Adventures in the Fishroom

[Tihshho]

Yesterday evening was the end of QT for some Sterbai's I picked up a few weeks back. Until the new display is fully cycled and good to go, they went off into the Ricefish tank. Went to take a picture after giving them a chance to get used to their new temporary digs, but they decided it was best to hide. Oh well, I'll snap a picture or two of them later. Also moved the Rineloricaria Parva out of their QT that they had been in an extra week as I wasn't sure if I wanted them with the Ricefish or with the Clown Pleco's. Made the executive call to move them with the Clowns since they are showing signs of being ready to spawn. Hoping the pheromones released will trigger spawning of the Clowns. Per the last check, I did when I pulled all the Clowns, it looked like maybe 1 of the 5 were a female, and after the large waterchange their tank went through due to the Crypt mellt earlier in the week, some of the males had taken control of some caves. Added a few more caves and then added the R. Parva in. Saw some standard pleco flexing of dominance from the orignal inhabitants, but all in all it went well and everyone was happy this morning. 

Prior to calling it quits with a game of musical fish, I figured doing a large WC on the QT's was a good idea. Thankfully no meds needed to be used and nothing came up with the fish that came out of QT, so a large WC and it was ready for it's next QT inhabitants. 

Moving to today, went to take a look at the new 40B display... Well the Crypts I had ordered are not fairing too great... The C. balanse looks like utter trash. They came in rough, so I wasn't expecting much from them, but I'll have to keep an eye on ACO's plant stock to see if I can get some better quality ones later down the line. With the melt those were going through it seems the nutrients from that decay has started to feed into the beginnings of Diatom algae... Great... I love this stage... Especially since it started to dust the Litorella Uniflora that I grabbed locally (seen above) that has been on my bucket list to get going in a display. Not only that, but the C. Parva I have is also slightly dusted with it. In response to the diatoms, I did a bit of a waterchange. Here's to hoping I can get the nutrients under control and not get a bad diatom outbreak where plants start to get impacted. Hope to get it cleaned up so it's picture worthy.

After that it was time to do the routine feedings in the fishroom and then off to pick Daisy Ricefish eggs. The container where they are hatching keeps getting filled.

They are hatching so sporadically that some days I'll see 3 or 4 new babies and others it will be 10 or so. It got to the point I've stopped pulling the babies from the tank containing the breeder box. I actually moved the fry back from the Ziss breeder in the parents tank back here because of how many were hatching. The Ziss box would have gotten too crowded too fast.

Made a trip to the LFS in the afternoon in hopes of getting some Otto's to QT to get into the planted display. They have been a great help with diatoms in the past, and I figure if the cycle ends for the display and the diatoms exist they could hopefully chow down and get nice little round bellies post QT. Figured I'd take a look at their plants and also see what else they had. Was hopeful they had more Sterbai's so I could add to the group in the longrun to up from 4 to 8 and figured I'd restock on blackworms. Got to the LFS and I was out of luck on everything I went for. Otto's were out of stock, their latest order that was supposed to have Sterbai's didn't contain them, didn't see any plants that fit my goal for the new display and they were out of black worms... Struck out even with and additional swing. While checking the tanks out I did notice they had a ton of Clown Pleco's in, some of them that even looked to be female. Thankfully this is a helpful LFS, so the employee was more than happy to net out the ones I was after. While waiting for him to bag those up,  I was staring at some other tanks and something else popped out of no where... Then a few more popped out... So a group of something else came home as a prospective breeding project.

x6 Aspidoras spilotus (C125). Here they are a few hours after being introduced to QT. They happily took to some Xtreme Krill flake when I noticed them pecking around the glass looking for food. 

[Tihshho]

Things are still chugging along. Around 6-10 Daisy eggs get added to the hatch container daily, and I get around 4-8 eggs hatching a day so the turn over is great. Cleared out a tank of Ancistrus fry that are large enough, for my process, to go back into the parents tank. Consolidated two other tanks of clutches of Ancistrus to open up some tanks for some future projects and/or the regularly scheduled clutch of Ancistrus fry. 

