GoofyGarra's Journal

[mynameisnobody]

@GoofyGarra I would source any platies from Dans fish simply from a health perspective. He’s got quite a few uncommon platies and then you can take it from there. You can introduce high fin this way and if you want to create your own strain, he’s also got some crazy swordtails for other varieties. 

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/4/2023 at 11:53 AM, mynameisnobody said:

@GoofyGarra I would source any platies from Dans fish simply from a health perspective. He’s got quite a few uncommon platies and then you can take it from there. You can introduce high fin this way and if you want to create your own strain, he’s also got some crazy swordtails for other varieties. 

really at that point my issue is cost. A platy from the LFS is $5-7. A fancy dans fish platy is more expensive+shipping makes it harder. I do follow the youtube channel and would believe in any of Dan's fish for good broodstock. I would certanly turn to Dan if my budget was higher, i just dont think i can afford it right now. (shipping is the real punch, maybe i can split it with a friend).

Also took a trip to the National Zoo, pictures were taken: (admittedly  most of the pictures were taken in the Amazon Exhibit):

 

You know you are a nerm when you go to a zoo and one thing that you take pictures of are ramshorn and bladder snails in the turtle tanks...

 

[mynameisnobody]

@GoofyGarra It totally hear ya. Personally, I’ve had too many livebearers just randomly die so I like the care he takes. 
Beautiful photos, looks like an incredible place. 

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/4/2023 at 4:43 PM, mynameisnobody said:

@GoofyGarra It totally hear ya. Personally, I’ve had too many livebearers just randomly die so I like the care he takes. 

i also really want the assurance of choosing male or female as apposed to the unsexed you get online, for example it would be a waste to get all females, id rehome a trio of my current fish and replaced it with a new trio.

Edited October 4, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

@mynameisnobody im hoping between my 2 LFSs i should be able to find some high-fins. However, if not i may try a special order. If that still doesnt work out i just wont work with high-fins, its not my biggest priority, just a fun gene i want to include.

[GoofyGarra]

i want to be sure that im not forgetting something obvious with my platy infertility issue. In the big tank its possible then fry just get eaten, but it the small tanks id notice and the mother wouldnt eat all the fry. So i rewatched some basic care guides for platies, and i thought "the females moved out dont seem to be advancing in their gestation, what if they are not pregnant anymore?" anyway, it was a crazy idea, but one im acting on because who knows. I (somehow) caught out my male platy Balrog who im calling "super red" due to his deep red coloration, and moved him into the 5gallon with the stunning female. I chose this male as he is honestly my favorite and would want a cross between him and the stunning. Sorry about the bad picture, Balrog was pretty camera shy at the moment and i could only get a picture of his reflection.

[GoofyGarra]

ok, so the pair of platies i setup last night (Balrog and Stunner) are doing well. They are hanging out together, with Balrog (male) following Stunner (female) around, so in the next few days breeding should ensue, at that point ill move Balrog out. I have only 4males in my tank right now (plus at least twice as many females, but more like 3times as many females) so the heirarchy between them is delicate. Im hoping that moving Balrog out for a week wont disrupt the balance too much, he was one of the 2 tank bosses (the other is Nazgul, the two fight all the time. When i say tank boss i mean for the platies, he fights the other males, and shepards the females around the tank away from other males...). I also got some good pictures of Balrog's color that im calling "super red"

Balrog and Stunner:

Balrog's super red:

some albino cory fry (the new surprise one are getting along fine with the genetically unfortunate one despite the fact he is 5times their size).

Rohan (no fry yet):

and cories eating breakfast:

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Very nice coloration on the platies; it will be fun to see how cute their babies will be. Congrats on your surprise cory fry.

[Guppysnail]

How old are the platys you are trying to breed?  I think you have been breeding them for awhile. 
When I was doing guppies at a certain age the females would stop regularly producing fry even though they always looked preggo. Sometimes a month or so before they would pass they would push out one last drop of fry after not having produced fry for quite some time. After that final drop they would visibly not recover well from birthing. 

