Crabby

Wow they’re wonderful. Never heard of those, but they look stunning! Best of luck!

That’s a great technique. In the past I’ve only noticed I had fry once I saw the fry swimming outside of the cave.

Wow that’s incredible! I tried to spawn a pair last year and was told it was impossible. I actually spoke to the manager at my LFS (who’s actually a really knowledgeable fellow) and he said he reckoned you needed a large group of 20-30 to breed them. I was thinking more like a little school of 6, but clearly that’s not even necessary. Thanks for getting back to me mate! I’m guessing they either spawned in the Christmas moss or the water lettuce. From what I know of rainbows at least.

Hey, @Huck, would you mind describing your breeding setup a little? The group size and tank setup and parameters and everything? I’m very curious and I’d like to have a shot at breeding them.

Which variety?

Oh they’re extinct in the wild?! I had no idea! I was very interested in breeding honey blue eyes because they’re highly endangered in the wild but I could never find any for sale (besides @Blakes Aquatics who had some but I don’t believe he sells unfortunately). But if these guys are really endangered or extinct in the wild, that really inspires me to try breeding them. I’m quite surprised you paid that much for yours, I believe that’s about the same as my first pair cost me. I thought for some reason that besides a select few oddballish Aussie natives, most aquarium fish are more expensive in Australia than elsewhere (specifically the US). Maybe that’s just because I was forgetting to do conversion though. I agree, they’re SUCH a wonderful fish. Their ‘doofy fins’ are rivalled only in cuteness by pseudomugil furcatus. One of my favourite fish that I’ve kept, which is why I got so excited to see them for sale at my LFS last night! Hopefully someone with experience breeding them can give me a clue as to whether I can get by with 5 like you, or whether I need to go for more. I’m hoping I can get down to the LFS very very soon before they sell out, but it’s tough because we’re in a lockdown right now.

Hey mate! How’d you go with the breeding? I’m also from Australia, and looking to try breeding some luminatus. I’ve kept them before and tried to breed them as a pair, but failed. I’d like to go with the minimum size group necessary to breed. I’ve heard this is anywhere from 4-8 fish, with more females than males. The only ones I can find in Vic (that I’ve seen in the last 6 months) are $30 each, so I really don’t want to get more than necessary. But I also want to get enough I can be sure to breed them, otherwise I’ll be pretty bummed. If I breed them, I’ll make my money back (and then some) and get my ideal group size. If I can’t, then I’ll still really enjoy keeping them again, but it’ll be a big loss for me. So I’m trying to work out the sweet spot essentially. Did you succeed in breeding? And if so, with how many?

Apistos are super rewarding to breed. The courtship is very beautiful. Get your miniature live foods ready!

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s sexual dimorphism. If it’s constant no matter the angle of light, I guess it must be that.

@Huckand @RogueAquarium what size are your breeding groups of pseudomugil luminatus? I tried breeding with just a pair previously and got close but failed. They’re very very pricey here in Australia so I’d like to get the minimum amount possible. I’ve got my female still, and a friend has a male I could borrow, so how many more would you recommend I purchase to have a decent chance of breeding?

Thank you! The whole idea with the ‘staircase’ style was to decrease vertical space and increase stability (I’ve got a large clumsy dog who I wouldn’t entirely trust around a thin vertical structure containing fish and glass) while still allowing plenty of room for me to get in and put my hands in the tanks. They’re all just 5 gallon tanks, it’s all I could fit at the time. I’m rather a fan of nano tanks though. 10s would be ideal.

Yay! She ate bloodworms today (I really like the type I use, it’s mixed in with garlic and spirulina) and she seemed to really like them! So relieved. Hopefully this means she’s eating for good now.

I’m looking into breeding this variety of notho killi, they’re really wonderful aren’t they? Looks like you’re getting pretty close to success with spawning. Very interested to see how you go. What kind of parameters do you have going on?

Oh I totally agree. Supposedly my apistogrammas (that are F1 from a wild pair, of a species that has been scarcely bred in the hobby) should have been hard to keep… yet I’ve spawned them countless times, from only 6 months after I got into the hobby 😂 Yet bettas are meant to be the easiest fish on the planet to keep, and I have the most trouble with them.

I got some Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) but I haven’t used them yet, as she’s been eating when I feed her once a day. Usually I would feed twice a day, but I’m trying to play it safe. Once I have her consistently eating for another week, I’ll start feeding more often and with some love and frozen foods to get her ready for a breeding attempt.

Dropsy is awful. It doesn’t look like it to me though from everything you’ve said. I’ve suffered with a betta who had dropsy before, and it was terrible. So I hope for your sake you never have to deal with that. I’ve also got a betta that I believe may be constipated (she won’t eat) and @Colusuggested I do some epsom salt baths to help her relieve herself. Maybe that would work for you too if that’s the issue?

Hey Honour! I loved reading through the thread, very enjoyable. I’m sorry about your loss with Alphy, glad you’ve worked your way on to the right path though! It can be super hard to work past the nonsense advice on the internet to get to the really useful stuff. Especially with bettas. And even more so when there are competent looking store employees who tell you things that seem believable, that you want to believe! It’s wonderful to see the effort you’ve put into curating a really amazing tank! It looks beautiful! Anyways, all that out of the way, time to get to Gippy! He looks like a lovely little fella, although that stomach is a bit worrying. Never seen that before. Fin rot is pretty easy to handle, I had it really bad on some tetras once after ignoring them for a while (I know, how could I ignore my cuties?!) and I fixed it in a couple weeks without much of a sweat. On some of them they even lost the majority of their tails, but it came back after treatment. If you wanna invest in a little bottle of helpfulness, I used a product called melafix that comes in handy a lot with abrasions, fin rot, and bodily issues. The IAL sounds like it was just in time though! I can’t remember quite what they release along with those tannins, but I know it’s good! 30 or 40% water change should be good. If there’s fin rot, it doesn’t look like it’s too bad actually. All you need to do is keep the water clean and it should be fine.

