jwcarlson

Figured... why not? I find that a lot of breeding information lacks some information that someone like me with hard, alkaline water would really like to know. It's usually broad/general. "slightly acidic" "neutral" "soft"... Maybe my water is roughly soft compared to what someone else is dealing with. I saw a discus keeper putting in a massive RO system in because his well water is 1700 TDS. Which seems almost impossible. In any event, that's not part of this. I bought some CPDs from AquaHuna in November, unfortunately of the eight CPDs one was dead on arrival. One had a swim bladder problem and died a week later and one was a Furcatta Rainbow. So I ended up with four males and one female. They were small, but as they grew the female really started to swell up. So far, all she has done is swollen up in the main tank. She never shrinks down like she's laying eggs, figuring she was getting harrassed too much in the main tank (even the furcatta will rub up and show interest in her). So I started taking her out and putting her with a male in the next door QT tank that just has some bladder snails in it. After a couple days she gets skinny and I move them back for about a week as she bulks up again. After the first couple times of this I decided why not try to hatch some? First, I figured my tap water wouldn't work, I tested last night to confirm. pH of 8.2, KH of 15, GH of 22. But apparently that's not prohibitive. The tank as it originally was before they went in. Some pest snails and a couple of "devil's spike" snails as well as a mix of cherry shrimp. Some of the males: Female getting a little chunky (in QT tank so washed out): Female thinned out and colored up better (QT tank is bare bottom and no background), but she's also closer to mating here than above: Their main tank now: So after a couple of spawns to keep her from bursting with eggs, I finally noticed some eggs. Got a hang on breeding box at LFS and decided to pipette out the handful of eggs I saw. I could see maybe 5-8 of them. March 10th: My 10 year old daughter helped suck up most of them. I counted 35 when we were all done, not bad for one female over two days. March 11: Some had already started to hatch after about a day. No visible eyes yet, totally white bodies. So small... March 12, I added methylene blue after we caught the eggs on the 11th: Since they were hatching I did a "big" water change in the breeder box, pulled the box outside of the tank, and then hooked up the circulation. March 13, lots more hatched: March 14, they've been coloring up quite a bit the last day or so. Can see eyes now and they have some color on their sides. Still no one is free swimming, but they do hop around occasionally. I expect some will be swimming here in the next... day? I've been trying to keep the water pretty clean with a pipette. Turned up the current a bit this AM enough to stir up the debris and gently netted the heavy stuff out when I got it up into the water column. Did a 50% WC last night on the tank they're sharing water with as well. It's really tough to count them, but I think there's about 25 left. More than 20 for sure. Still an egg or two that's bouncing around, but perhaps they're not going to make it, I'll remove them tonight probably as hatching like two days behind your cohort typically isn't a good sign. March 14th pic: This has been pretty interesting. I am an absolute sucker for watching things grow. I have a couple different fry powders (Sera Micron and New Life Spectrum), vinegar eels, and the BBS are on a constant rotation for my apistos, so should have feeding covered. I'll rig up a tiny siphon to clean the mess out of their breeder box. I don't mind doing the maintenance to keep the box in good shape. I like the idea of being able to focus feed, at least until I know how much they can consume. Anyway, I'll update periodically. I'm kind of curious how quickly they grow once they start eating. I'm currently amazed that any of them survive in the wild considering their early life. All the credit really goes to this video, honestly. I've watched it probably 5+ times. If you've not checked out @Lowells Fish Lab, you're cheating yourself. Fantastic videos. Also to @Guppysnail for help in my other thread here:

That makes one of us! 50% ain't bad!

Yes, biofilm was in my head but apparently a disconnect between my brain and fingers. 🤣

It's just bacterial bloom, I believe. Typically it can bloom up on driftwood or other things when a tank is initially set up. I have never bothered cleaning it, eventually it goes away.

Right now these little ones are in an attached breeding box with air driven uplift and it discharges back into the tank. Like a little HOB. All that's in the tank are some pest snails. I moved the pair of adults back to their main tank yesterday. There was one still partway in the egg shell, I would say they'd be near impossible to see at this age. Yoke still is on these, but they're mostly white and wiggling inside the eggs. I cannot see eyes, BUT it's quite difficult to see them... Let alone their eyes.

I guess it's hatching time. Boy... They're small. They look dead. But watching for long enough and occasionally one in an egg "kicks" or one of the tiny tadpole-looking fry will twitch up off the bottom. It almost looks like they hatched too soon, but what do I know? 😄

Yes, but you have to attend all of that. :). This would be basically automatic except for filling. But would just need to set a timer. Would probably be faster too.

I don't know anything about those totes. But if I had something like that I would plumb an elbow up from that drain and then leave a coupling a few inches above your substrate. Then have a few pieces of PVC of different lengths... you can slide them into the coupling, turn the valve, and it drains to the level of whatever pipe you put in. Can guard it for fish if needed.

