Alan_au

Sparkling gourami T pumila. Easy to sex once some one has pointed out that males have an extra row or rustybrow/red spots arched along their upper body. Build a tiny bubble nest about the size of your fingernail unda a small leaf close to the bottom ofthe tank. Fry are extremely small and first food hase to be euglena or very fine infusoria for two or three weeks before they will take micro worm or BBS. Breeding :- pH 6.8 to 7, Hardness 100 to 150 ppm, temp 26 *C (80 F) Alan. PS. the fish pictured both appear to be males. PPS. mine built thier nest under a Bacopa leaf about 5cm abone the sand to give you an idea how small the nest is.

Oh My Goodness !!! If I had to pay that for water I would be right out if fish!!! What sort of water costs like that ??? Get your own RO system or what ever. $20 of water just to fill a 4x2x2 ??? you have got to be kidding !! Have a talk to some of the local fish keepers, see what they do to treat the local water. Or put a rainwater tank on the house and have perfect Discus water straight out the tank. If it is just chlorine or flouride you are worried about, there are very cheap products to fix that problem. Seek some advise, you are being ripped off big time. Alan

Good Grief !! Surely not standard White Clouds??? I used to have a big pond full (12foot dia, 3 foot deep) and used to donate bags full to the frog clubs around Brisbane. They were only worth $25 / 100 selling to the LFS. Aside from the standard, there are Longfinned, Gold, and Gold Lined white clouds available here for less than $4. It never ceases to amaze me the disparity in prices between Aus and NZ. You guys can get catfish at 1/10th the price we pay, but other things are so much more expensive. White clouds are so easy to breed and grow I would be setting a side a few tanks for them at that price. Alan

Not going to stake my rep on this ,,,but looks a lot like what my L204's were when small. They don't get the lyre tail till almost grown. And at that price is a bargain by Aus standards. Paid nearly ten times that in $NZ for a buy of 6 fish. Alan

Today I took delivery of 10 more "neon greens". I have a couple of adult females that I have had for a few years, but looks like I may have 6 males in this lot. Finger crossed that the survival rate is better with these than the last lot. We do not see them very often in this part of the world. Strange how some species are easy to keep and others just die off one by one. Eg... some months back I got 10 C elegans and 10 (what have turned out to be C brevirostrus) though they were sold to me under some other ficticious name. The C brevirostrus have thrived and grown with no losses. There are only 3 left out of 10 elegans and they are standing still. Same importer, same shipment, same German supplier, kept under the same conditions but different tanks in my fish room. Frustrating hey ??? Alan

If you have had this fish for a year then it should be much larger if it was a common pleco. To me it looks looks like a Smokey peckoltia, L009.......and probably a male going by the pectoral fins. Alan

My bristle nose lay bright orange eggs, how ever if the eggs are infertile the quickly go yellow like the yolk of a hard boiled egg. I had the experience some years ago when I got a dozen bristle nose from interstate with the intention of getting some "new blood" into my line. I put the new males with some of my females, and the new females with my males. Two years of trying and no eggs so dumped all the fish in a five footer. They sorted themselves out and eggs every where. The only difference I could determine between the fish I got from south and mine was different coloured eggs. The fish looked almost identicle to me but they would not cross breed. The southern fish laid eggs that were paler with a greenish /yellow tinge to them. This experience makes doubt a lot of the claims that cross bred ancistrus are being offered for sale. Alan

Don't use pure sheeps wool. The cheap synthetic acrilic stuff is the way to go. I have mops that were made in the 1970's still in use. Been boiled, chlorinated, sun dried, left in the cupboard umpteen times and are still in working order. No leaching of dyes, rotting or what ever. And for floats I use wine corks, :lol: turns the tedious job of winding wool into a good night !! Alan

Do you know I gave up egg yolk back in the 1950's when I dicovered euglna, paramesium,vinegar eels, micro worms and brine shrimp!!,,,, a good food but high risk. More disasters than success. Alan

Hmmm,,, bristles are so tough you can't kill them with a hammer. Howbig are the fish you are trying ??? if they are under 3 cm SL (don't measure the tail) leave them well alone !! Small bristles do NOT transfer well. Secondly do a slow change over. I never put new fish into my water in less than 24 hours. Small aditions to the water they came in till they are almost 100% the water they are going into. A pain in the butt, but when you are playing with expensive fish ??? Just floating the bag to equalise temp is a load of crock! Water is more important than temp !!! Alan

OK Kim, tell us your secret ! Takes me 12 weeks minimum to get common bristles to 3 cm SL, depending on the time of year, some times longer! And I have been breeding them for more than thirty years What sort of super growth food are you using ???? Alan

:-? I'm buying a ticket to NZ tomorrow!!! Alan

:roll: Don't know about the smile Caryl.??? If it was me I'd be looking for a large caliber gun!!! Alan.