When I went to pick up some frozen foods yesterday I stumbled upon a pair (from what I can see) of peacock gudgeons at the store so I grabbed those guys. I know a few people were asking questions about spawning them, so I figured I'd give it another go and document the process with my PVC method. The duo (as I'm still working to confirm it's actually a pair) is currently in QT and doing great. Currently see the beginings of a nuchal hump on one, and the other has what I think to be the black stripe on the fin that females normally have, but it was hard to tell in a tank with dark substrate and now in my QT with glass back and bottom that's painted black. 

Quickly stopped by another LFS While talking with the owner he handed me the availability list of what they could get to see if there was anything I'd like to get as a special order. Per perusing the list I found a couple things that should be in later this week. Put in an order for a group of what was listed as 'Koi Rice Fish' as well as a group of Wrestling Half Beaks. With summer slowly rolling in temp wise here in the East Coast I wanted to be able to stock the tubs with more than just multiples of what I've got. I figured I'd move a group of the Daisy's out with some Neo's and in the other tub set it up with another rice fish species and another type of Neo's I have. Once these guys get through QT and I get a few batches of eggs hatching I'll more than likely move the adults outside. As for the Halfbeaks, they had been a species that I've been looking for for ages. I've slowly gotten away from the livebearer side of the hobby over the years unless the misses asked me to keep some in a display, but something about the halfbeaks just always grabbed my attention. Yay for oddballs! It's not the Belonosox I was always wanting to try, but they also don't have the issues with feeding that Belonosox do. Needing to not get/produce live feeder fish made this the perfect species for balance. I'm not sure if these are going to show up as Platinums/Golds or another variant, but here's to hoping they are not mislabled Celebes. 

[Tihshho]

In preps for the Peacock Gudgeons hopefully being a pair I wanted to work on getting something together to assist with rearing the eggs without the male if he ends up predating on them. I've had success spawning Peacock Gudgeons in the past with 1/2" PCV pieces being used for caves so I plan on going down that route again. My latest experience with a previous pair I had required me to pull the cave once the pair spawned, otherwise the male would predate on the eggs or fry if it ever got that far. For simplicities sake I ended up angling the tube and placing an airstone at the base of the tube to allow the air and water flow to keep up with providing the eggs a flow of water to keep down fungus. The cave was rotated in order for the air to not directly collect and pass over the eggs, basically the eggs on the bottom and the open space at the top for air passage as you can see in this older picture of a spawn I had:

To get away of the jerry rigging, I decided to mock something up in CAD so I can print off an adapter to use off the shelf 1/2" PVC, a 1/2" PVC elbow and Lees 1" rigid tubing. So far this is what I've got

From here the cave (the horizontal piece of PVC) will attach to an elbow that is then connected to a 3D printed connector that has a connector for an airline. The air then goes to a connector that feeds inside of the clear Lee's rigid tube to create lift to pull fresh water (and now no air!) across the eggs. Based on some concerns about the bubbles being produced being too large even after throttling air with a valve, I designed the outlet for the air to match the connection for the airline so a short length of airline could be used and then attaching an airstone.

More than likely I'll run Ziss stones since I keep a surplus of them on hand as well as their provided replacement felt material. Why run a stone rather than design the stone into the adapter? Well for maintenance. If the stone pores are designed into the adapter, then this design is a consumable that would require replacement if there was ever clogging due to mineral deposits or any other gunk build up. Using a stone means grabbing something off the shelf rather than reprinting the design. 

Once the fry hatch the flow can pull them out of the tube into the hatching enclosure. Rather than letting the fry populate the enclosure I'll be working on a collection cup above that can overflow the water and fry into a rearing bin and from there I can rear them else where like the Dean setup that I've slowly been working on. 

[Guppysnail]

I got some crypts in and stupidly had a heat pack added.  They all disintegrated from the heat but the roots looked healthy. I planted them and even the ones with no leaves are starting to grow leaves…very very slowly….but they are there. It was my first try at crypts so I figured I had nothing else to lose. 

[Tihshho]

On 5/16/2022 at 1:05 PM, Guppysnail said:

I got some crypts in and stupidly had a heat pack added.  They all disintegrated from the heat but the roots looked healthy. I planted them and even the ones with no leaves are starting to grow leaves…very very slowly….but they are there. It was my first try at crypts so I figured I had nothing else to lose. 