83 fry?! Me waiting to see if I can get one sterbai egg:

I hate rock wool, I cannot fathom how we have arrived at this as a packaging option for plants. There's got to be something better! I buy most of my plants from ACO, but had good luck with some Etsy sellers buying cuttings or trimmings. I actually like the ones with little foam wrappings and weights around them.

Collected 35 eggs from two days of a pair of my CPDs spawning. Also water changes on most tanks.

No surprise here, but the wild one's bifurcated spawn did not take. If the trend continues she should spawn here in 5-7 days. I don't know if I made her flip out or what. What's odd is that she didn't seem to care at all while I was watching, but then after they seemed to be done she... panicked? In any event, no real change there. The other two pairs are near polar opposites. One of the pairs is pretty lovey, female showing her belly a lot. Has felt like a spawn is eminent from them for like two weeks. But... still nothing. The other pair, I am starting to think might not ever pair. I don't think I've witnessed a single positive interaction between the two of them. He pushes her towards the top, I put a floating betta log in and she hangs out in there sometimes. He's not physically tough on her at all, she doesn't have any damage or anything so far as I can tell. She comes out when I feed, she'll actually eat right out of the tip of the brine shrimp syringe thing that I use to shoot the BBS into their tank. If I submerge it she'll almost nurse on it. It's pretty funny, actually. They've been with me for 60 days, seems like they've almost got to be approaching a 'failed' pairing...? I might have to do some reading as I don't know what to try. Maybe pull the male for a week and let her better establish her domain and then add him back in? Or might that end in disaster...? At this point, I'll just keep on keeping on and see how it turns out.

Looks great! You'll want to keep the java fern rhizome out of the substrate, but otherwise it looks swell! Can't wait to see the rest of your tanks when you start buying them. 😄

@GuppysnailHow big of a tank or box are you keeping the fry in? I'm worried about effectively feeding them in the 10 gallon the eggs were in. I went to the LFS and bought a breeder box since I don't own one. Then I went after the eggs with a pipette. My 10 year old daughter helped. I counted 35 or 36. They're tough to see. She looks chubby again this afternoon, so wonder if she'll spew out another batch. Hard to believe she could have laid that many eggs in just a couple of days!

I know! Lowells Fish Lab is my favorite fishtuber, stoked that he's on here, didn't even know! I watched this again last night. I need to get a hangon breeder box of some sort.

My tap water is 8.3 after aged, 7.0 fresh out of the tap. Very hard 18-20 degrees for both GH and KH, but apparently a lot of CO2 dissolved within. I just meant that you should also do the aging test to your well water. If what you said about tap water above is your well water than it sounds like you are in good shape! As long as you change it down slowly and it remains stable, you should be good to go. When I intro fish I plop and drop, but I am always going up. When getting my apistogrammas into breeding conditions I went from straight tap (described above) and did a 75% water change with straight RO they were absolutely fine. I know discus breeders who do the same with theirs.

Your normal schedule should be fine. Check your well water after aerating it overnight to see if the pH shifts.

If those consumption rates are accurate, yes. But in the grand scheme of things it's not much power. 50 watts running 24/7 is 50x24(hours)=1200 watt hours. Or 1.2 kiliwatt hours which is something like 15 cents per day depending on your energy rates. I am about to consolidate most of my air down to one central pump, I think. Tired of all these separate devices. 50 watt pump should be putting out a ton of air, probably many times what your 3.5 watt ones are doing.

Current draw is power in watts divided by voltage. So 50 watts/120 volts is about 0.4 amps. The smaller pumps would obviously total about a third of that. The equation is power = volts * current (P=VI)

The only thing I treat for prophylacticly is worms. I use pure levamisole. Unless I see a symptom, I don't bother with anything else. I don't think the med trio has messed up my cycle when I've done it, but haven't done it a lot. In a ten gallon just do a 50% water change every day until your cycle catches up. It shouldn't take long.

Did you run it with any load on it? It's going to loud without anything connected to it. I bought one similar a bit ago to give a shot... Haven't plumbed anything up yet, though.

Female was HUGE Wednesday evening, so I put her and male with brightest forehead into separate tank Thursday morning. And this afternoon she looks like a deflated balloon compared to yesterday. And... Tough to see them and I have no idea if they're fertile or gow to attempt raising them should I feel inclined. Going to have to do some watching of videos! I know these can be difficult because of how small the fry are. I do have vinegar eels, but not sure if even that is small enough. Have baby brine daily and fry powder somewhere, I think. Might give it a shot. I suppose the snails will eat them if I don't move them?

I recently read the first Sandman compilation and Vinland Saga 8. I like Vinland... Sandman, I don't know. It felt like I missed something critical before the book I read. I just started Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clark and I am 10 pages in and going to have to give up. I can't force myself to even try reading it. Not sure why.

I don't disagree, I am just disappointed that the only pH test that makes sense is the one I trust least. 🤣 Still wondering if it's off scale low, but would think the color would be closer to the 6.0 color.