Bandi

So, I have 54 tanks, and decided to do some PH testing. Right out of the tap our water is 7.0 on the dot. But in testing a whole bunch of tanks, some with gravel and some bare bottoms I have been getting PH reading ranging from 6.0 to 8.4. Go figure. So, taking into acount that various substrate and drift wood might affect PH, I starting comparing simular tanks. My 20 gallon fry tanks, My 160 gallon grow out tank and a 40 gallon grow out tank, all have bare bottom and nothing except fish and tap water in them. The 20 gallon fry tanks gave reading of 8.4 and 8.0 for PH (sponge filtered only) The 160 Gallon tested at 6.0 (FX5 with bio balls, and ceramic cones and sponge inside) The 40 gallon tested at 7.4 (internal filter with bio balls, ammonia and carbon granules and sponge) So can any one tell me what is going on? Then I was distraught to discover that my Angel tank, with a gravel substate, petrified wood and lots of drift wood in it, tested at 7.6 PH. I thought drift wood would lower the ph, not raise it. Could it be the gravel or petrifed wood (essecially rock)raising the PH? I have no way of testing water hardess at this time but I am in the process of getting a reading from the town. Generally we have what is considered hard water and I have tried to artifially raise the PH in a bucket of water using baking soda and can't get it above 8.4. I used a 4 gallon bucket of water and added 12 teaspoons of baking soda to get this result.

Ha ha...too funny!

Bump Come on! Are my fish the only ones who have had the Christmas spirit thrust upon them? Post some photos!!!

The bottom left photo is a blue neon red jewel and the bottom right photo is a mature female Nicaragua cichlid. They are beautiful. I have a bunch of babies!

Just for fun, lets see how many photos we can get of everybody decorating their favorite fish tank with Christmas cheer! Here is my submission:

well I am encouraged to know I have a male that is fertile, however the babies are proving very difficult to grow out. I think I only have three left. So this is proving to be yet another challenge to overcome. They are still WAY too small to photograph. But if they make it to a decent size, I'll be sure to post pics.

Well, they are free swimming now. I roughly count about 40 of them. I am feeding them baby brine shrimp.

Well the male died this evening. I kind of thought he would pull through. As for taking photos of those wriggles, well even my Maco lens wouldn't be able to see anything. The M. Blue makes the water so dark...terrible for photography. But as soon as they are photo ready you can be sure I'll post.

I have raised two red spots from fry bought at Gold's about two years ago. Then later aquired two nearly full grown ones a year later from a private sale. Then I bought two more mature ones from another private sale last summer. So a total of six mature red spots, all live in a community 230 gallon tank. I had no idea which were male and which were female as I learned the common indicaters on green severums don't and can't apply to the red spot. I had some guesses but that was all. Until we had our first spawn this past summer. I knew then we had at least one pair. I was disapointed when all the eggs turned white. Further study revealed that most often red spot males are infertile. That was discouraging as I REALLY wanted to raise some of these beauties. Well, we had a second spawning just last week, by the same female and a different male. After observing desended breeding tubes, I now know we have three males and two females and one still unknown. This spawn I left in the tank over night and all the next day...Then I took the stone and put it in a bubble tank. Used M. Blue to keep fungus at bay and waited and hoped... For the first 24 hours, only about 10% of the eggs were white. By 36 hours, about 20% turned white. By day four, dispite the antifungus treatment, all the eggs turns white and where fuzzy with fungus. I was totally discouraged. But close examination (through the very dark and blue water) revealed an egg that was sitting on the bottom and still dark. I shined my flash light on it...and lo! I could see a tiny tail wiggling!!! So I spent the next hour carefully sucking the fungus infected eggs out (using a turkey baster) and checked each baster full carefully for wirgglers. There were some wigglers! This means the male is not sterile! Well, it has been one week since spawning and the wigglers are not free swimming yet. I figure about 10% of the original spawn are still alive. I am totally ok with that! I noticed the same pair are preparing to spawn again. There was some serious lip locking with rival males and one male lost the battle with terrible injuries. If he survives he will likely be permanently disfigured. I included photos of the successful pair cleaning the choosen rock and a couple photos of that poor male that got the crap beat out of him.

Recent photos of some of my favorites...enjoy!

The fry are doing great...don't think I have lost any. They are starting to darken and are eating well.

I am currently breeding: Nicaragua cichlids ameca splendins blood red jewels neon red jewels Lamprologus (Lepidiolamprologus) kendalli aulonocara firefish aulonocara dragons blood electric yellows red velvet platys montezuma sword tails red texas currently developing my own line of red auloncaras Haplochromis "Ruby Green" Astatotilapia nubila Xystichromis sp. "Dayglow" convicts (not by choice) assassin snails fry of all the above are currently in grow out tanks and ready to be sold.

75% water change. Hmm. Fry per gallon? Hmmm. Just trying to figure out a little problem I am having. How many fry per gallon is too much? I thought a 75% water was too much and would shock frigile little babies.

I have a large group of Tropheus Ndole Bay's, they are about 2 to 2.5 inches in size now and they look identical to your Chimbas. these are my first tropheus so I really don't know when to expect them to start spawning.

Well, it finally happened...I have about 30 fry of about .5 inches in length now. They are dong well in a private 20 gallon tank with bubble filter. Just wanted to know if this is considered a difficult speicies to spawn and raise fry? Any other breeders of Kendalli out there? Any advice?

