Hippoherder

I do know about goldfish. I just want to practice on a small ornamental setup before going with tilapia in a larger one. I like rainbows, I don't really care for goldfish. I just need a good bottom dweller.

I'm starting up an aquaponic system using ornamental fish. I'm leaning toward a rainbow tank-not as easy to maintain a bio load as guppies, but not too difficult to breed either.

I'd like a bottom dweller that is efficient on clean up and might put out a higher amount of waste, as well as get on with rainbows. Smaller would be better. Starter tanks are 90 gallon ( not including grow beds).

I'm thinking a nice group of cories. Most plexus get too large, I think... Except for bristle nose perhaps.

I'd also like one that, if they are lucky enough to breed, that I can easily find homes for the extra offspring. So a species that others may want.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks

What is the fish in the 6th picture? They look black with yellow spots. I think I see fry in the pic as well.

Thanks

Is that an archer fish? Very cool. How did you start the seed?

When i look at people's profile page, there is a link to check their name history. How can we change our name?

_{Thanks guys!}

I've done some searching online, can anyone reccomend a place to get a 50 micron sieve (or any micron sieve)? Prefferably local?

I just want to use it to break down some easy to get fish food into sizes easily managed by fish fry.

You need to cross a female with a regular male to get the lyretail you are looking for without artificial insemination. The only problem is finding someone who will let one of the females go.

I keep some lyretail swords and maybe my fella doesn't have an "elongated gonopodium" because I have had fry(and boy did that lady swordtail get ripped off :cry: !!!). Granted I haven't had as many spawns as my normal swords but someone's getting "friendly" :heart:

See this is why i'm confused. Some people report being able to breed them while others say you can't because of the shape of their gonopodium, its too long to work properly :P

I'm guessing its one of those things that is possible but not very common. You probably have to luck out on getting a male that can breed properly.

Has anyone seen any non lyretail(normal finned) red eyed red swords around edmonton?

You really can't beat ebay for shelldweller shells. I got a few dozen whaleseye shells. The shipping was slow but very cheap. There are a coupkle of vendors that sell tons of shells on ebay. You don't have to worry about duty until you hit $50 and you won't get near half that with the shipping.

200 microns is too large for some rainbow fry I think. I think Gary Lange feeds 50-100 micron foods( baby rotifer size) , and I have had poor success with one type at 100-200 microns. I guess it will depend on the type, but the type. Just seeing if anyone has experience trying live daphnia with these type of fry. They seem to be doing beter than on GP alone and just wondering if it is coincidence.

I dont see why they shouldn't be able to eat the daphnia, from what I've read, daphnia is recommended for the smallest fry that are unable to eat bbs.

I raised my GBR fry on daphnia for the first week, then switched to bbs. I dont know how big the rainbow fry are, but the GBR fry were so tiny, I had to use a magnifying glass to be able to see them properly (or maybe I just need glasses)

either case, they are very small.

I have some Melanotaenia Maccullochi "skull Creek" fry going. They are about 3 weeks old. The way i hatch out the eggs (which may not be the best way) is to hand pick them and drop them in a fine mesh breeding net. I then drop in 100-200 micron golden pearl. What ends up happening is the excess GP clusters along the edge. Now, I have the parent fish in the tank the breeding net rests in and feed them a combo of blood worms, spirulina reinforced brine shrimp, and daphnia. What appears to be happening is daphnia eggs are hatching out and the adults make their way to the breeder net and cluster on/around the GP that hangs neatr the edge of the net. I'm not sure if the Daphnia can eat the GP but they sure like to be on or near it. Now, in my limited experience, the size GP I am using doesn't really work well for Pseudomugil, but has for the 2 other species I have tried to rear. If i am understanding correctly, baby daphnia should be 200 microns so the fry should take them. It might be my imagination but the fry seem to be growing a bit quicker with the Daphnia around. I'm not sure where the Daphnia hang out (surface or deeper down) but my fry seem to be going the full depth of the breeder net and not hanging out at the surface like other Bow fry I have tried.

So I guess I am wondering if Daphnia will eat GP, and if the baby dapnia are able to be consumed by rainbow fry in the early stages. Any thoughts?

I actually remove my eggs and drop them in a breeding net daily and that works well for me.

I had a mop in my praecox tank and moved it. I had fry showing up every day or so for several days - that was after seeing fry in the adult tank. Maybe just wait a few days before you move the mop back

I am going to start collecting eggs from these guys as well. THese are my favorite rainbows so far. They are very active and remind me of striped bass.

this is a little off subject,you said you have a 3 tank limit.

use a 5-10gal rubbermaid bin as a quarenteen tank and a sponge filter

LOL well, my wife has already thought of that. Anything that can hold water and a fish will be considered a tank. If I put a betta in a jar, that counts.

LOL glad i double checked I did the one TBSP per 5 gallons, have now increased to between 83- 84F, and am still adding the ich med every 24 hours. I have been doing a 10% water change after feedings and right before med application, making sure to add the TBSP of salt to the new water. The meds looks like it will last another 3 days. But everyone says high temps and the salt is all you need so I am happy. i will just continue for a couple more weeks.