I'm not sure the issue was too much heat, more so the lack of heat, no insulation and poor packaging (stuff could shake around easily.) Heat packs showed up barely warm (second order) or cold as ice (first and third order.) First and third order the people packaing it left the heat packs in the plastic and only tore off a bit of the packaging thinking it would 'active it' which it didn't. Per removing the heat pack from the plastic and working it around to mix the components it started to generate heat and actually stayed decently warm for 48 hours... Not sure why their packing folks do what they did, but it wasn't a great experience. This is why next plants will be coming from ACO or somewhere else.

[Tihshho]

Is it just me, or do fish we keep tend to surprise you when you least expect it. Found myself sighing at the thought of my Lg6 R. Parva spawning after responding to @Colu's post about what L-numbers people are keeping. I knew a male started to guard a cave as of yesterday, but little did I expect to see this during the noon feeding...

I have to say, as an aquarist who is more into the breeding side of the hobby the whole "work from home" world has been a nice change. Being able to save hours a day that used to be lost to commuting as well as being able to check on the fish during lunch has been a nice change of pace. Being able to feed more often has definitely shown improvement on things that I've been working on breeding, normally feedings would be twice a day (morning and evening) but now being able to offer food 3 times a day to species that seem to need it are definitely proving to me that regular offerings of food make a big difference in spawning rather than just quality. 

The mother C. Miyoa seems to be bouncing back post melt. Thick wavy leaves seem to be replacing the melt that took a while to clean out. The R. Parva also did a wonderful job of stirring up the silt and mulm that built up in the pot as well, so it's nice to have that mess cleared out, though biologically it probably wasn't hurting anything and providing micro organisms for the neo's in that tank to eat. Having thousands of culled neo's from my spawning colonies put in this tank have started to throw off their own morphs and interesting mutations. I'm not sure this tank is capable of having issues of being over fed as whatever the pleco's don't hoover, the shrimp shred and take in. Food never sits for more than 30 minutes in this tank until it's 100% gone. 

On another good note, the Assassin Snails I picked up are showing they are happy. I tried to get a picture, but potato phone didn't provide anything remotely worth posting. Even the pictures above are not great, but better than what I was able to get on their eggs. Historically, I've had horrible luck with Assassin's. They seem to be ok for a few weeks and then go from active to lethargic in one spot and from there turn to empty shells. Sourcing them locally seems to be the game changer on them for me. Started with two in a breeder box just to see how many pest snails they were polishing off when I would add their offerings in by the cup. Based on the quantity of bladder and MTS (which they don't seem to touch sadly) I have I figured I'd get two more a few weeks back. The latest two in the breeder box seemed to contain a female as a small piece of wood in there has 12 eggs. Here's to hoping they hatch to become hungry escargot predators!

[Tihshho]

Well it's official, the Lg6 R. parva spawned last night! Male is currently guarding the clutch.

Going to leave the eggs with the male to see if he's capable of maintaining the eggs. The only concern I have is attempted nest robbing from the Clown's or other Whiptails. I'll keep an eye on the nest to make sure things keep going as I hope they do. I need to dig a little more into the cycle of hatching for these guys to see if the male will guard the babies post hatch (like Ancistrus) or once they hatch if they leave the cave to start their own lives. If they plan on bolting from the cave, I'll pull the cave early to artifically hatch the batch just to rear the offspring in a breeder box to make sure they are getting adequate food. Once they get round bellies and are eating regularly, I'll swap them into a rearing tank. Glad to have another species spawning under my belt!

Speaking of spawning, pulled 36 Daisy eggs. I'm curious to find out how many eggs 3 females are producing daily, because after I pulled the mops I still saw large clusters of eggs on the females. That said though, yesterday a cool water change was done on that tank, so I wonder if I pulled Sterbai eggs? I doubt it, but interesting none the less. We will see how things pan out. 

[Tihshho]

Day 6 of the male LG6 on the eggs. Everything so far is looking good and the eggs are going from a mottled green to a darker brown and swelling. Hoping to see eggs hatch soon! 

