DanGofCalgary

The correct answer of course is 'all of them'. With that said, I'd start with what is easiest, and having a succesful spawn, work your way up. I don't know which are considered easiest, but if the paleatus have spawned before for you, that seems like a good place to start. Just one man's opinion. Dan

I know I am a bit of a snob for 'natural looks' and it is probably all in my head, but with that said I think those are the prettiest bettas I have ever seen. well the male anyway. Did you get those from Big Als in Edmonton? They're amazing. I too hope you get some babies from them!

dibs on fry. Too late Vince. I called it.

Thanks. I actually did those things, should have mentioned it. Except I used silicone glass grease (lab grade stuff). It definetely helped but there is still a small leakage.

Thanks. I still love these filters for how it cleans up the water. Current spawns are Lacustricola Katangae, Double black angels, marmosum... watchamacallits (the little hermaphrodite), Lacustricola maculatus. Super Red severums, although they have lost both spawns so far, and starting to wonder if there is a problem with the eggs or male. For Nothos I have collected eggs on N. Kafuensis, Korthasae. I have bought eggs, and will be spawning soon a couple of other Nothos (from Silly Killys in Arizona). rachovii and palmquisti (have the collection point but don't recall it atm) Livebearers working on a goodeid species (the yellow tailed one. the name escapes me), a wild swordtail, Jenynsia Onca, Skiffia lermae, G. Metallicus. What I really need to focus on though is some simple egg scatterers to meet the CAOAC requirement, as well as some anabantoids. I have loretta tetras, zebra danios and white cloud minnnows that I will be attempting to spawn soon and bettas as well as dwarf gouramis.. A group of Bolivian rams that should spawn soonish too. I bought a pair of Betta picta, but foolishly left a 1 inch crack open on top, they both jumped same night I brought them home. I also have some featherfin rainbows and peacock gudgeons, as well as phillipine blue angels that I will be working on in the next couple months. hmm. that's about it. Other than 3 groups of corys, the laser oranges, metae and agasizzi, but I really haven't set them up for breeding yet. and L204s but I am just growing them out right now. Not even sure if I have any females in the 6 that I have. as they spend most of their day hiding under driftwood. oh. forgot. some F1 Urugayan bristlenose that I bought from someone on this site... Edit: Forgot the snails and inverts. Apple snails and asolene spixi, and some cherry shrimp. Cute little guys. Spawning snails isn't really much of a challenge though. hehe. just throw em in a tank, so I don't think about it much. I do have some nice blue apple snails spawning though. I rather like them.

So, I have 2 old Vortex diatom earth filters. both run, but they seem to spray a mist of fine air on the outlet. I have replaced the o-ring seal on the jar, as well as the motor seal on one of them. It helped a bit but not much. I am not running the true 'diatomous earth' from Vortex, but rather some stuff that was available at auctions in the last decade (or the one before!) My questions are: Anyone have experience with Vortex filters like this, and any suggestions? Are there different diameters/sizes of diatomous earths and perhaps I am using something too fine that is eating up my seals? Anyone know of someone in Calgary or Edmonton with experience rebuilding them? I am seriously contemplating just scrapping them and buying a new one, using the old ones for 'parts' but would like to avoid that expense if possible. Thanks! Dan

as above. I have a group of 8 in a non planted tank, straight Calgary water. They seem to really like a piece of slate on the tank bottom. I left a small piece in the tank one day and it was immediately claimed and defended by the biggest male. Showed some really nice colors. They like to jaw wrestle a lot. I have taken to calling them the Bolivian monkey fish, because they are always monkeying around. They seem really harmless to other fish. I've had them with everything from angels to a pair of full adult severums. They've yet to bother anyone except each other. try the piece of slate on the tank bottom. They color up beautifully when defending their little rock.