[GoofyGarra]

On 10/5/2023 at 1:05 PM, Guppysnail said:

How old are the platys you are trying to breed?  I think you have been breeding them for awhile. 
When I was doing guppies at a certain age the females would stop regularly producing fry even though they always looked preggo. Sometimes a month or so before they would pass they would push out one last drop of fry after not having produced fry for quite some time. After that final drop they would visibly not recover well from birthing. 

that is certainly interesting, im not sure how old they are, but this is certainly a possibility. In this case would the females gravid spot still grow, or would it just stay small?

On 10/5/2023 at 10:29 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Very nice coloration on the platies; it will be fun to see how cute their babies will be. Congrats on your surprise cory fry.

it will also be fun to see what colors the babies have, genetics are pretty hard to predict in platies. I have way too many cories so i cant say more fry is a good thing at this point, but surprise fry are very fun.

[Guppysnail]

On 10/5/2023 at 2:28 PM, GoofyGarra said:

would it just stay small?

Towards the end (last 5 months) my girls always had a gravid spot.  A few weeks before the ones that would drop a last drop it became alarmingly large. Once they birthed they remained thin the way they look just after birth. They would get no thinner but slow down and overall body mass would slowly lessen just like elderly humans lose any muscle mass. 

[GoofyGarra]

i am personally annoyed with the build of my current shrimp tank as it restricts scaping capibilites. Here is a picture of the tank, the pentagon makes it hard to focus on one viewing location for scaping which im finding annoying, as i want to rescape the tank. So i am replacing it. The tank is a 2.5gallon and i am replacing it with a 2.6 that is square and will be easier to work with. The new tank used to be a fluval all in one until i removed the filter compartment a few months ago (and cut my finger open in the process, go fishing wire for these projects, not razor blades).

Here is the old tank:

and this is the new one:

The new one is currently undergoing a leak test, if tomorrow it has not leaked i will start to scape it. I plan to use many of the same plants and substrate so i hope it wont be too different. I also have some interesting wood i plan to use (it has been boiled). The scape will use lots of pennywort and guppy grass as i have a lot of it, and the stuff in the tank right now is just soaking so its free of contaminants from my terrariums where i got the guppy grass. I also have some interesting rocks i plan to use. It will be my first attempt at a scape and im hoping it will go well.

[GoofyGarra]

small update: I did the math and the new tank is 3.8gallons so is an upgraded size from the old one.

[GoofyGarra]

ok shrimp scape is done, i have also now super glued contact points using the super glue and tissue method to keep the wood from floating, its a cavern type design that i plan to surround with plants, and i can put various epiphytes in cracks and gaps in the scape. Another interesting note is that the central piece of wood has some moss growing on it, i hope it will acclimate to underwater growth as that would be cool. The sponge filter pieces in the back is when i plan to put the sponge filter, the sponge is in an established tank to keep the bacteria alive. I used a scape dojo type thing by drawing lines by the dimensions of the tank on a piece of styrofoam, not super professional looking but it did the job. All the woods have been boiled so the tannins should not be too much of an issue.

[GoofyGarra]

i had a family member come over who has a fish tank. When they saw my corydoras they commented that "i could use a catfish to deal with my algae", i instead offered them a starter culture of snails, they accepted. I made a breather bag with an anubias, some algae, and a few mini ramshorn and bladder snails that should keep the snails alive a few days until they can get into the person's tank. Sigh... I hate bags with short necks, tying necks is nearly impossible.

 

[GoofyGarra]

ok, i have contacted the friend that agreed to take the genetically unfortunate cory, so the cory will be getting a new home later today. Fortunately the cory wont be too hard to catch out, and im glad the cory will be getting a good home as he really was outgrowing the breeder box, but i didnt want to move him into the big tank in fear of genetic contamination. I will also be sending the friend some plants.

Getting rehomed today!^

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

cory move was succesful, the cory happily joined the rest of his kind in the friends tank. The new shrimp tank is done, ill add another picture once the water has cleared up, i did my best to not disturb the sand but it always happens.

[GoofyGarra]

ok, i think i found a culprit to my aquaclear flow issues. So far ive been investigating Mechanical Filtration and components like those, however i think the issue is biological filtration. Allow me to explain.