With the addition of the LG6 to the tank, I'm starting to see more activity from the Clown's. They are more open in terms of coming out to get food (repashy offerings, sunken flake and wafers being things that draw them out) as well as their belly sizes seem to be getting there. Out of the larger 5 Clowns, a few of them have nice round bellies, but I'm still on the fence of their sexes. Last I pulled them to verify, they seemed to be males, so we will see. Since the LG6's spawned, the clowns have taken to caves more. Not sure if pheromones from the spawning triggered the Clowns to seek caves, but here's to hoping. Once the LG6 eggs are hatched and I'm able to get the babies moved out, I plan on adding more caves around the tank for the clowns. They seem to not be big fans of the shape or size of the terracotta watering spikes, so I might invest in some various pleco caves. I might also mix it up by adding some slate terracing to see if that changes things up too. 

LFS got in the fish I was after and I came home with a bunch of them last week and just hadn't updated it here. Currently in QT are the following:

• 7 Koi Medaka's (one of them seems pretty rough now so I'm going to be working on that)
• 3 Wrestling halfbeaks (wanted more, but they came in very rough and I grabbed the survivors of the small order)
• Pair of Apistogramma Borelli

It's been four days with them in QT and everyone is eating well enough. Just need to get them all in shape and out of their prospective QT's and into tanks for a little longer term monitoring. The A. Borelli were a nice addition as it's been a bit since I've had Apisto's as a project. The male seems to love hiding in between the plants towards the front of their QT and the female has staked the shadows of the back of the tank near the sponge filter and some floating ferns as her area. When it comes to feeding, the female aggressively guards the back of the tank. The male is in solid condition and no damages to either of them are apparant. Hopefully I can get a good few spawns of these going to start offering to local hobbyists and shops as I don't see them very often, unlike A. Agazzizii's and A. McMasteri. 

With the shrimp populations kicking out babies constantly and the Ancistrus tank getting overwhelmed I'll be posting up a FS thread in the trading section specifically for locals. I need to get better at getting decent pictures and I'll start offering offspring over there to people within my area as I don't want to deal with shipping. 

 

[Colu]

That looks like quite a large spawn hopefully they all hatch and you get lots of baby whip tails running a round your tank

[Tihshho]

On 5/23/2022 at 5:33 PM, Colu said:

That looks like quite a large spawn hopefully they all hatch and you get lots of baby whip tails running a round your tank

Well I'll be getting a count soon! Today was the big day!

Originally started with a quick scan of the cave with a light, and didn't see any babies with the male so I figured things were still cooking and getting ready to hatch in the next couple days. Boy was I wrong... Went and fed the room, pulled Daisy eggs, and sat infront of the tank with the LG6's and Clowns just to check on the Clowns with a light. Out of the corner of my eye there was something oddly moving in the detritus that I hadn't gotten out as I didn't siphon the bottom of the tank with the male LG6 on eggs and I didn't want to disturb him and risk getting him to eat the eggs. Took a closer look and noticed something else fall out the cave when the male 'whipped' his tail. Grabbed the flashlight to check the cave it babies were hatching and getting kicked out the cave! Luckily I had the Ziss box already in the tank so I pulled the cave and placed it vertically in the box to prevent the male from kicking out more babies while I gently netted the wigglers that had been kicked out. From what I can tell, as the male cleans/agitates the eggs to keep them from fungusing it's also what is done to assist with the babies to break through their egg casing. While getting the wigglers out I noticed a few other quick things moving across the glass. It seems there were other babies that must have hatched earlier, OR the other male had spawned with another female earlier behind the pot holding the crypts. As I was netting those out I noticed the LG6 male in the cave's tail whipping out of the cave and tilted the cave to release him and any loose babies into the breeder box. From there there was a rush of hatched babies coming out. I pulled the male from the box and he's back in the tank. I placed an air stone in the cave again to keep flow over the unhatched eggs and checked on it periodically for 15 minutes and poured out all the babies into the Ziss box. I didn't get a count yet of the babies, but it's nice to see these guys in their rearing box:

The baby on the back either is an earlier hatch or from another spawn I didn't know of. The other babies still have a green yolk sack. 

