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Nik_n

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Posts posted by Nik_n

  1. I recently bought a used aquarium, together with a used auto-feeder filled with some goldfish pallets. The guy said they were sit in there for 2 months. I also have the original food container, says the food expires in 2024. Would it be safe to feed this food to my goldfish or not?

  2. Regarding DIY brine shrimp hatcheries; they are not hard to make and work just as well. I have used them in the past and got great results, just make sure it's constructed properly. 

    You can use boiled egg yolk as an alternative to infusoria in the early stages of fry development. Powder food works just as well, but BBS are by far the best food.   

    • Thanks 1
  3. I will move the endler's into their own tank soon, however I doubt many will survive in the tank. I'm aware they are prolific breeder's, I was hoping to find a way to determine when the female guppy will drop fry. 

    On 12/8/2022 at 12:49 AM, lefty o said:

    her abdomen will get big, and the dark gravid spot will get bigger. final sign a few days before she's ready, the back of her belly will sort of square off.

    Thank you!

  4. I just added 4 endler's, 1 male and 3 females in my planted community tank. I'm planning to breed these fish and keep as many of the fry alive as possible. I intend to take the female out when she is ready to give birth, and transfer her to the fry grow out where the fry won't get eaten.  How can I tell when my female endler is about to drop fry? I believe all of the female are in the early stages or pregnancy, and I want to move them before they drop any fry. I know that it's possible to tell from the dark spot underneath their belly, but I'm not sure how.   

  5. As already mentioned above, it doesn't account for plants. Plants filter the water and use the nitrates to grow, so the more plants you have, more filtration in your tank. However planted tank only works if the balance has been archived, meaning the waste produced by the fish is absorbed and used up by plants in order to grow. Many new aquarists struggle with achieving the balance, which means they need a filter in order to keep water perimeters whit-in acceptable levels.  Hence the website would be used for new aquarists and I thinks that it's intended purpose 

  6. On 11/18/2022 at 7:31 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

    Half beaks are livebearers, so... provide a decent amount of cover and wait!

    Yea I found that they won't always give birth to live young. And since they are in a community tank, any eggs or fry would get eaten immediately so I will definitely setup a breeding/grow out tank. I was mainly interested in how to determine when these fish are ready to breed/release fry 

  7. I recently acquired a group of 6 platinum half beaks, a mix of both male and female. I cannot say for sure (some look like sub dominant males). But I can surely say that I have one male (the biggest and most colourful one) and at least 2 female (smallest and less colourful). The other three fish all have some colour in their fins but not as dominant as in the big male. 

    These fish are currently housed in my 60l community planted aquarium. They have plenty of cover and seem to be taking well to both frozen and dry foods. My plan is to fatten them up and condition them for spawning in the future.   

    I did some research but found little solid information on how to successfully do it form a hobbyist perspective. I plan to condition the fish in the main tank and set up a spawning tank for the breeding group. Has anyone had experience breeding these fish? How do I determine when they are ready to spawn? What would trigger them to spawn?

    Any advice is greatly appreciated   

  8. I plan on breeding my group of fork-tail rainbows using a spawning mop. I went to multiple different stores, looking for 100% acrylic yarn, and I finally found a store selling some. However, they did not seem to have the traditional dark green colour. Instead they had some kind of a blueish green (see picture below). Does anyone have any experience with different coloured spawning mops? 

    mop.jpg

    m.jpg

  9. On 10/25/2022 at 10:29 AM, Flumpweesel said:

    You might struggle with the breeding for profit in a communty set up.  When my corys spawn there are queues of fish waiting to eat their eggs, admittedly my stock is different (tetra, barb, rasbora and SAE's), but it is a surprise if any eggs remain in my tank by morning, I get small population increases so this suits me, you might have to collect your mops sooner to get good clutch sizes.

     

    I plan on conditioning the parents in the community tank and breeding them in a separate container, to maximise fry yield. I talked to my pet store, and they said they will take in any fry I raise. We haven't talked out the details yet, so I don't know if it's possible receive my payment in cash. 

    So yesterday I bough my the first six fish for my aquarium. Its a group of corydoras schwartzi, which seem to be close to 2 year in age based on their size. I will upload some photos later on. 

    Today has been a second day of the in fish cycle. I did a 80% water change and tested the water using the tetra test strips, results came back as:

    1. NO2- 1 mg/l
    2. NO3- 50mg/l
    3. pH-6.8

    The store did not have any ammonia tests, so unfortunately I won't be able to test for ammonia until Friday(when I'm going to a specialised fish store). On Friday I will buy another group of fish and some more plants to finish the scape and help with nitrate removal. You can expect pictures then.  

    I'm still undecided on the type of fish I'm going to get, currently I'm between CPDs and fork tailed rainbowfish. 

