MrEd

All the eggs still there this afternoon and I'm just warming up a cycled tank for such occasions and will transfer them over. She laid them all on a under gravel filter bubble tube so will be very easy to remove and finished about 1:00am this morning. Ryan I'm not sure if they are a pure Altum but were bought as them from an Auck importer, no names mentioned, and were wild caught. They are not Scalare so maybe an intermediate cross or an area variant??? :-?

That's the plan but she still appears to be laying (12 hours+ ago started)! I must say I thought there'd be more eggs (about 200) and wondered how long they lay for? I don't want to disturb them while still laying!

Can any one tell me what fish will eat Altum Angel eggs? I have in the tank at the moment Neons, Black and Black Widdow Tetras plus a Kuhli loach and 4 Peppered Cory's which I plan to remove all before the fry hatch. I removed the Bristle Nose straight away which was an easy job as he stays in his hidding place even when removed from the water. I'm reluctant to remove all the others and disturb/stress them until they have finished spawning! Plus the female is keeping everything away at the moment while light. Will the cory's be a threat at night? Also will both the parents eat the fry? I purposefuly put a pair in a tank on their own and have been pumping the live food into them and concentrating on them trying different temps and pH and the ones I feed flake and don't care about breed .... ain't that the way! :-?

I've tryed Hydro Clay Balls available from any hydroponic shop with success. Made of baked brick clay and very porous and best of all realitively cheap. Just wash well!

Like fish, some plants don't like 30deg.! One dose may make the symptoms on the fish disappear but the parasite has different stages and to kill them all. Here is a link I found very useful and imformative. http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=2599

Don't use full strength chemical treatments on loaches ..... slime coat fish! I had it myself and this is what worked for me. Remove carbon from filter if you use it. Use "1/2" strength chemical treatment (White Spot Cure) and raise the water temp slowly over 24 hours or so to 30C (no more). Keep your eye on temp sensative fish and you may need to remove plants. Aeration will help and gravel vac 50% of the water between treatments (3 treatments) and allow for the changes when dosing. A UV steralizer will help if you have one. Good luck

I think I paid $17.00 each for mine but would really prefer paying more and having them live 3 to 4 times as long! After buying 6 of them and only having one left I've given up on them. Did get one pair to spawn though. The remaining one, getting to geriatric age of one year, is pale washed out and getting thinner yet eats well. Thought they must of had TB or NTD but seems not! Sounds like they have just recieved the new local bred Rams last week Rozski. Shadowfax might have a better idea ..... missed seeing you there this time Shadow!

I talked to the head guy at my LFS about the premature death of my Rams (1 - 1.5 years). He said he has had numerous complaints about the same thing with the Rams loosing their colour (amazingly good) and going washed out then dying some as early as 1 year. The Singaporean fish breeders were using substances to force colour into their fish to make them more appealing and sell better, and I must say mine were stunning. However one side effect of the induced colour is premature death! The LFS Wet Pets have acted responsably and no longer buy from the overseas breeder and instead use local breeders. .... good on yah Wet Pets!

I got mine from a shop. I doubt it was poor water quality as I do 1/3 weekly water changes and have a well cycled tank (pH 6) with large peat filter!

My Rams oldest Ram was only 1 1/2 years max and the youngest 6 months. The neons were a bit harder to say though I have some that I would call geriatric as they came with a 4 y/o tank and are pale and skinny but. The glow lights I bought and were 1 year.

Had a male Neon G and he got huge though I wouldn't say fat (big boned) and externally very healthy and an aggressive feeder. I did a weekly water change, as I normaly do, next day dead! They do stress easily when doing a water change, darting around like a maniac, and wondered if it was that that knocked him off his favourite rock?

I have lost 4 Rams to what I thought may have been TB but reading after this may be NTD? They seemed to be eating OK but grew thinner and lost their colour then off to the fishy tank in the sky .... via the sewerage system! I did loose some GlowLights and Neons with similar symptoms but the Neons also developed bent spines and one of the GlowLights also had a swollen belly.

I was just given a link about "Brackish Water NZ Shrimp" and it said; Brackish Water Shrimp can live quite happily in a fresh water environment. Both in cold and tropical tanks or ponds. Excellent to keep with fish fry as they clean the tank of algae and left over food which keeps water extremely clear and in perfect condition. Also as they lay 1000's of eggs every week (which are unlikely to hatch in fresh water see breeding for more details) this provides baby fish and fry with an excellent source of fresh highly nourishing food to accelerate growth. When Fed to adult fish they trigger the spawning process almost immediately. Another reason they are good for your fish is you may see them picking at fish like tetras (not big fish as they will eat the shrimp). Do not be alarmed by this as they are removing parasites that could harm or kill you fish. If you have any bigger fish with parasites i.e. fluke worm e.tc then place a lot of shrimp in the tank. They will eventually get eaten but not before eating all the unwanted parasitic creatures in the tank. With all this going for them it is no wonder they are so sought after and so hard to acquire. They sound excellent and can be gradually turned from brackish to fresh water. I think I'll bite the bullet and give one tank a go and see how long they'll keep! Thanks everyone for your imput. Power of the internet!