This large male eventually conned 9 females to come see his etchings!! The youngsters are just starting to come out into the open and there is mobs of the little suckers. I would not be surprised if this guy just fathered 500 or more little bristles... In all the years I have kept bristle nose, I have never seen one male mate with so many females!!! Alan

I was going to suggest Corydas bartatus. Then did a double take ! :-? In a goldfish tank ???? They are definately cold water cories, so much so that I have never been able to keep them through a Qld Summer. But they sell for around AU$50 ea.. Not the sort of fish you would put in a gold fish bowl.... :roll: Alan

Regardless what colour the algae is, it is still absorbing nitrates, and isn't that what we are trying to get out of our aquariums???? More plants = less nitrates???? and algae are plants!! Alan

To cultivate vinagar eels I use 500 gr coffee jars with a 10mm hole drilled in the lid and some VERY fine SS mesh glued over the hole (Tarzans grip works). Half fill the jar with pure cider vinagar and add a 1cm cube of fresh apple and 100 ml water. V eels are a great intermediate food between infusoria and BBS or micro worms for tiny fry like tetras, rasboras or anabantids. Alan contact me Email, MSN or ICQ

Goldfish do a pretty good job of 'roiling' by themselves ! They are always grubbing around the bottom looking for any missed food items. There wouldn't be a lot left over for catfish to feed on. As for algae eaters, I have had bristle nose go as low as 11*C and survive during the infamous power strikes here, but they were not real happy about it. I have just had a massive outbreak of bristle nose spawns at 20*C these last few weeks, and I have even had them spawn at 18*C. I don't know that I would like to take them much lower though. Pepper cats ( Corydoras paliatus) will winter quite well outdoors here, and some colour forms of C aeneus are cold water fish (by our standards) tho the ponds rarely get below 10*C Alan

Goodness, We have just had a big flap here in S E Queensland when the Enviromental Protection Agency found Red Eared sliders in a couple of small lakes! They spent untold A$$$$$$ to drain the lakes and took everything out just for a couple of hundred turtles Then you look back to the big drought we had and the same mob spent equal $$$ relocating a few hundred snake necks and saw back turtles when their lagoon dried up. :roll: Talk about dumb! They could have sold the red ears to the pet trade and got their money back and put a few snake necks and saw backs in the lagoon when the rains came. And our taxes pay these brilliant minds to do dumb things ?????? :-?

Not a problem, same bacteria, they just work faster in warmer water ! Alan

Hi Kim, I got my first bristle nose in 1968 and they were a real broblem to breed. After a few generations of tank bred fish thought they became easier and easier. I was young and foolish in those days and kept log books in my fish room. Turned out that Bristle nose females would spawn every 35 to 45 days given the right conditions. Now 30 odd years later I am still breeding bristles and the females still spawn every 35 - 45 days. So you can look forward to a new batch of kittens every month or so for the next four or five years. Then they start to slow down a bit but have bigger batches of eggs. My oldest breeding female was 12. These days I don't keep them past thier fith season. Alan

28*C may be just a bit too high for bristle nose. Mine are in full swing at the moment at 20*C but they usually shut down breeding activity completely in Summer. I lifted this post from Auscat as an illustration. "On Friday morning noticed a cluster of bristle nose eggs lose out side a cave and much activity around the entrance. I rescued the lose eggs and placed them in a hatching tank with an air stone and a few drops of methyline blue, then had a sticky beak in the cave. Three more clusters of eggs ! Now, Sunday, and there are six bunches of eggs in the cave and still a couple of females hanging about trying to get in on the act. Seven is the most females I have ever had spawn with the one male before. This guy must be going for the record !!! Temp 20*C pH 7.4 GH 100 KH 50 Alan When life gives you lemons ask for a bottle of tequila & salt Edited by: Alan Caboolture at: 5/30/04 1:34 pm" That fish has now spawned with nine females over three days. http://p204.ezboard.com/fperthcichlidso ... =394.topic. Alan

Nick, Have a look here, http://p204.ezboard.com/fperthcichlidsocietyfrm5 there are dozens of posts on breeding bristles so you should pick up a few tips there Alan

Gee Logan, You make it a bit hard !! What sort of pleco are you wanting to sex?? There are about 700 different pl***s ranging size fron a couple of inches to 3 foot whoppers! And just about as many different ways of distinguishing the sex of the beast. Could be head shape, body shape, head adornment, pectoral fins, ventral fins, Dorsal fin, genital papilia, or any combination depending on the species. And lets face it, deternaning the sex of a fish is not that often possible untill they are mature. So, if you have one of the big guys ???? :-? Alan

Might be just a bit soon yet for her to spawn again Kim. I have been breeding Ansistrus catfish for 36 years. At first they were wild caught stock and very difficult to get to spawn. But these days they seem to breed on a wet saucer. How ever, my records tell me that female bristle nose spawn every 40 to 45 days under optimum aquarium conditions. So expect your female to breed every six weeks or so if well fed and water and temperature are right. The males seem to be always ready to breed (typical hey!) but it is the females who initiate spawning. Alan PS. I have not heard of any black eyed golds in Australia and would very much like to have a few in my collection.