I've used methylen blue succesfully for years with Angel eggs. Also, I heard a really neat idea on this forum I believe. Add some shrimp to the egg tank. Supposedly the shrimp will eat the fungus but not the eggs. I have never tried it, but that sounds kind of neat. Typically new angel parents will eat the eggs once or twice till they get it right, but I always liked to seperate out a spawn so I could be sure of success. good luck!

Thanks for resolving that so quickly ACE. Much appreciated! Dan

Yah, they are pretty fun! We got back to Calgary at about 10ish. I was concerned you would fall asleep on the highway Harold! haha! Luckily I only had the 2 fish to worry about, and some plants, all the gear I bought just went in a corner till I could look at it.

Hello Folks. Could someone from the ACE pm me please. The 304 I bought is missing a critical part. Now maybe it was intended to be sold in a non working condition, so would like to just contact or have you contact the vendor and ask them if it was an oversight or they intended to sell it without all parts. I foolishly made the assumption that it was a working unit without checking it over completely. The vendor # was 287. If they have the part ?(it's the part that joins the hoses to the cannister) I' can coordinate arrangements to get it. Thanks Dan Edit: The part seems to be called the AQUA STOP.

Now if you had attended the ACE auction yesterday, you could have purchased a Hammock for your Betta to have a nap while he was bored, OR a workout ball to PUMP up his fins! haha! Seriously, both of those were available and sold. It was too funny to see that they actually were available items! -roll-

cunning! I should have stopped at a jewelry store on the way home....

Also attended the ACE auction. Lots of people. Lots of activity, excellent auctioneers. There were probably close to twice the amount of people at the END of the edmonton auction than there were at the START/middle of the Calgary auction. Little bit of a kafuffle for me when I asked for a bidder card they said 'oh you just pay cash'. I was like - seriously? no bidder card? answer: nope. just pay cash for each item you buy. aight. Then later on I see people bidding with bidding cards so I asked again. Got the same answer. Asked why there were people that were allowed to bid, and was this some kind of racial profiling of middle age overweight causasians that spend too much at an auction.:smokey: I was getting set to file a greivance with the human rights groups, when they finally said that if you were a club member you could have a bidder card. So I showed them my CAS card. minor confusion. I probably could have said that in the first place, but I suppose they also could have said the same. Seems a good time to try to convince me to join the ACE as well as CAS! haha! The majority of the fish seemed to be African cichlids (or maybe it just seemed to be as they are of no interest to me). Lots of equipment available and lots of really nice plants. Also a lot of plecos from Harold, but I am full up on Plecos. I got outbid on a LOT of stuff, which is probably just as well. Might have had to sell my golf clubs to pay for everything! I didn't see any annual killies, and only a couple of trios of non annuals (some varation of australes. Pretty, but not spectacular). I bought a fluval 304 for $50, steam distillation unit for $160 (not sure what i was thinking there, as I have a RO/DI unit. Some days I think I have more money than brains) pair of J. Onca for $30. They were the main reason I attended the Edmonton auction. I tried to corner the market on java moss for the multiple egg scatterers I am about to spawn. and the big win for me was a dirty little 15 gallon tank that was divided in to 3 sections. I paid $22 for it. It also just happened to have inside its dirty little self 3 aquaclear minis, 3 50 watt submersible heaters, 2 ebo jager and 1 stealth, a very nice homemade glass lid with cut outs for each of the filters (how do they cut glass like that? like a square cut in to it. a lost art I suspect) and a flourescent light complete with an aqua glo bulb. That was a steal. Some other odds and sods, and a few plants for my daughter in Edmonton who is now up to 3 tanks... for a total of ~ $350 So when my wife asked me how many fish I bought and I said..... 2. then she asked me how much I spent..... there was an ensuing discussion. :chair: :boxed: All in all it was a great day though, and really glad I went. You Edmonton folks do an amazing job on your auction, and for the amount of items, and the amount of people I thought it went very smoothly. I am hoping my daughter chooses to join your club, as i think she can benefit a lot from doing so. The best part for me was Fishclubgirl NOT trying to trick me in to buying duckweed... again! When Ken said "do you have a buck Dan? I was sure there was more duckweed headed home with me!

