Ktttk

The first one took an afternoon - it was a bit of trial and error to see how everything would fit, but after that, it takes 1-2 hours to cut the tiles and glue them together, and then they are left for a few days for the silicon to dry.

thanks guys. It was a lot of fun learning to use the dremel to cut up the tiles to make the cave. I've got three of these caves in use at the moment and they are all 'occupied'. Maybe next time, I should pick out some brown tiles so it looks more natural.

I have been using upside-down clay pots and holes-in-bricks to breed BNs and GBAs this past year and have found them difficult to work with, especially when I want to transfer the eggs or babies to a separate breeding trap. After searching online for some ideas on DIY caves, I had a go at making my own. I used some left over bathroom tiles for the main cave construction and aquarium-safe silicon to glue the pieces together. The tiles were cut using a dremel with a diamond cutter. Here is a pic of the finished cave which consists of 2 separate pieces: the lid and the rest of the cave. It was important for the cave to have a removable lid as I wanted easy access to the eggs/babies.The cave has a narrow entrance so that it is easier for the male to trap the female inside the cave. The narrow entrance also ensures that the eggs laid inside the cave are not accidentally kicked out by the male when he is fanning them.The back of the cave is made out of a piece of see-through perspex. This allows me to monitor the development of the eggs in the cave. It also provides an opportunity to observe the spawning process. Front view: View from behind the cave with the see-through perspex back: I have found these caves to be quite successful and have been rewarded with a number of spawns already. The males have taken a liking to using these caves. One of the males guarding a small clutch of eggs: Another male with a very large clutch (from several females): Notice how some of the eggs are knocked loose from the main bunch but still remain within the main cavity of the cave. I removed the babies from this guy about 4 days after the eggs hatched. It was a simple process of removing the lid, chasing the male out and then pouring the babies into a breeding trap. Pic of the babies in the breeding trap: Hoped you guys enjoyed the pics. Any suggestions on improvements to the cave design would be appreciated :bounce:

I too am shocked by the sentencing - I agree that the ministry has to send a strong message regarding this issue, but it this a little over the top? Maybe a suspended imprisonment sentence would be suffice plus the $25K fine...

I use bricks in my tanks - I get them from construction sites - and they don't seem to cause any problems in the tank.

Just had a quick look through the list - there are a large variety of plecos and corys - but don't see them available at the petshops.. are they just too expensive to bring in?

So the reason for the GBA having black splotches is because: a) GBAs have been outcrossed with common BNs or b) The very first male GBA imported was bred with a wild type GBA (which I assume is brown)?

Thanks for that BlueandKim, clears things up a bit for me.

Just because a pleco is assigned an L number, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a unique species. It is only a unique species when it has been given a scientific name. The L number system at the moment has redundancies where a single species may have 2 more assigned L numbers (i.e. one for the juvenile form and one for the adult form, not realising that they are the same species). But from doing a bit more reading, I do accept that the L144 is a different species from the common ancistrus but it appears that the L144 that exists in the hobby NOW is just a variant of the common bristlenose. It is the amelanistic version which is different from the albino version - and technically should not be referred to as L144. Have a look at this link.

As I understand it, GBAs are the same species as common bristlenoses but carry a particular mutation which makes them yellow. They are just a different variant of the common BN, just as the albino BN is a variant of the common BN but they are all the same species.

If i repeated this process now i.e. if I take a GBA male and breed it with a common female - then breed the resulting offspring back to the GBA male - I would get some young that are GBA? Would these GBAs therefore have some 'fresh blood' from the common female? I think so too.. fingers crossed that I get a male and a female!

I'll look to sell this batch when they are around 2cm which will be at least 2-3 weeks or so.

I have noticed that two of the fry from a spawn about 2 months ago have black patches on their body. I remember reading a thread a while back about somebody getting some fry that were like this but I'm not sure what happened to them. Anyway, I wonder what happens to the black patches as the fry grow larger. Does the patch grow proportionately larger as well? or does it stay the same size while the rest of the fry grow? or does it disappear altogether. None of the parents have any black patches on them. Well I have taken a couple of pics of the fry with these black patches and I'll try and update the pics to see how what happens as the fry develop. This little guy has a black patch on the left side of his body: And this guy looks like he has a big black eye! Kenneth

Another update: All the little ones have been transferred to a 2 foot grow out tank and they are growing nicely in there. Heres a few pics of them tearing into a piece of blanched lettuce..

I think that drops in pH, as rnbo is experiencing is more detrimental to the health of the fish than a small increase in hardness. Adding shells/bird grit to the tank in gradual amounts will help to stabilise the pH over time.

If you want to make sure they are all getting some food, try and put the food in 2 or 3 different areas of the tank. I find that my dominant male tends to chase all the others away when he is feeding so now I put in 2 pieces of vege at either end of the tank and it works well.

dog Cats are scary. Pizza or Pasta

They should be OK as long as the convicts don't pair up and start spawning - in which case everything else in the tank will take a beating.

Nice pics! The spawn from the top pic, is that from 2 females?

That is true alan. Hardness is a measure of the concentration of dissolved metals in the water (such as Ca, Mg, Zn) and does not directly affect the pH. It is the concentration of carbonates and bicarbonates, which is also referred to as the alkalinity or temporary hardness that acts to buffer the pH. But because the dissolved metals are generally found to be bound to carbonates and bicarbonates, a high hardness measurement is normally associated with a high kH and hence hard water is usually well buffered. But there of course there are situations where the water maybe hard (high Ca, Mg etc) but there are low levels of carbonates and bicarbonates in which case you will get hard water that is poorly buffered.

Auckland water. I got this report after I emailed metrowater in July last year asking about the water supply in Auckland. Highlighted in the orange box is the measurement of hardness. The units on the right hand column of mg/L is equivalent to ppm (parts per million). MAV is Maximum Acceptable Value set by the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand 2000 (DWSNZ 2005), given for determinands with a health significance. GV is Guidline Value set by the DWSNZ 2000. Established for aesthetic determinands. ** = Conductivity is an indirect measure of the TDS in a water supply. TDS = Conductivity x (an empirical factor which ranges from 5.5 - 7).The conductivities of New Zealand water supplies range up to 100mS/m but are typically less than 30mS/m. And to interpret this value, I have found a table at this site, which also gives a good basic explanation of what pH, kH and gH are. So a hardness reading of 29.2 ppm from the table is equivalent to about a dH of about 2 (0 to 4) which indicates that the Auckland water supply is very soft - hence not much pH buffering capacity. A simple way to increase the hardness in order to improve the pH buffering capacity is by adding things like marble chips or oyster shells which contain CaCO3. Hope that helps.

Nice photo. You might have little little gouramis swimming around soon.

I'm interested to know who bought what.. if you don't mind sharing

You can try add some oyster shells/grit to buffer and stabilise the pH. But as alan has mentioned, I think it is the CO2 that is causing the drop in pH as it reacts with water to form carbonic acid.

Thanks Jo0sh and Evil!. That averages to 140.5 then! I've got another spawn that are about 1 month old in a two foot tank. I wonder if I should put these little ones together with the older ones. The 2 foot tank will then have about 200 GBAs swimming around in it...