geleen

likely 1 drop per second

Measure ph then increase the amount of Co2 till the PH = 6.8-7...........works for me.

If you measure PH once every 2 hours you should be good to go

John

I use stuff I bought from a hydroponics store on the south side; a clay ball from Germany.

This is flood and drain pumped with an XP3 For vegetables you would need high performance lights and perhaps more fertilizers than is good for your fish.TDS in hydroponics runs 2000ppm.

With a reasonable bio load the nitrates run < 10

J

Any of the floating plants do well with nitrates.

I have a 65 filtered with a houseplant bed I circulate the water through...works very well

J

Raising several rainbow fishes that I bred

P. Gertrudea Aru 2

Melanotaenia macculochi 'skull creek'

Melanotenea splendidda splendida 'deepwater creek'

Black moscow guppy from a quality line

Attempting

Cory shultzii black

Have bred and raised

many other rainbows.

Bristle nose pleco longfin

Cyrtocara moorii by accident :-)

I personally wouldn't bother messing with the PH. For several reasons. It costs money. It costs time. Any fish you want to keep will acclimate to your water coming out if the tap.

I have bred wild caught plecos (l260, l134, l066, l204) and a few others u have forgotten in Red Deer tap water. From time to time I will use rain water but this is not very often.

PH swing effects fish on a cellular level and causes stress. Stressed fish aren't happy. I would go with consistent water, mire frequent water changes and happy fish. Just my $.02.

Nah Jay that is worth .05. ;-)

Mine is usually about 900 in a 10Lbs tank.

J

Yup That's it, I use 1 per gallon, will change the ph and the colour of the water to yellow. While I have had no problems with fungus I do not know if they are more effective than other methods. I also keep 3-4 in a 10 gallon for the fry and they stay healthy. I heard to replace them every month or so.

If you have them readily available near your house I would love to buy a bunch from you. I don't think they grow inAlberta.

Also the only place I can find them is at Angelfish.com.

John

These blue eyes are a fun fish to watch especially when the males display to each other. They max out at 2 inches and have a 2-3 year life span as far as I know.

Not particularly hard to spawn, they can however take up to 3 weeks to hatch out, and like abit of loving care as larvae, needing very fine, high quality foods and then BB shrimp at about 7-10 days

I will make sure you get a nice breeding group together superguppygirl.

John

A TDS of 400 is barely acceptable. 700 could easily cause stress and eventual disease in some species of fish.

So where is this high TDS coming from? Calibration? dirty filter?

John

As usual Rick your pictures are fantastic. The aytinjo is a gorgeous fish I love to watch mine.

J

You have good timing....just happen to have some that just hatched. (Pheudomogil Gertrudea Aru 2)

John

I believe that laterite has a high iron content which would be beneficial, I addition to cation exchange. When I used it in a " dirt" substrate the swords sure seem to like it. It is pricy though.

John

I have to check...but did Gary bring fry or eggs to Edmonton?

John

These liitle gems have the brightest red on them....almost neon. The red in these pics is exactly as shown.

John

Thanks Mark this helps....I will have a trip to the hardware store in my near future. I would imagine that for a 75 gallon tank I would need as many as 2 to 3 lifttubes?

John

I have been running matten filters with great success; they are driven by small circulation pumps matched to the tank size. I would like to try and run them with central air.

Can someone show me how to make them?........This does not look to difficult? Am I right?

Thanks a bunch

John

Good to know that he is doing so much better. I have a smaller male in my large tank with 2 (joint at the hip) other pairs and these older boys ignore the little one completely.....feel abit sorry for him :eh:

It has been my experience with the deep water splendida that the dominant male will "prevent" the other males in the same tank to not grow as deep a body. After I gave some their own tank and playmates, they have become more masculine and have started fill out very nicely. They are a very colorful fish (both male and the smaller female) as one can see in the pic from Rick above.... the males have very beautiful finnage, with longer flowing dorsals and anal fins- than the female-, giving them an almost oval appearance.

I raised the parents from eggs I got from Gary Lange.

John

While not in the same league as others on this forum I have enjoyed breeding a few species of rainbows.

I started with some store-bought lake kutubu (M. Lacustris) rainbow. After some misses I figured some of it out and was successful in raising a few dozen.

Having bred world class dogs for some 25 years, I wanted better quality stock and was able to find Rick and with his help gathered a dozen or so species.

I have bred M. Lacustris, (aquarium strain) M. Machalocci (skull creek) M. Boesmani (aytinyo) M.Parva, M.Preacox (aquarium strain) and Pheudomogul Gertrudia (Aru 2)

At the moment I am enjoying raising a month old spawn of M.Splendida splendida (deep water Creek) which beside the Aytinyo's is a favourite.

My hope is to find an original strain of M. Lacustris so I can perpetuate this “old” but well known fish. If you know of any let me know

John

Great to hear from you John! Maybe a year ago you might have been a little green under the gills :rofl: But in the last six months you have helped me considerably to provide some nice young fish to my customers!

Even though I have cut back on breeding ..... I am still keeping a sharp eye out for some nice M. lacustris!

Warn regards,

Ric

John has the patience of Job... great breeder!

Thanks so much Rick and Jerry.

Jerry please call my wife re. the patience :rofl:

While not in the same league as others on this forum I have enjoyed breeding a few species of rainbows.

I started with some store-bought lake kutubu (M. Lacustris) rainbow. After some misses I figured some of it out and was successful in raising a few dozen.

Having bred world class dogs for some 25 years, I wanted better quality stock and was able to find Rick and with his help gathered a dozen or so species.

I have bred M. Lacustris, (aquarium strain) M.parkinsoni.(aquarium strain) M. Machalocci (skull creek) M. Boesmani (aytinyo) M.Parva, M.Preacox (aquarium strain) and Pheudomogul Gertrudia (Aru 2)

At the moment I am enjoying raising a month old spawn of M.Splendida splendida (deep water Creek) which beside the Aytinyo's is a favourite.

My hope is to find an original strain of M. Lacustris so I can perpetuate this “old” but well known fish. If you know of any let me know

John

Jehmko.com search for brines chimp hatchery

I use 1 stick broken into 4 pieces and place them around the diameter of the whole plant; every 6 months should be fine. You should see improvement within 2 weeks.

John

They are shade -low light plants- if they get too much light they are a algae magnet. Mine are completely in the shade and growing well.

John

After a lot of research I have decided not to buy these types of LED. They are not ready yet for our purposes.

(reefs are better supplied) This light only uses 11 watts and the induvidual LED 0.6 W I have found that anything less than 3 w per bulb is unlikely to supply enough PAR at 20 or more inches down.

Also the Kelvin rating of 6500 K is difficult to make as I have been told.

J

I have doubt about your nitrAtes, they are unlikely to be 0 with 10 % WC weekly , I would think that your measurement is wrong and your nitrates are very high. With that many fry in a 10 gallon I would be doing 50 % WC 2x a week. Are you vacuuming the substrate?

J.

Yup the silicone

John