On another note, someone else is protecting a cave!

Not 100% sure the two I picked up were a male and female, but I'm glad to see one has claimed a PVC cave. Couldn't tell if they were on eggs or not, but the didn't come out for their flake meal. 

[Patrick_G]

Thanks for the info on breeding the Peacock Gudgeons. 

[Colu]

Congratulations looks like you got a good hatch rate I would be interested to see how easy they are to raise compared to bristlenose fry 

[Tihshho]

So far so good. Took this picture yesterday and never got around to posting it. Less than 24 hours later the yolk sacks were gone. The babies are very slim, and this is concerning since I've never reared these before. Not sure what to expect, but I had previously added some leaf litter that I introduced to the tank a month or so ago to give them some biofilm to rasp on. The Ziss breederbox also was setup in the tank a week or so prior to hatching, so there is some biofilm on it as well to get them going. I moved over a clump of Christmas moss as well to see if there are any goodies in there that they want to nibble on. The babies are uninterested in any offerings of food, but see to be ready to rasp 24 hours post hatching. I offered them a little bit of repashy and that went untouched all day. I also killed the flow to the Ziss box to mix in some Sera Micron, and there was zero interest in that, unlike any other pleco fry I've offered it to in the past. 

I'll be checking on them later in the day and provide updates to see how they faired on their third day in the world. 

Last I checked yesterday evening, they were enjoying rasping on the baby catapa leaves, so I might need to get more botanicals to keep in the tank to prepare for future spawns. 

@Colu per a quick attempt at a count, there was over 100 of them in half the box. The spawn size in this was much larger than I was expecting.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Tihshho

[Colu]

I have good success feeding pleco fry hikari mini algae wafers and EBO youngster grow paste and cucumber it possible they getting all the nutrition they need from the bio film that why their not interested in the food your offering at the moment @Tihshho

[Tihshho]

On 5/26/2022 at 2:24 PM, Colu said:

I have good success feeding pleco fry hikari mini algae wafers and EBO youngster grow paste and cucumber it possible they getting all the nutrition they need from the bio film that why their not interested in the food your offering at the moment @Tihshho

Very solid point. I'm used to most baby pleco's having a belly even after the yolk sac. They tend to swarm food, so this is a change. I know when it comes to Farowella, most people get the best yield success with rearing them in jugs and having particulate food cloud their container as they seem to 'filter feed' even though they look to be rasping. I'm testing this out with Sera Micron offerings through out the day. I also put a ramakin of a cloud of Sera Micron in there and need to go check back to see if they swarmed it. The Ziss breeder boxes don't allow for the cloud to hang too long as they provide amazing flow. Never thought that would be an issue until now. 

[Colu]

On 5/26/2022 at 7:29 PM, Tihshho said:

Very solid point. I'm used to most baby pleco's having a belly even after the yolk sac. They tend to swarm food, so this is a change. I know when it comes to Farowella, most people get the best yield success with rearing them in jugs and having particulate food cloud their container as they seem to 'filter feed' even though they look to be rasping. I'm testing this out with Sera Micron offerings through out the day. I also put a ramakin of a cloud of Sera Micron in there and need to go check back to see if they swarmed it. The Ziss breeder boxes don't allow for the cloud to hang too long as they provide amazing flow. Never thought that would be an issue until now. 

If might take a couple of days before they eat all the bio film in the breeder box then they might be more willing to except prepared food hopefully they start excepting the Sera micron 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Colu
Typo

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/2/2021 at 3:32 PM, Tihshho said:

How much do you enjoy having those feeding dishes?  Aesthetically I really like them, but in practice I'd imagine the flow just stomps the food all over depending on the setup you have.  What has been your experience with them?

[Tihshho]

On 5/26/2022 at 2:35 PM, Colu said:

If might take a couple of days before they eat all the bio film in the breeder box then they might be more willing to except prepared food hopefully they start excepting the Sera micron 

Checked the ramiken/micro jar I introduced at noon and there are a few dozen in there. When I got towards the tank I spooked them, so I moved away from the side of the tank with the ZBB. Seems like they are figuring out what offered foods are.