As promised, photos of my new $50 baby lyrtail swords. And two photos of an adult that I have.

Finaddict, look after that knife fish. I didn't really want to part with him but I needed the room. Glad to hear he is living in a 200+ gallon tank. He'll probably get bigger yet.

I wasn't the one who bought that lovely adult male. But I did buy 8 babies, too young to show their finage. But I'll post some photos today.

I wasn't discouraged so much as shocked. My lifestyle and our family business exposes us to all kinds of extremists in regards to animal welfare, and in my nearly two years of being submersed in the fish hobby I never came across an individual (or a group for that matter) who held animal rights views about fish. I always found it funny that many animal rights people who choose to become vegetarians because of their “love for animals” find it perfectly acceptable to eat fish…as if fish are not animals. (I know there are also vegetarians who don’t eat fish but I am just making a point.) As a family who owns an animal based business who is always under scrutiny by animal rights groups, my husband and I found it odd that these groups never seemed to target and complain about the hobby fish industry. Sure I heard of individuals who stated they don’t agree with wild caught fish, or dyed fish or hybrids etc. These people voiced their opinion and simply choose not to participate in the area they disliked. What I learned by chatting with this fellow was this is more then just a group of people who choose not to keep fish they don’t agree with. This group opens their club and events to the public and impose their beliefs on others who want to participate. Until Sunday, I have never heard of a movement to ban various fish hobby practices in the name of animal cruelty. But I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me.

I took some hybrid fish to the auction yesterday. I wasn't sure if this was allowed but I read the rules on the website back and forth and could find no comment on it. Turns out I wasn't the only one selling hybrids, so that was good. I was happy to see Lyrtail swords there also (bought some). But chatting with one of the "helpers" that day I learned that his club would not allow hybrids and many other types of fish at their auction. Upon further discussion I was distraught to discover that this club would also outlaw the sale of many "varieties" of species on the count that "they are examples of animal cruelty". The example I was given was my beloved Lyrtail swords because they are "man made" and the males are functionally sterile. Then this person went on to say that any "longfin" variety of any species would also be disqualified from any of their show and sales because they are not natural. This person went on to state in no uncertain terms that blood parrots (another favorite of mine) are "an abomination" as are flowerhorns. This fellow had never even heard of the Red Texas which indicated to me he chooses to keep his fish knowledge very narrow and tunnel-like. He also made it clear how dyed fish should be outlawed world wide. After listening to this, I thought about his comments in depth to myself and discussed it with my husband. If this fellow judged a fish show or supervised an fish auction or sale (which he says he does all the time) any Vail tail Oscar would be disqualified. As would long fin rosy barbs, long fin angles, fancy gold fish, long finned anything. Flowerhorns, a highly prized fish by many cultures, would not be tolerated. I guess I am a bit more open minded then this fellow and I don't begrudge him his beliefs, however, I would have preferred he kept his critical comments about fish he doesn't approve of to himself. The CAS auction attracts hobbyists from all backgrounds and discriminates none, and I felt this person squashed the positive atmosphere the good people of CAS worked so hard to create. I may or may not agree with dyed fish but I have a choice to buy or not buy them. I don't go around impossing my values on others. I choose respect and tolerance. Just my opinion. Would love to hear other views.

Ya! I bought those $50 lyrtail swords...That was the only thing there I was determined to go home with. So I was prepared to pay...too bad another lady wanted them as much as I did! LOL. I bought the other bag of lyrtails also, only $13 that time... In general all my other purchases were really good deals. Blue angles, pure endlers, cherry shimp, and a bunch of Jack Dempsays my silly husband couldn't resist buying for a buck. In general did people find that things went cheap cheap this fall? This is only my second auction and was curious as to how this auction matched up the to norm.

Well, thank you all for your quick response. I guess we have learned something through this. Too bad learning has to be so costly, on a number of levels.

I am all for hybrids. They add variety and appeal. But I also agree with the above comments of re-enforcing the importance of naming a fish for what it is. If it is a hybred, just say so. Some people don't care as they just want a show peice. It is important for breeders to know what they are buying and thus raising so the purity of a species can be preserved. Can someone post a link about neon jewels as I am curious. I bought some fish at a LFS labled "Neon Red Jewels". When I got home I looked them up and could only find a reference to a "Tourquoise Jewel"...same thing as your "neon jewel"?

I spent 5 days in Calgary with my mom and left my husband to care for all the fish during my absence. He phoned me up a few days ago to tell me we lost several fish from a colony we keep (total of 16 died when all was said and done) and a couple from another tank. He tested all water perameters and found them to be within the correct range and was baffled. The next day he got thinking about what the two tanks that lost fish had in common. Then he remembered he bought a new rubber hose to better service our needs in the fish room. He did water changes to both these tanks using the new hose to refill the tanks. Could this be the culprit? Is there something to be said about spending the big bucks and buying a Python hose from the fish store? We got to thinking...we have been heavily into fish for 1.5 years now and have always used an old rubber hose to service the tanks. We have never before had a massive dye off before now. Could a new hose contain contaminants that olders hoses have already washed out? Any insight would be appreciated.

I have been search Calgary for Red Terrors for over a year... found the faulse ones, but not the real thing. I talked with someone who has a pair and he had to import his. If anyone knows where to buy a true red terror locally...please let me know!