Siastia's Fishroom Journal - Raising Endlers, Guppies and Corydoras

[Siastia]

Hi! My name is Briana, but I go by Sia or Siastia often. I have been keeping fish and aquatic frogs off and on my whole life, and have always been interested and fascinated by aquatic life. I started really getting into fish keeping in the beginning of 2020 and can't stop [won't stop]. I have 5 tanks set up at the moment.

20g Long A
 - Male endlers/guppy hybrids, Albino Corydoras [Corydoras aeneus], Pandas [Corydoras panda]

20g Long B

- Mixed Endler/Guppy. Winter hold-over for outdoor summer pond. A large mix of different types/strains

10g A

- Dumbo Halfmoon Betta M (Brickee) and male homegrown Blue Bar Endlers/female guppy/endlers

10g B
- Blue Galaxy Koi Plakat Betta M (Calpheon), African Dwarf Frogs, Harlequin Rasboras [Trigonostigma heteromorpha], Ember Tetras [Hyphessobrycon amandae]

3g

- Temporary breeding/pairing tank, 3 pairs black/yellow leopard Guppies growing out.

 I keep lots of plants and do regular water changes. Here is my Youtube. I make a habit of closely watching my water parameters because I have heavily stocked tanks. My recent struggles have been battling a nitrate poisoning from my tap water which caused me to lose quite a few of my guppy/endlers, and ensuing poor water quality complications with illnesses such as Columnaris. My fishroom seems to be on the mend however! Currently I am breeding the albino corydoras as my first foray into Cory breeding.

 I hope to keep adding pictures and information as I progress. I have been following the guidance that I have found on this forum and have had decent luck with my endeavors (so far!). I hope in early 2023 to start breeding African Dwarf Frogs again, as I have had a bit of success without a lot of effort.

  I am always open to suggestions, corrections and supportive criticism. I hope to become a serial hobbyist! I don't have anyone in my personal life who nerds out about fish as much as I do ❤️

 

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Siastia
Picture Adjustment

[TheSwissAquarist]

Love your frog and betta! Do you have any idea about a breeding setup for them?

[Siastia]

Hello! Thank you! I have bred the frogs before, and have raised a few tadpoles (babyfrog was a home-grow). I definitely need to do more research on the project though. I am hopefully going to set something up this year to breed the frogs, but I have no females at the moment.
From my (in)experience, the females need to be separated after spawning. I have had a few losses, and I believe they just became exhausted, as they have to spawn and also drag the male around during amplexus. So what I would like to do is set up a spawning tank, where there will only be one pair up until they spawn, in which I will remove them. I would also have to make Male/Female frog community tanks to keep them separated.

I would love to breed Calphy will a pretty galaxy koi female, but unfortunately I have had the worst of luck with female betta health lately and currently am not keeping any.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Siastia
text edit

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 1/5/2023 at 3:26 AM, Siastia said:

Hello! Thank you! I have bred the frogs before, and have raised a few tadpoles (babyfrog was a home-grow). I definitely need to do more research on the project though. I am hopefully going to set something up this year to breed the frogs, but I have no females at the moment.
From my (in)experience, the females need to be separated after spawning. I have had a few losses, and I believe they just became exhausted, as they have to spawn and also drag the male around during amplexus. So what I would like to do is set up a spawning tank, where there will only be one pair up until they spawn, in which I will remove them. I would also have to make Male/Female frog community tanks to keep them separated.

I would love to breed Calphy will a pretty galaxy koi female, but unfortunately I have had the worst of luck with female betta health lately and currently am not keeping any.

@Patrick_G has some tadpoles currently I think.

I say “some”, there’s actually quite a lot!

[PineSong]

Sounds like you have fun tanks--guppies are some of my favorites, too, and I loved having male guppies in my outdoor pond last summer. I had guppies, white clouds and koi swordtails out there and the swordtails were hard to catch a glimpse of but the guppy boys were always right there at the surface begging for food.

Sweet photo of your cat, too!

[Siastia]

Update!

   The albino Corydora fry are about 6 weeks old. I moved them into the 20 gallon community when they turned a month old. I have been able to count 8 out and about at any given time. I released 11 in there a few weeks ago, so perhaps I will keep them separated in a smaller tank until they are a little older next time. Live and learn I suppose.

    I moved some fish around to different tanks recently. The ember tetras (7), porkchop rasboras (4) and my koi betta Calphy moved from the ADfrog (4) 10 gallon and are now in the 20g long with male endlers and the corydoras. They all seem to be doing well and enjoying the space and extra company. Calphy tried eating a baby corydora but quickly found out that it was not a very viable food source.
   
