MrEd

I have a culture of them growing in a bath tub but I moved it and gave it a bit of a clean and things are a bit slow at the mo! I can usually harvest daily but something is a miss at the moment though the Daphnia are doing well? I know what you mean about dried worms as even my Angels won't touch them .... and that's saying something!

Well done guys! That's a beauty coloured male you've got there Ryan! I agree with caserole as far as removing the male and I do it as soon as he is shunned away by the female. Remove the cause of the stress (the male) and plenty of live food, like tubifex and white worms, and the eggs should be safe as Winston Peters in a Labour Gov't! I've had them lay another batch after 10 days on a tubifex twice daily diet. Great to see everyones success with them!

That stuff's pretty toxic Ryan! I leaned those sheets you gave me up against the house and it rained that night. Grass died and is still dead! Don't know what is used to retard fires but it'll retard your age limit!

If cleaning your Eheims is a big issue you could try putting a Fluval 4 sponge cut in half over the standard Eheim intake screen or even better a Cosmo Double sponge filter. Just pull the bubble tube bit off the Cosmo and the standard Eheim hose fits straight into it. I have had this system running now for over two years and never touched my canister. It is a bit ugly but easily hidden behind a big rock or log. Mind you I do clean the sponges every water change which is no big. When you notice them starting to invert you know it's overdue for a wash! :lol:

I've never bothered feeding them with anything but live BS when free swimming and they are big enough to take them OK. Also found a large percentage of losses was caused by overfeeding and trying to rush their growth. Fry will literally eat till they burst so keep an eye on their belly size! All my mums have been really good as long as you remove the male once the eggs have been layed and fertilized. Easy way to tell is he will be cringing in the opposite corner of the tank. If you feed her up well on live food I had them pop out another batch 10 days later! I chucked a pair in my community tank to see how they'd go and the female spawned on an ornament. I wasn't worried about them getting eaten as I have an Ancistrus in there and Cory's but the mum was fighting everything off plus Tetras and even Angels but were gone 3 nights latter which I'm picking was the night feeding Ancistrus ... developed a craving for caviar. Appisto's are cool fish and make a good community fish! ..... not like those horrible African things!

I'm sure there will be something half pie reasonable left for you bud! As you say as long as it gets there in that time frame I'm not too worried and the fact they will be sitting sub-zero in a cargo hold for an hour would make trucking the better option anyway! Hope all goes well to as I've always avoided sending fish and hassles I can do without! Cheers and keep your head down!

Yeh there'll be some left just not as colourful or big! Some of the females are showing flushes of yellow when a male goes past and getting fat so won't be far off breeding! I always asumed they were flown but an ex-worker of a courier Co reckoned that's what they want you to believe and will even tell you but not many do? He was an "ex"-worker though ????

Thanks for that Ryan and great to hear you're still alive and I hope your fish survive you absence .... and for the kind words on the Appisto's! I might make up an A4 label on the computer saying "live tropical fish" and put a pic of one on there also so if they can't be bothered reading they'll be at least be able to identify with it! Do any companies actually fly Sth to Chch or is it all over the Cook Strait on a truck .... on the boat that is!

Does anyone have a prefered overnight courier? Cheers

All batches turned white so must all have been sterile! I did the floating container with bubble stone thing but haven't tryed to pair them per tank. I figured the eggs are there so the more males present the better the chance of fertilization but I guess one pair makes more sense! I need more tanks .... never enough tanks!!!! :-?

If that fails a glass of wine in the water and a ring of candles around the pond should get them in the fishie luv'n mood! .... am kidding!

I have had 3 spawnings of Sterbai Cory's with the first bugging out so I scraped the next lot off and containered them in the same water and added Meth Blue and covered with black polythene to block out most of the light and the same thing. The next lot I added to the same container that I was treating a Pop eye Guppie with antibiotics and no fungus this time but went white and died. Are Sterbai difficult to breed as I have 3 male and 3 females in the tank and still no luck?

I would be pretty keen to get a piece of sponge over the inlet of that filter. I use a "FLUVAL 4 Foam Sleeve Insert" which is designed for a FLUVAL internal filter, and cut them in half and they fit nicely over the EHEIM inlet with a litte filter foam wedged down between the filter and the pipe as there is a reasonably large gap there. Your baby Angels will out grow the inside of the filter otherwise! I had the same problem and ended up moving them to their own tank (you can never have too many) where they weren't stressed, except when I fed them, and were very protective of the eggs and never ate the fry (first time parents) so ended up with over a hundred of the darn things so had to buy more tanks! Keeping them well fed probably helps take away any urges to eat them also? Good luck.

If you want a kg of the stuff "Cerebos" Rock Salt in a blue and white bag was the cheapest by far in my area (no Bin In) from Countdown. I rang Cerebos first to check it had no additives and they said it was as pure as you can get. Had other brands spouting pure & natural 250gm bags for the same price and dearer as the kg!

I've found another way to start up a new tank if you have others, and they are disease free, is when you do water changes to fill the tank with this water. Obviously gravel vac water full of solids is probably not the best. Another thing I do when starting a new filter is to clean some sponge filters from my breeding tanks (or cannister foam) and soak the dry filter media in the dirty water and the bacteria is transfered and you can add some Cycle to if it makes you feel better but if you use enough there is no need. Don't leave the filter not flowing for too long as this will kill the useful bacteria you just added. When it comes time to ad fish (have done it after a week with no ill effects) do a 1/3 waterchange with fresh water and all should be honky dory .... as long as you added enough filter water! Take a fresh water sample along to your local fish shop and see if they'll check the quality for you. I always wondered if heated water cycled quicker ...... just presumed it did?