and around 15 eggs (but a few looked like they might fungus). I’ve decided to skip the breeder box (because the holes are too large) and to put them straight in a 5 gallon grow-out. I’d like to put egg trap 2.0 back in the parents tank on the weekend, what do you recommend @Slick_Nick? Could I raise 70-100 fry in a 5 gallon, to a certain stage? I have a 4ft shrimp tank that I should be able to put them in, in about a month and a half. Geez this is fun. What a cool fish. I’ve got a lot of video to sort through but I can get some photos from the footage later if anyone is interested. It’s just from my phone so it’s not the best, but I don’t have a macro lens for my DSLR (YET!) Thanks to everyone on this thread who has given me the advice to get this far.

Hey all. Discovered this odd spot on my SAE today, looks to be on his chest-area (if fish had chests 😄). Not sure what it is. He seems pretty okay, but he might be breathing a bit more heavily. Any ideas on what this is and what to do about it? Thanks in advance.

It’s definitely my lights. I have 14 watt lights on all 3 of the 5 gallon tanks on my rack. Never thought I’d regret going high-light. Unfortunately I can’t dim them or anything. I’m getting some smart plugs so I can put them on a timer, thinking I’ll have to do 6 hours or something since I grow algae even on just 8 hours. I have live plants in all my tanks, and I don’t think I’ve ever had nitrates in one of my aquariums after I cycled it. The algae just seems to be light-based.

I get your line of thought @DSH OUTDOORS, but I’ve found that apistos are really delicate with inbreeding. I had multiple tail deformities that I’ve seen in my groups of apisto fry. Their parents are F1 from a wild pair, so the fry are only F2 and I’m already getting deformities. And that’s just from the fry that have survived this long. So I think ideally if you have the chance, you should bring in new blood with every generation, choosing the nicest male or female and purchasing a mate for that fish. In terms of the original question from @FriendlyLoach I think you’ll definitely have to sell a bunch of the fry along the way. You could raise a few up to live with their parents at full size (maybe a couple pairs at most in a 55 gallon, in addition to the parents?), but I don’t believe any type of apistogrammas are colony breeders. Some varieties breed in harems, but that’s a bit different. I mean it works to a stage. I’ve got a 29 gallon planted community that I bred my apistos in. I never removed the fry, and now my oldest male is almost as big as his mother. At this point I maybe have 10 left; 2 males, 4-5 females (only 1 is large enough to pair with the dominant male), and a few deformed females that I’m very attached to. I’m going to have to sell the sub-dominant male and the rest of the females eventually. Ideally I would source a female from someone else, but I think either one of, or the only private breeder in Melbourne who breeds this fish. So I’ll see what I can do but I might just have to breed that dominant pair. Considering the rarity of this species in my area, I wouldn’t want to lose the line. I would still do this in a different tank though. Given your chosen species I think you’d have an easy job finding a different bloodline to add in with your second generation.

Most of my fish are water puppies to some extent. I’m even getting my Celestial Pearls (who are supposed to be notoriously shy) to love me a little bit. They’ve gone from hiding whenever I come within 3 metres of the tank (hard to avoid when they’re inside the house) to actually coming out and dancing in front of me whenever I sit next to the tank. It’s ADORABLE. Now if only I could fix the algae problem so I can see them 😂 My serious water puppies would have to be my apistogrammas, my bettas (particularly my male), and maybe my Siames Algae Eater named Watson. He’s a bundle of fun.

I’ve never pulled apisto eggs or fry, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think it’s probably easier to pull the eggs. The better option would be to pull the male like @tolstoy21 recommended, but that might not be possible. Apistos can be successfully raised when the cave is pulled, so I think it would be the easier option for you, and probably safer with a male like that. Good luck!

Woah that’s really weird. Absolutely never heard of them spawning on a leaf. We could have a first here 😄 They probably fell off because apistos aren’t meant to lay on leaves, and the eggs would be structured to stick to the somewhat coarse surface of wood or rock. What kind of apistos are they? Keep us updated, this is really interesting.

Wow, congrats, that’s an amazing looking fish.

Oh I thought the body looked white cloudish. But how on earth did you get it to display black and red?

Wow!! What kind of fish is that?

The first and last images are of the same plant, actually! I was thinking it looked similar to a milfoil or hornwort type plant, but it’s definitely not either. I also found some elodea a few days ago, which is only the second plant so far that I’ve been able to confidently ID (the first being Red Azolla). Funnily enough I’ve only seen fish around my area once, which may have been mosquito fish, but I didn’t catch them so I’m not sure. I go looking occasionally but I rarely find any. I’m tempted to set up a little trap in the shallows to see if there’s anything living either in the billabongs or in the river.