Hmmmm blanched shrimp ...... sounding too good for the fish! alanmin your a desperate man to get food from a sewage pond ..... presume that was for bloodworms! Did the wife want to know you after? I raise my own tubifex and Daphnia and Fruit fly but the Altum Angels are really getting through them and want to breed (the fish as well) so am looking around for alternate safe sources. I really need one of those legendary mozzie locations close to home and in big numbers!

I just got out the microscope and at 10mm long they have no spines on their exoskeleton!

What if I mixed up a salt water tank and transfered them over and fed them on something (Sera micron?) for a week or two? Seems an excellent food but of course if it compromises the fishes health I'll give it a wide berth! Are shrimps, being a crustacean, actually a carrier of parasites/disease that can be transfered to fish? Cheers.

Hi I have found a tidal lake, possibly slightly brackish, which has 10's of thousands of 10mm long baby shrimp in it. I have harvested a small amount and 3 days on are still doing fine in the original water which was green (asumed that is what they are feeding on) with no smell, with a bubble stone going and have been feeding them to my Angels. The question is how much of a risk am I taking feeding these things netted out to my fresh water fish? I have been alerted to Camillanus worms! I have also noticed other creatures swimming around that look like water bourne sand hoppers which are dead after about 1 minutes exposure to fresh water plus some heaps of microscopic life and figure most harmful parasites would be dead from the osmotic shock. Also if it is a good safe food source, how to I keep them alive for a long period. I figure you Salt water lovers would have the best answers! Thanks in advance!

Hi Sid. Sorry to hear that and I know the feeling. I joined the Loaches Online forum to try to get some answers but it was all a bit of a mystery. Jim Powers did however find a similar problem with Hillstream Loaches which he suspected was a disease brought in on an unquarantined fish. His symptoms are patchy color loss, and will often include rapid breathing. Death is usually very swift from the onset of symptoms. Sometimes a fish can seem healthy and feeding, only to be dead in a few hours and other hillstream owners had experienced similar deaths. He did manage to treat it with antibiotics (Maryacyn-Two)! I talked to the shop I got mine off to see if they had heard similar problems but not surprisingly they said no..... wouldn't want to admit liability, so can't be sure it was disease :-?

Hi I lost 2 Marble, 2 Zebra and 1 kuhli the same way! The water parameters were all OK, did weekly 1/3 water changes religously cleaned the gravel, had plants. All other fish (Tetras, Rams, BN's) were all fine and one Kuhli survived it and 1 year on is still fine. There were no unusual physical signs on the fish though I did notice some hemoraging in the fins at the latter stages and rapid breathing. Once they started doing the rapid circular swimming they were goners with in 24 hrs! Added airation did not help. I can sympathize with you as they were my favourite fish and don't know to this day what it was and am too scared to get more until I find out!

Are they long and flat when moving (move like a slug) and if you prod them become squat and oval? If so you have planariums which are non parasitic so no problem to the fish just good food! They are a sign however that there may be too much left over food in the tank. They are cool little critters which have 2 cross eyed looking light sensors on top of their heads if seen under a microscope. You can also chop them length wise and width wise and they will regenerate themselves! .... they'd make a cool subject for a horror movie if they were bigger! I'm envious with you Ram success as mine is either sterile or gay!

That's the odd thing! Eggs start a deep red and slowly darken and no sign of fungus. The female guards them closely and then eats them after 5 or 6 days when they are too old anyway .... should hatch in 4 yes??? So my male maybe shoot'n blanks .... need one from Chch as things shoot good down there! I ordered 2 breeding pairs from my LFS and ended up with 4 females so bought another 2 small males from Palmy but took a chance on one and turned out to be yet another gal!

Hey Myah. Any secrets to getting the eggs to hatch? Mine had 3 unsuccessful attempts with plenty of eggs but they just don't hatch! I have heard from others the same thing?

If the cultures are a few years old as you say and kept cool then they must be white worms as Grindals need the warmth to breed and looks like your Whites have met favourable conditions and suddenly bred causing the a uniform small size! PM me if you want a starter culture of Grindals which I find very easy to breed though they need more maintainance. The main thing to watch out for, because they like it warm, is they are suseptible to the media drying out and the food going off (especially luncheon) if over fed .... best to stick with potatoe flake and add a little as needed!

A virus is something usually diagnosed when people don't know .... same in humans! I have found my friendly Rams, when transfered from a community tank to a breeding tank, became shy and withdrawn and stopped eating and lost condition. I put their favourite foods in and still wouldn't eat so I added some Tetras from the original tank to get a bit of competition going and take there fear of me away and bingo, they joined in and became fat and friendly again. Then removed the Tetras and they bred!

Hey Becc4 how are your new babies doing? I had to isolate a very aggresive (large male I think) one out as he was stressing out the others and they weren't eating and I ended up loosing 2 which I assume was to him! They are cool to watch when they roll on their side when one gets too close and then give them a nudge with their tail! Also have a pair of A. bitaniata in a 4ft tank to themselves and the male is keen to get it on fishy style but she must have a headache or something! She has chosen 1/4 of the tank for her pad and has no hidding places and doesn't seem interested in putting on any condition. I feed all live food and she just pecks away at it. I also added a fine woven bag full of peat submersed in a jar and the water is browning up nicely giving her some more romantic, subdued lighting to get her in the mood!