Oh that’s extremely helpful. Thanks Colu! I’m going to order some garlic guard. Do you know if shrimp will be okay with Epsom salts at that dosage? Neocaridina. I assume my nerites will be fine, but the neo shrimp can be a bit picky when I mess with the water.

Thanks! It was a DIY project with my dad actually, he’s much better with wood working than I am, so we planned it together, he worked out how we would do the joints and stuff like that, and then we built it. Oh okay, that’s quite interesting actually. I’ll see if I can get some.

What does the garlic guard do? I haven’t seen it in Australia before but I might be able to find it.

Hey! I’m not new to fish keeping, but I’m relatively new to bettas, and as simple as they’re supposed to be, I haven’t had much success so far. My first betta passed away after getting ill with dropsy about 6 months ago, and I’ve finally worked up the guts to get a male and female with the hopes of breeding them (in seperate tanks of course). The male is doing well, but the female (while still being a healthy, wonderful, lively and interactive fish) has been giving me trouble with her eating. She barely eats anything I give her, and can clearly see the food, watching it as it falls to the bottom, and then swimming up to look at me like ‘GIVE ME SOME REAL FOOD!’ Well, I’ve given her real food! Frozen, live, tropical pellets, betta pellets, tropical flake, and soon I’ll try a pea just for the sake of being thorough. And I fasted her for a few days as well, which didn’t totally work. She ate the day her fast finished, but hasn’t properly eaten since. Anyways, I’m awfully confused, so I’m putting this out to you all to see if anyone else has an idea of what’ll work. I posted this in my introduction page and was told to ask the breeder about what food he uses, but he told me he just uses a generic pellet he buys in bulk for all his fish. He’s also about 45 minutes away from me, so I’d prefer not to drive to get food from him, without even knowing if it would work. The only other option I’m thinking of is getting some endlers or guppies to go with her, so there’s no chance of over feeding, but they may act as a dither fish in a sense. She did however attack my single endler that I put with her initially, although I believe that was because she was the only other fish in the tank. How does this sound as an option? Cheers!

Will do Dwayne.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I think I’ve got a question for one of my bettas. She was eating well for the guy who bred and raised her, but now that I have her she’s barely eating. I’ve tried everything I can think of - live food, frozen food, flake, pellet, all really good quality foods that the rest of my fish love. She just won’t take them. I’ve had her eat maybe 3 or 4 times in the last week, and it’s worrying me. I even tried fasting her for a couple days, and she ate when I gave her food after that, but now she’s stopped again. Any tips? I want to condition her for breeding but I can’t exactly do that if she doesn’t eat.

Hey all! I’m Crabby! I’m an aquarium hobbyist from Australia. I’ve been obsessed for the last 2 years, since I fell in love with some brackish shrimp in an estuary in NSW, and dove headfirst into research about the wonderful world of aquatics. I’m hoping to someday have a tank of those particular shrimp that brought me into what is now a massive part of my life. Just a preface to the rest of my intro- I’m a huge plant guy, I love my plants, and I’m pretty good with them too, thanks to my great tap water. But when it comes to fish, I have ones that I’m great at keeping (not totally what you’d expect), but most fish seem to lie in a category of semi-success for me. I’ve unfortunately lost quite a few fish and shrimp throughout the time I’ve been keeping them, and despite the massive amounts of research I do and content I consume, I still have odd losses. I no longer have multi-fish die-offs, but now I just have the occasional loss, and nowadays I’m just clueless because everything seems like it should be right. So that’s one of the main reasons I joined the forum; I’m hoping I can get advice from multiple people when I start to notice a fish going downhill so I can fix the problem before it’s too late. Currently I keep 4 aquariums, but that’s purely because I haven’t had time to set up my 5th tank since moving houses. My main tank is a well-planted 29 gallon tank that I’ve had for 2 years now (stocked with BNs, a pair of Apistogramma Nijsseni and their fry, my last female pseudomugil luminatus, a SAE, and a squadron of ember tetras). I also have a rack of three 5 gallon tanks that I’m trying to finish setting up. The top tank houses some emerald Moscow guppy fry and a male betta that I just purchased, the middle tank is a work-in-progress iwagumi scape that will hopefully be home to a colony of caridina shrimp and a breeding group of rocket killies, and the bottom tank has my female betta and my last blue dream shrimp. Historically I’ve had some shrimp issues due to fluctuating parameters, but I’ve finally got it figured out. Rack: Anyways, I’m already part of a wonderful forum called SKFA, based in Australia, but I figured for my upcoming betta breeding project it might be wise to get a larger spread of opinions and tips! I’m a big fan of the aquarium co-op YouTube channel, and Randy’s Aquarist podcast, so I figured this would be a pretty cool place to come hang out. I think forums are one of the best ways to share the hobby, and I’m excited to see what comes of this. Sorry for the essay ahaha, I tend to ramble. Here are some more pictures of my tanks and my fish! Note - some images of the 29 gallon tank are very outdated, but it’s a total mess right now, so just imagine everything has grown in a lot, there’s Java moss everywhere along the bottom, and all the fish have grown.