    My other betta Brickee moved from the high-paced endler 10g and into the frog 10g. He has a male+3female group of black and yellow tuxedo/cobra guppies, so a lot less general commotion for the time being. He is a lower energy guy with long fins who just likes to hang out in his plants and occasionally ham for the camera. He had gotten pretty skinny, which was another reason for moving him from the more populated guppy tank. He's been eating really well lately and has started to bulk up a little bit. He also has what I believe to be some kind of small tumor or a persistent blister of some sort below his right eye that will fill up sometimes. Usually some tlc and kanaplex if needed gets it to go back down. Keeping an eye (ha) on it and making sure it doesn't get infected.
  
    The group of male+female blue bar endlers are doing their job and producing lots of fry. Had some fin issues on big Blue Mama fish but she seems to be recovering and re-growing really well. Been calling her Nubbins for now. Her first batch are just shy of being 4 weeks old and she should be dropping again in the first week of February. She is a full grown female guppy, with a lyre-esque looking tail on her, blue and yellow colored. She's really a big shy sweetie. Her last drop was ~20 I think. Many of the other females in the tank are just now starting to hit the age where they will drop 2-4 ish each. I love watching them grow. Personally the 1-2 mos of age is when they are super cute sized. I managed to spot Blue Mama dropping her last batch so I grabbed a couple of pictures.

    The Mutt Guppy Jungle, in the 20g Long B tank is finally starting to hold its own. I had some cycling issues for some reason and it tended to spike a bit in the ammonia. The gupps in here are holdovers for my 50 gallon summer tub. I don't have a great over-wintering setup made for them yet, so they got pulled inside for the season ( I live in a 9a/b region). There are quite a few in here and I expect the population to explode once they get back outside. There are black/yellows, blue/orange, guppy-endler mixes, and other really cool patterns. In 2020, the blue/orange really took hold, in 2021, the black/yellows were more prominent. But as of the end of 22 into 23, what I have been seeing the most of is blue bar culls, as in they have the blue bar body pattern, but their tails patterns are full tail and are not consistent in the slightest. They are really pretty nonetheless and seem to be thriving now. Excited to see what colors run rampant this summer. Only issues the tank has been giving me is some stomach parasite issues, for which I usually add salt and PraziPro and that seems to take care of it when it does arise.

    After the nitrate tap water poisoning the fish went through at the end of summer '22, I am grateful to have who I have left. I lost A LOT of guppies that were both breeding stock and ready-to-sell's. So here's hoping to a better 2023. This year I would like to continue to get better at breeding the corydoras, raise some beautiful and healthy guppies and hopefully start breeding ADF's again. 

 

[Siastia]

The corydoras decided to spawn this morning. So I have been sitting in front of the tank peeling eggs off the glass for the last few hours. I think I am up to 30, just from the one female that is spawning atm. 

Im putting them in a small breeder box that's hanging inside the tank atm. There's an airline tube putting out just a bit of air to keep the water moving. I will probably end up setting it up hanging on the outside of the tank like it's meant to be, with water circulating from the main 20g into the box back into the main 20g.  Helps maintain a cleaner environment I find. I still do a 70ish% water change on the box everyday, but just with the 20g water. I tend to overfeed so I take extra caution. The babies don't produce a lot of waste but this way the food leftovers don't sit at the bottom of the box and rot.

[knee]

On 1/24/2023 at 12:08 PM, Siastia said:

The corydoras decided to spawn this morning. So I have been sitting in front of the tank peeling eggs off the glass for the last few hours. I think I am up to 30, just from the one female that is spawning atm. 

Im putting them in a small breeder box that's hanging inside the tank atm. There's an airline tube putting out just a bit of air to keep the water moving. I will probably end up setting it up hanging on the outside of the tank like it's meant to be, with water circulating from the main 20g into the box back into the main 20g.  Helps maintain a cleaner environment I find. I still do a 70ish% water change on the box everyday, but just with the 20g water. I tend to overfeed so I take extra caution. The babies don't produce a lot of waste but this way the food leftovers don't sit at the bottom of the box and rot.

How do you peel the eggs off the glass? Are they strong enough not to get crushed? 

 

I tried removing eggs with a group I had before and I crushed the eggs so I left the rest alone

[Siastia]

On 1/24/2023 at 1:32 PM, knee said:

How do you peel the eggs off the glass? Are they strong enough not to get crushed? 

 

I tried removing eggs with a group I had before and I crushed the eggs so I left the rest alone

With my fingers. Previously I had tried to scrap them off with a credit card, but it definitely smooshed most of them. I just kinda roll the eggs off of whatever she's stuck them on with my finger. Usually they will stick to your skin so you can transfer them. You've got to be delicate, but they are surprisingly sturdy eggs. I hardly have any squishies anymore. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

Huge congrats on your eggs ! It’s a pleasure seeing your journal progress!