Problem is now that I need to get another ZBB ready... When I moved away from the babies I noticed this...

Different male and a different female. It's funny that they went to the same cave location as the first spawn, so something is ideal in that spot. Based on what I noticed before, I should have a new batch of eggs tomorrow and around day 6 they should be hatching.

On 5/26/2022 at 2:57 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

How much do you enjoy having those feeding dishes?  Aesthetically I really like them, but in practice I'd imagine the flow just stomps the food all over depending on the setup you have.  What has been your experience with them?

I don't mind them. I got them for a deal so I figured I'd try them out. I run sponge filters solely on spawning tanks so stirring up things with directed flow over the dishes are not an issue. If you're running a powerhead or canister with flow aimed towards these I could see an issue, but with sinking shrimp pellets they pretty much stay where they are put. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Tihshho

[Colu]

I have just been reading my catfish Altas and it recommends offering whip tail fry frozen baby brine or Cyclops or rotifers as they sink to bottom quickly  and some vegetables matter 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Colu
Typo

[Tihshho]

On 5/26/2022 at 3:56 PM, Colu said:

I have just been reading my catfish Altas and it recommends offering whip tail fry frozen baby brine or Cyclops or rotifers as they sink to bottom quickly rotifers and some vegetables matter 

I'll have to go pick some up. I've been putting off getting back into hatching BBS, but I think it's probably about time I do so with how many species I've got spawning. My issue with BBS is that once you start feeding it, some fish go off other foods. Not the case with all species, but had it happen with a few. I setup the air system in the room to accomodate some drops near the sink to setup for hatching, seems like now is the best time to take advantage of that prior planning. 

[Tihshho]

Well my ever so common late text based updates. On the 28th (a day later than expected) I've got another cave with a new batch of eggs. This is going to be a precarious issue as I'm running out of ZBB's! I'm going to have to spend some time to get my fry rearing setup together as adding multiple ZBB's to every ACO order is going to add up. 

Currently the first batch of fry that hatched on the 26th are doing well. Either they have started to take on eating the food I'm offering, or they have started to tear into the water logged catapa leaves. I'm not 100% sure what is going on, but round bellies are starting to show up which I cannot complain about. 

I've started to do some tests with the abundance of Daisy eggs I'm getting. Rather than hatching them in the floating breeder box in a rearing tank, I've started to setup deli cups with each days eggs. Each of the cups are about 1/5th full with an airline drop and barely a partial drop of methylene blue added to them. I change the water with their parents tank water every other day. From what I can tell I'm not seeing any benefits from this after 5 days of collection. If anything I'm actually noticing more fungus on eggs than my initial setup. It seems keeping Neo's with the eggs is actually reducing fungusing more than going the chemical route... Who would have thought? Almost has me thinking that an old way of the past might end up getting left as an old way in terms of housing and hatching egglaying species. 

I setup a lastminute rig to hatch some BBS and well... I've got to order some new eggs. Pulled a stash of San Fransisco Bay eggs that I had in the fridge, and I guess I had them longer than their shelf life would permit. Out of a teaspoon of eggs, I had less than 40 hatched I would guess. I'll be adding some ACO eggs to my next order. I also need to find a new source of flake. Per feeding schedules the 'jug' of Xtreme Krill flake doesn't seem to last a month anymore. If I could get it by a bucket, I would love to start. Otherwise I'm going to have to see if I can get the bulk bucket order of Omega one flake I used in the past. 

Outside of the fishroom there has been a bit of progress. Cleared out an area on the side of the house to relocate my tubs. Originally, I was hoping to put them near my deck, but with talks on shade and trying to figure out how to keep water temps down on hot East Coast summers, I figured an area that got some direct light and ended up with shade for the rest of the day would be better. Got one of the tubs filled yesterday and plan to go airless and just stock with plants. With a sale a LFS had, I ended up picking up a few Water Hyacyinth, Water Lettuce, two potted larger lillies, and one potted dwarf lilly (which I need to do a bit more research on.)

I hope to get some pictures up tomorrow. It's been a busy last few days.