Thanks!

Sorry - I was mistaken. Running on empty here. I start with 1tbsp/10gal and go up to 1/5gal.

You can use pickling salt or sea salt from the grocery store - typically cheaper than buying at the LFS.

5tbsp per gallon? Wow...the box said to keep it to no more than 1 per 5 gallons. Did you learn that method from another fishkeeper/book or did you learn that through years of refining the process?

I do have plants so I guess a gradual increase will be needed. Wow...50 gallon tank so that will be 250 TBSP. Looks like I am getting more salt.

Thanks

Dissolved Oxygen is about the only problem you may encounter, so increase aeration. You don't need to go higher than 86F.

If I see it, I start out at 1tbsp per gal of salt and increase to about 5tbsp per gal total (so add 1tbdp/gal each day for 5 days). Leave it like that for a week (so it'll be about 2 weeks w/o a WC) then do a 30-50% WC.

If you don't have plants, you could probably do the 5tbsp/gal right off the start, but still treat for 2 weeks.

What about water changes? And will there be any negative effect on the fish to have the temps that high for an extended time besides increased metablism? How high can i go?

Thanks!

Salt and high temp (82+) is all you need. I have never wasted my money on meds for ich.

wow...so 2 and a half weeks - thanks. I guess i am going to go back and get another bottle of ich medication. The bottle says treat as much as every 8 hours but I think that may be a bit overkill with water changes and whatnot. I have sand in this tank so hoefully that will help with the substrate as everything tends to stay on the surface.

I have had my share of battles with Ich!

The lifecycle is 12 to 16 days, depending on the temperature. You need to keep treating until the cycle is complete to make sure there are not any cysts remaining in the sub-straight. I did not use any medication, salt and high temperature ( I went up to 83-84 degrees). I had a surprising outcome from the higher temperature, it caused my Festivum to breed!

One of the fish i got at the Auction had ich and I didn't recognize it. I thought he was a little beaten up because he was housed with another male in the bag and probably the tank. That fish in particular was always a bit reclusive, staying at the top croner of the tank.

It wasn't long until I saw other fish in my tank starting to rub against objects. although I didn't see anything on them. Very shrotly after, the original fish seemed to be covered in a whitish coat. I have noticed one or two small white spots on others but they all still seemed vigorous. So, Saturday, I went to the LFS, and I picked up some Ich medication and aquarium salt..

I am slowly raising the temp to 80 degrees. I have done one 10% water change and 2 ich treatments, as well as adding the salt. There was immediate improvement from the 'ground zero' fish. He no longer has that whitish coat, although I still see a spot. I will continuethe ich treatments once a day for a week. I am hoping it will be resolved then. The 'ground zero' fish is still not eating and is getting skinnier, although he moves around the tank more and doesn't stay at the top.

If he doesn't start eating ina couple of days i will probably euthanize him. He can'[t fight a potentially leathal disease without eating and will likely just fester in the tank. Unfortunately a seperate quarantine tank isn't an option at the moment.

The person at the LFS said it should be finished in a week. I hope so, although I don't know how I will know for sure. I guess i can appreciate people having a quarantine tank now. It's kind of hard to do with a 3 tank limit though.

Anyways, any suggestions or insight is appreciated.

Thanks,

I can appreciate that. It's nice to understand the reasons and cause/effect of what I am doing though. The website article jewel posts looks really interesting. I'm going to dig into it more when the wee one goes down for a nap.

even if my tests say my number are good i do a water change, its good practice for times you really need it lol

Awesome, Thanks! Just bookmarked that site.

http://www.wetwebmed...GrwLmtChems.htm

Hmmm, that is interesting...especially when I consider some breeding behavior changes that I can link up to water change (either tank transfer or infrequent/frequent changes).

As luck would have it, one of the fish I got at the auction had ich and I didn't recognize it. So it looks like water changes will be happening quite frequently now - ugg.

With 0ppm do I even need to bother with a water change this week?

There is a school of thought that water changes dilute hormones that fish produce, it is said that, these hormones will stunt their growth.

I use the liquid kits.

if all of the reading are accurate the i would assume so,but the main question on my mind is do you use liquid test kits or the 5-in1 strips?

Thanks for the response everyone. I should go back and review the nitrogen cycle.

So if the readings are right where i want them, the water changes are more for keeping the waste in the tank at a minimum?

Was about to do a water change on a 50 gallon tank but decided to do some water testing first to see what conditions were like and if one was needed. It has been running for a while. It's freshwater with a moderate amount of plants in it and a clean up crew second to none. I do 15-20% water changes every 2-3 weeks. Because some of the previous inhabitants were so messy I decided to start zerocarb in my filters (2 HOB filters that could each handle the tank by themselves).

Anyways, I had 0ppm for amonnia and nitrites. I couldn't locate the nitrate testing kit. I almost never test my water, but isn't 0ppm a bit odd? Or is that as a result of the zerocarb? I figured something should show up, but since I never test, I'm not really sure.

When I do water changes it is generally half RO and half tap treated with prime.

With 0ppm do I even need to bother with a water change this week?

Thanks,

Bill