The bio filtration that i use in my tank is bio rings (the kind that ACO sells), those are fine and im not having any issues with them. However, the bag for the biomedia i was using was the bag that comes with the Tidal 35, it has rather fine holes. I noticed that my flow was very restricted so i cleaned out the filter today, i checked out the bag and it turns out the holes were clogged as i suspected. I have now replaced that bag with the bag that comes with the Aquaclear 50, that has much coarser holes, im thinking this will help with the flow prevention as the bag wont clog as easily.

@nabokovfan87 i though you might find this interesting for your filter mods and testing.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:07 AM, GoofyGarra said:

I have now replaced that bag with the bag that comes with the Aquaclear 50, that has much coarser holes, im thinking this will help with the flow prevention as the bag wont clog as easily.

It also leads to dirty media.... Each time I clean the filters, any brand and any bags, I end up dumping everything to the media and the ceramics/biological get cleaned first so I can see how clean they are doing for me.

I appreciate it, thanks for sharing the insight!

[GoofyGarra]

as ive said before i really want to start focusing this tank really on platy breeding. I was watching an old video from Cory's fishroom and guppy grass seemed to be very common in his ponds and he was getting lots of breeding so im going to try it too. I have lots of healthy guppy grass going in my 5gallon tank so choosing some without hair algae i put a handful into the main tank, then turned up my ACO light as guppy grass grows fast with more light. Im hoping it will grow very well, and based on how it does ill see what i do with the tank, its possible i abandon the idea of being a display, move out all the anubias and other plants and just turn it into a guppy grass tank, but im not sure yet, otherwise some floating stuff even if it does not take over would also be very cool

.the

oh, a small update Rohan got released back into the big tank, the breeder box she was in was just getting in the way of tank maintenance.

[GoofyGarra]

ive had time this afternoon so ive been doing some organizing. Some things i did:

1. built a drying rack: for filter media that has been in the tank that im not using anymore to dry before it goes into storage. It is made with a metal grid fit over a foil pan, then a produce mesh was hot glued over the metal squares for finer pieces of filter media, creating a drying rack.

Siphon Organization, I didnt like how cluttered my general storage bin was so i decided to move out some of my largest items, the siphons. I wrapped each siphon around a 3D printer filament roll, and removed the gravel vac tube. I then rubber banded the head (that connects to the gravel vac) to the back end of the tubing to keep everything together. I did this 3times for 3siphons, then put everything in a box. I then put in the gravel vac tubes next to its respective siphon.

Speaking of my general aquarium storage bin, i sorted that out as it had gotten disgusting and confusing in there. I left things i use on the day to day like nets and my ACO catch cup, and sorted or trashed everything else, things are already easier to find and the bin is no longer disgusting, so my cleaning out worked.

[GoofyGarra]

i think at this point my platies arent breeding because there was a factor that they liked and i changed it.

Two possibilities that come to mind

1. feeding BBS daily, i used to feed every sunday, im trying to get back into this practice
2. Fasting the fish once a week. I dont do this anymore as it is fun to feed the fish, but it is beneficial so i want to start doing it again. Not sure this is completely related, but im trying whatever i can.

Also had a crazy idea, the 2teardrop mosquitofish ive got have both got interesting splashes of color that come out in certain lighting, maybe i could try to breed out those color splatches and make teardrop mosquitofish (but a colorful version) the new big thing in the aquarium hobby. Just a thought though.

Speaking of the mosquitofish, i really want to get back into breeding a livebearer, so i think ill move one of my two females into a breeder box and let her drop fry and then figure out how to raise them up, that sounds pretty fun if i cant get the platies to work.

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by GoofyGarra

[GoofyGarra]

drying rack is working well. I put up some media to dry 2 days ago and it is now bone dry and ready to be stored.

I am slightly concerned that in the tank change i messed up some biofilms and algaes that were in the older shrimp tank. I have a few of the same plants, but i did not have gel glue for this project so there was a lot of java fern i could not use. So i have set a high light to be on the tank now for long hours, ill run this until i get shrimp to promote algae growth, and i will also clean some media into the tank to promote beneficial organism growth.

[GoofyGarra]

@Colu after salt treatment the initial issue has been solved, now there is this: It appears to be a fuzzy lump

[Colu]

As the spot has a fuzzy appearance What I would do is add 1 table spoon for 2 gallons of salt for 1 week and monitor if it get worse then I would also do a course of kanaplex with  the salt treatment