Ya! He looked a little bleary eyed too! I was surprised he didn't fall asleep at the back of the hall! haha!

trade you Calgary's football team for your BA... Ours seems so... average. They certainly haven't brought in the interesting fish like you guys get in Edmonton.

Thanks. We've been chatting about them in pm's

Anyone know where they are sold in Calgary? Or failing that, Edmonton as I hope to be there on Sunday. Thanks! Dan

Would love to but I am in Arizona golfing till Thursday. Once the secret is out be sure to share it here after! Dan

It was closer to 24" than 18, but was indeed flat out beautiful. I think it was more about having space for a fish that size than the auction price. It's a bit of a gamble to throw something like that in to an auction. not many folks were there, and I for one was pleased that someone was able to take him home. Keep in mind he went up for auction twice, the first time there were no bids. Might have been better to put him on consignment at a store or in Kijiji rather than just hope someone had room for him at that time.... just sayin' Peace.

When I read the title, I was afraid you were going to complain about my threat to Karoake if I couldn't get rid of Ealeys magazines for a buck! That's sounds like a pretty intense conversation you had. I would have been interested to join that discussion, just to find out what club had isolated all but 5 or so members... I had to go check that it wasn't the Edmonton club you were talking about as I am heading up there for their auction on the 17th and hoping to see a variety of interesting fish and as I expected, it isn't them. There are some purists in Edmonton, but just as quickly they will discuss and compare the merits of many line bred fish like the angels and swords. I'm more of the 'live and let live' variety. I am not in favor of dieing fish, or breeding a specific mutation like that spinal thing that creates 'bubble fish'. Hybrids? There are enough interesting fish for me that I don't really find the hybridization of fish interesting, but that doesn't make it wrong, just not something that I would pursue or financially support.. However that is just my choice. To impose that on an entire cities club? That seems... I don't know. regressive? isolationist? Luddinitean? It doesn't seem right to me. I am also not a naturalist even though I do enjoy a lot of natural species that are very subtle in their beauty. (that covers just about any goodeids! haha!). I also enjoy the line bred angels, like the blacks and the philipine blue ghost. For all I know, they may actually be hybrids of some angel species so I could be full of beans on the hybrid thing! And I have a pair of SuperRed Severums that i am trying to spawn. In any case, in any group of people there are going to be the extremist views, both right and left of the political spectrum. It will be interesting to see how that club fairs with that approach. It seems almost no clubs have a fish show any more, so you'd be hard pressed to run one that is eliminating probably a third or more of the possible fish. I do not agree with that approach or belief, and hopefully the rest of the auction and day were enjoyable for you. Educate, don't isolate. Share information, not enforce your opinion. And at the end of the day, let people enjoy what they enjoy in the hobby, so long as the fish are not being ill treated is my belief. I learned a long time ago, there are no absolutes. Every side has their argument for and against. It's finding the shade of grey that you are comfortable with. And by the way, there are some darn pretty Flowerhorns. Not my thing, but I am actually interested in your breeding program and if you are isolating a specific trait at source (by that I mean crossing species to create a particular species, as opposed to just breeding hybrids). Just one mans opinion, late at night, so take it with a grain of salt. Peace

so, found a link to an article that seems to cover this topic reasonably well http://www.aquaworldaquarium.com/Articles/TonyGriffitts/Endlers_Livebearer.html It's an interesting read.

I dunno. Alberta girls are pretty hawt. I can see some serious BC migration to 'hybridize' them. just kidding.

Interesting. I did not know this. What happened to their original habitiat? I will google it later, but if you have a link to stories regarding it, would be interesting to know. Thanks dan

So, on some forum somewhere I read that endlers were extinct in the wild. So at the auction this weekend I throw that out in conversation, and everyone is looking at me like I just rode in on the short bus.... ah well, that will learn me for not checking sources.