Allan's Fishkeeping Journal

[Allan B.]

I've got a couple of exciting things to report!

German Blue Rams

While I was feeding Carl and Marie yesterday afternoon, I noticed that they were sticking pretty doggedly to a little pit they dug in the sand. This isn't all that unusual since they like to hang out there, but they usually swim to the surface when they see me coming. Turns out Marie laid a clutch of eggs on the leaves of a Java fern!

Here's picture of the proud papa and his brood (I'd just put BBS in there):

And here's a close-up of the eggs:

Marie was in the process of laying the eggs when I came in, so I got to watch the egg laying and fertilization ritual for a little while. Pretty cool!

My GBR tanks has a large number of Ramshorn snails in it, and I was worried that they might eat the eggs. I saw one crawling on the eggs and it didn't seem to have eaten any, so I figure they won't.

I'm planning on keeping the fry their parents. I know chances are high that, like most German Blue Ram first-time parents, Carl and Marie will eat them, but I don't have the space or time to raise them separately. Once they get to be a couple weeks old I'll move them to their own 10 gallon for grow-out.

Celestial Pearl Danios

My CPD fry are doing great and getting bigger by the minute, and they're now able to eat something larger than fry powder or paramecium. I was able to transition these guys over to live baby brine a few days early by using San Francisco Strain Brine Shrimp Eggs. This variety is significantly smaller than most BBS, so I was able to feed them to my CPD fry three to four days after they got to the free-swimming stage. I still put a little fry powder in with every meal in case any of the smaller fry still need it. But from what I can tell from their big orange bellies, all them are eating BBS!

Here's a picture of my fry eating the San Francisco strain:

Here's a picture of the San Francisco Strain I'm referring to (it's more expensive than Aquarium Co-op's BBS, which is an excellent product, but I think it's worth it if you're hatching fry):

 

 

[Allan B.]

Little bit of a bummer this morning. Looks like the GBR eggs disappeared. I'm not sure if the parents or snails ate them or what, but they weren't on the leaf when I checked this morning. I checked to see if there were any fry, but I didn't see any.