Adrienne

Hate to say it - but - thats what rams do, IME anyway - they die at the drop of a hat.

I should have said above that I will cull some of them in about 3 weeks. I don't cull them because they are not pretty - in all spawns of fighters and more so in larger spawns there are a certain number of young fish that do not grow or grow incredibly slowly. In the wild these are the young that do not survive or are eaten by the bigger fish in their spawn. Its known as survival of the fittest. I have already split this spawn into two 70 litre tanks to allow the smaller ones more access to their ready supply of food. Those that remain really tiny after about 9 weeks of age will become part of the food chain.

The lfs won't take males - only sell imports and anyways I wouldn't do that to my fish as they would die a more painful death there than anything I could do to them.

While cleaning out my young fighter tank today I discovered quite a few baby bristlenose under the piece of driftwood in there. Question is - do I take them out or do I leave them in there given that the fighters now know they are there? What is the best thing to keep them in if I take them out - on a quick count I would think up to 20 and I noticed that my big big male in there is sticking in the hole in his piece of wood too so I wonder if theres about to be more. lol - what a laugh - the tank I have set up to breed them has absolutely no action at all.

yes, less is easier to raise and they do better. the yellows will be culled in another 2-3 weeks lol.

Last count 95 yellows but only about 20 are a decent size at the moment. The crowntails total 12 which are from 2 spawns and thats why they have grown so well as more food for each fish.

My 8 week old ct's - the mothers were sisters, one father was a double ray and the other a single ray hence the two different tail types. young male young females and a couple of shots of my 6 week old yellows. Mum was ct but I don't think that dad had any in him.

is he growing (eye one) or only half of him? Random colours - yes, but the purists will be frowning. The trouble is if you put two matching randoms together, what will you get? Probably something even worse - maybe even a marble which imo is the worst ugliest fighter there is. Something only a mother could love :lol:

how many have you got? lol - I'm very nosey as you may have guessed. My babies are growing so slowly - its because theres so many of them!

Nice!!! You can see the yellow females influence with the colour of the bodies and the sheen to them.

good luck - mine did the same thing as ryans with the same thing on their head.

My son has purchased a new bike which will be left in Taupo for him next weekend. Is anyone going down to the racing or just coming from that way who may be able to bring it up for him. Or even know of someone who may be able to assist. Will certainly pay costs. Thanks

I've put a post in the coldwater section asking people who keep goldfish to have a look at your post as I only have tropicals. Try posting a request in the technical section here about your tank and ask what people think about the filter and if they recommend anything else before you spend heaps. Sometimes its simply that the filter isn't running properly. I've had the filter you're looking at and at the best I found it 'okay' but theres probably better out there for around the same cost.

Can someone look in the beginners section at the post 'aqua start 320...' and see what you think. The tank specs says its 28 litres but I don't know anything about goldfish. Thanks

Hi is this a new tank - as in purchased new? I looked on the website at the tank you have and according to it your tank runs an underground filter. The pump is pulling the water down through the gravel and back up and out into the top of the tank. Its filtering the water by doing this and any muck should accumulate under the filter plate. Is there anything at the top of the return to the tank or is it just open. A couple of things - tanks take a while when new to do what is called 'cycle'. You can check this out on here by using the search - at the top of the page - and typing in the word cycle. This can take several weeks but its basically when the water in the tank becomes stable enough in the way of chemicals for fish to live. Goldfish are very messy fish and probably need a stronger filter system than what this tank has built in. They do also grow pretty big. You would need to change the water I would think at least twice a week otherwise ammonia will build up in the tank. Algae is caused by a lot of things - sometimes its just the tank settling (cycling) in. Sometimes too much light (eg sunlight). Your plant could be dying through lack of nutrients or most likely the wrong sort of lighting for the particular type of plant. In the meantime do more water changes, 20% daily I would think. Take a sample of your water from the tank into the local fish shop and ask them to test it. It will tell you more than you can see - or may want to know. When you get the results post on here again - we're here to help you if we can. Everyone starts somewhere. I can't believe that when I started nearly 30 years ago that I didn't kill every fish I had. Cheers

Hi Ron, so its both parents carrying the dt gene then. Therefore starting off with a ct and a dt you would have to wait another generation and breed brother with sister? or with the parent dt? Are these more suseptible to deformities doing it this way or is it just the dt do you think? I know that developing my ct line has been hard as the original male was an egg eater and has passed it on down the line. All the females from this lot have been very hard to spawn as well. Now on 5th generation and I've had to bring in a new blood line so hopefully it works better.

Mr Pleco - I do agree that asking questions is what this is for and you were a great help last week when I was asking about an auction. In the end I didn't do anything as I couldn't find out if they would hold it for a couple of weeks. Its alright when people can see pics but when they are in the lfs and you want to know if its the real deal its not quite so easy. I wouldn't feel right asking if someone could pop down to have a look and say what they think. :roll:

a good dt and probably the only one worth breeding from will have a split all the way to the base of the tail. I posted a pic somewhere on here of my male dt. if you can find something remotely like that it would be worth getting imo. I might be wrong here though but I thought that to get a dt spawn one parent had to be a dt and the other had to carry the dt gene. I may need to be corrected on this one.

I'd get the fighter out if I were you. They're not overly compatible with angels at the best of times.

The trouble is getting a decent double tail to begin with and then a decent crowntail as well. I managed to get a really nice dt male last year (from a LFS) and was going to have a go as some of my ct females then were carrying the dt gene but he upped and died the moment he saw the female. The odd male of mine still shows a minute amount of split but very little. Most of the dts I have seen have an uneven split and a lot are deformed. Billaney has one of his (dt) for his avatar?, its beautiful, but doesn't have any more from what I understand.

Breeding aside - I would love to know what people have so that if I saw one for sale I would know who to ask if it was the 'real deal'. I would love to get a few really nice ones for my tank but don't want to buy one thing and find out its something else. From what I understand its mostly males that come into the country anyway so if anyone is lucky enough to have a female they should announce it out loud

Did they know? Did they have the tank labelled as fish not for sale? or did you have to tell them? I went to another shop a couple of weeks ago. Went out to my car to get my money to pay for the fish while they were being caught. The owner came out and said don't bother, I have seen one with white spot so I don't want to sell them to you. I went to have a look and it took forever for me to spot the fish. I really appreciated the fact that they were so honest as they could have just caught 10 that weren't showing it. This shop has a great reputation anyway and now I know why.

I've just sold the two I had up here. The only problems I ever had was that with one of them, when the wind really got up it tipped it a couple of times and all the birds got out and the other one was the mice loved it all year round. Would just dig in under and used to catch them rolling the quail eggs out. So as in the above advice, watch the wind and mice!

Hi Ryan, I've seen the result of the cross between blue & gold and in all honestly I couldn't tell that they weren't true blue rams. The breeder showed me and I think she said there was a little yellow around or just behind the gill area.

I use one of them on my tank inside. I don't bother when syphoning out, just run it into the garden. Find it brilliant though when filling up the tank. Use a thermometer to get the water to the right temp, attach the hose, put a couple of squirts of water conditioner into the tank and away I go. It sure beats lugging 20 buckets of water through the house.