  10. I have been planing this project for whole of summer and today I finally finished setting up my new community planted aquarium. The tank has a volume of 60l, slightly smaller than I hoped, but I'm on a budget. It's decorated with spider-wood and rocks I found in the nearby forest. Planted with mostly stems, cripts and epiphytes (pictures will follow soon). 

    Tomorrow I'm starting the fish in cycle, I method I used successfully in the past. I have a rough idea of stalking; 

    1.  Cory cats(x6) single spices (haven't decided yet)
    2. Fork-tailed rainbow fish (4-6)
    3. Celestial Peral danios (4-6)

    To be clear, I will only be adding one group of these fish at a time, and add the rest over the next few weeks. I have not kept CPDs or rainbows before so I'm excited to try them out. I was considering adding another group of corries, pair/trio of killifish or a school of other nano fish later down the road, would any of that be possible? I would appreciate any stoking ideas I want to keep the tank lightly stoked. 

    My plan for this aquarium is to serve as a community tank, with fish that I can breed for profit. My plan was to either use spawning mops in the tanks to collect the eggs from individual species (e.g. every morning for rainbow fish) and take out pair/trio of conditioned breeding pairs. Since the fish stated above are all egg scatterers I plan to construct spawning mops in order to induce spawning. Additionally, I did not include any type of moss or other plant that may seems as a more preferable spawning site, in order to entice the fish to lay their eggs in the mops. I haven't tried this method before and am doing it as sort of an experiment. 

    I have been doing research in breeding of all these fish and I will keep updating the thread as I go.     

        

  11. It really depends on the the betta's temperament, but usually anything that is peaceful so not to hurt the betta, or small enough to be eaten by it. The safest bet would be snails of any kind. Corries are another great option, they are peaceful and stay on the bottom. I'm sure Cory made a video on this topic in the past. 

    • Like 4
  12. On 10/13/2022 at 7:21 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

    I think it depends on the kind of shrimp you use (e.g ghost shrimp, amanos, etc..)

     

    I'm sure they all have the same effect on the eggs, I never kept shrimp so I never personally tried this method out, but plan on doing it in the future. I have seen Nick from Keeping Fish Simple use blue dream shrimp in one of the older videos.  

  13. Shrimp, such as blue dream or red cherry won't eat or harm fish eggs. Some breeders will even keep shrimp in their breeding boxes, with their fresh spawns to minimise the risk of fungal infection. So you don't need to worry about shrimp eating your rice fish eggs. The parents themselves are a greater treat to the newly hatched fry. 

    The temperature remains an issue, I know that both shrimp and rice fish can tolerate cooler temperature, but I cannot comment on ideal breeding temperature.  

     

    • Like 1
  14. I do the same as @AnimalNerd98, I would use plastic tubs as a container. It is an eyesore, especially because I had to keep it in my living room. Now that I have a new apartment, I have more space and will definitely utilise plastic containers as grow out tanks. Here are some reasons why using plastic containers is a good idea: 

    1. Lower cost - Regular plastic tubs anywhere from 10-60l are very common and inexpensive. You can also find larger containers in a hardware store. They cost much less then an actual aquarium, saving you money for food or other supplies
    2.   Greater water volume- Fish fry need large volume of water to grow rapidly and develop properly and plastic tubs hold great volumes of water and its easy to 

    If you have a spare room where you can keep the tubs out of sight they will be perfect as grow out tanks, but keeping them out in the open if unsightly and more trouble then it's worth. 

  15. On 9/12/2022 at 2:04 AM, KatGoneFishing said:

    Woke up this morning to one of my male honey gourami being very aggressive towards the other two. Double-checked his bubble nest and sure enough, tiny black specks with tails! Considering I've only had this tank set up for about three and a half months and the gourami have only been in there for two, this is amazing.

    I'd been seeing courting and breeding behavior the last few days, with my one female showing much more interest in the males' displays than before, so the babies aren't entirely a surprise. But she'd seemed to prefer the other male when I was watching and I hadn't seen either male manage to seal the deal, so to find babies that have already hatched is definitely a surprise.

    So, I guess I have babies and now I'm going to have to try and find vinegar eels or something quickly because I definitely was not prepared for this, ahaha. But I'm going to do my best and we'll see how it goes! 

    I know exactly how you must be feeling right now, the same thing happened to me, one Sunday night when I randomly noticed eggs in the bubble nest of my blue gouramis, in my community tank. I took them out and set up a separate tank for them, and feed them boiled egg yolk for the first few days then I switched to microwroms and finally baby brine shrimp. The fry isn't very difficult to raise, as long as you frequently feed them food that they can eat and change the water regularly 

    If you are planning on growing them up, be prepared to keep them for a while, gouramis take a long time to grow. That was the case with my blue gouramis, it took me 9 months to get them to the store. I'm not sure if it's the same case with honey gouramis, maybe they grow a bit faster since they are smaller.  

    • Like 1
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