[Tihshho]

So far here are the babies from clutch 1 (eight days old):

These gues are getting the shape of their parents. The faces went from rount nosed to more of a point and they finnage on these guys is nuts. Always seem to be displaying their fins, which is nice to see! 

Unlike batch 1, batch 2 is doing something a little different. I'm finding random babies in the tank that are definitely new and I've seen the male kick out some babies from the cave as he whips his tail to adjust while cleaning the eggs. Not sure if he spawned with two females or what, but eggs are hatching every minute over the past two days. Here is a picture of what I've caught so far yesterday and today:

The male still seems to be sitting on about 80 to almost 90 percent of the eggs still. Interesting to see that this round is hatching at a different rate. So far there are 43 babies in there... And more to come... Going to need to get this batch and the first raised up quick as they will need to go to new homes with as fast as the parent group are spawning.

[Tihshho]

Saturday the last eggs seemed to have hatched as the cave was cleared out. These guys are particularly interesting as I experimented to see what would happen if the male was removed from the cave on Thursday. Pulled the male and tried to flush the eggs and had no success. With the large initial spawn I had and the sparse hatchlings showing up all over the tank I figured if I lost the other 40% off the eggs I wasn't going to be too concerned about it. Post pulling the male, flushing the cave numerous times, I noticed the male was hanging out where the cave used to be the entire time. With no luck getting any loose eggs out I decided to place the cave back. Within seconds he was back in tending to the eggs. Parental care from this species is insane! I've accidently done this to Ancistrus years ago and the male would go back in and either eat the eggs or force them out the cave. 

By Saturday all the eggs hatched and I was pulling about 18-22 babies a day since that thursday. Still pulling the odd 8-10 even last night. While on the baby hunt to see where they would pop out from I noticed a familiar site...

Seems like as soon as the male had left the cave post the babies hatching another male had a mate in there. Batch 3 is on its way. This morning the cave was full of eggs. This round I'm not going to pull the eggs. Two ZBB's full of two clutches is enough. I even spread out some of the latest babies into some shrimp tanks to see how they grow unattended with no special foods and copious amounts of biofilm and algaes. 

I've made the executive decision to stop pulling the Daisy eggs. For some reason the hatching/rearing tank decided to turn flourescent green overnight. Going to let it run its course and see where it goes. Once the tank clears up I'll start pulling eggs again. If the tank stays green for two weeks I'm going to pull the 3/4" babies and acclimate them to the outside tub. Considering pulling the eggs and collecting a weeks worth and relocating the egg clusters to a root ball from some Water Hyacynth I have outside and see how they deal with hatching on their own outside. The tub temps are a little 'hot' but I think they should manage. I might need to get a solar pump just to keep the water flowing to keep up with the O2 levels. Besides that going to move a pot of Crypt Miyoa out there and possible a couple stems of guppy grass to see if that can help with cover and natural O2 production. 

 

 

[Tihshho]

Well not a great update today. Sometime between last night and this morning something in the fishroom tripped a breaker and my heat system and air system were killed for an unknown amount of time. Came down to tanks that usually are in the high 70's or low 80's at 70 for the higher tanks and 68 for the lower tanks. For the shrimp and plants, everything was normal as I kept them in the mid 70's. Tanks with fish were a mix of OK and struggling. The 40 with the Daisy's, a school of Sterbai's and my lone Panda garra seemed fined and dandy. QT with the Koi Medaka's were fine. Ancistrus 40B was fine as well as the one 10 gallon rearing babies. The Apisto's were a little sluggish, but fins were open. Apistodoras seemed sluggish and struggling slightly. The main concern out of all the species were the Whiptails. All of them were panting at the bottom of the tank. The male who was guarding eggs had actually abandoned them. More so concerned about the parents over the eggs. The fry on the other hand went through and seemed to have a large loss between the first clutch and the second. Both breeder boxes lost around 30-40% of the fry... This is dissapointing. Spent a good bit of time today trying to figure out what tripped the breaker, and I'm not sure what it is yet. The only new electrical items I've added (replaced older items) were my new ACO heaters. Can't say for sure they are the cause, but I'm going to be checking on everything further later today.