I haven’t collected anything yet, but I went on a little expedition yesterday to get photos of all the plants I could find. I think I also found some type of eleocharis-type hair grass? It was growing emersed and submersed. Here are some pics:

To echo a few people who have already said something similar - I don’t think it’s worth trying to push what you can put into the tank. It’s probably best to either go with something that will comfortably fit in the 10 gallon, or to get a larger tank if you’re set on keeping/breeding L number plecos.

I got into them in a similar way. I was talking to a guy at my lfs about whether they would take my bettas, and the conversation moved to the types of fish that they love, but have trouble getting. He said in particular that they rarely get CPDs, but they always sell so well. When I saw they had some, I decided to buy a breeding group so I can help them out a bit.

Oh my gosh they’re amazing. They look like such cute little critters! Please keep us updated!

Probably about a year on average. It could be done quicker though. I just really enjoy having fry around, so I wanted to keep them as long as I could. That should be good then! It totally depends on the supplier. They can come in fully mature, or still as juvies.

My calico BN fry start off looking albino, and slowly get brown covering the rest of their bodies. So I don’t think any will be calico. But I’d be interested to see if there were different ways of calico appearing in fry.

I took my eye off them for 10 minutes and they disappeared. Urgh. Hopefully they’re just on one of the rocks, blending in. I’ll net them out as soon as I can see them. On the unfortunate possibility that they were eaten, I’ll still have whatever eggs I harvest over the next couple weeks.

Whoops… I took my eyes off them for 5 minutes, and they’ve moved. I’ll definitely catch them out when I see them though.

Well I expected to be giving you an update in a week or so… but the CPDs seem to have had their own plan! While I was looking for spawning activity around the egg trap that I placed in TODAY, I found 2 little fry stuck to the glass! What the heck?! I guess they just said ‘stuff it, we’re not waiting for the scary nosey fella to give us a proper egg trap, we’ll just use this HC over here!’ At the moment I don’t know whether I have any other fry in the tank, but I’m ecstatic that I’ve got any at all! I’m hoping that this means I’ve got a good chance at getting some eggs in the trap too!!! So what should I do? Do I put the fry in a breeder box? Or leave them in there until I can get my fry tank ready for them on the weekend? Also uhm WOW, not only is this SUPER cool, but that was soooo easy 😂 Like easier than livebearers. And quicker too! If I assume the eggs took 7 days to hatch, then the fish must have spawned on the 11th or earlier. I got them on the 7th. They spawned in under 4 days… Anyways, let me know what you think I should do. They’re still just sticking to the glass, so I don’t know if they’re at risk of being eaten. They’re tiny, but much larger than any food the parents eat. Definitely my smallest fry yet, which is pretty cool. They’ll take a powdered food like Hikari First Bites, right? Thanks so much for all of your advice mate!! It’s been very helpful.

Well I expected to be giving you an update in a week or so… but the CPDs seem to have had their own plan! While I was looking for spawning activity around the egg trap that I placed in TODAY, I found 2 little fry stuck to the glass! What the heck?! I guess they just said ‘stuff it, we’re not waiting for the scary nosey fella to give us a proper egg trap, we’ll just use this HC over here!’ At the moment I don’t know whether I have any other fry in the tank, but I’m ecstatic that I’ve got any at all! I’m hoping that this means I’ve got a good chance at getting some eggs in the trap too!!! So what should I do? Do I put the fry in a breeder box? Or leave them in there until I can get my fry tank ready for them on the weekend? Some pictures too, for fun 🙂

Oh wow, they really all do look like commons. Bummer. Unless that’s what @gardenman saw with their super red babies. But I mean they’re still baby bristlenoses, can’t be mad about those!

Definitely not SAE, could be a golden CAE though (which would have me freaking out a bit). I would get rid of them. Just put them up on aquabid or something, or give them to a store.

I’m really into rock and punk, although I have great appreciation for good jazz and funk, and some Aussie hip-hop too. I tend to mostly enjoy genres that are enjoyable to drum along to, and really, I don’t think it gets better than punk and rock. Gotta be upbeat though. Really enjoyed that Bowling for Soup song at the start of the thread. Currently enjoying the new songs coming out from Aussie band ‘Gang of Youths’, especially this one.