Myah

Hi everyone. There's an ad. on another site with 3 clown loaches for sale that stipulates 2 males 1 female. When I enquired how you sex them, the reply was that the males stripe is black whereas the females is not so black. "Quite simple really." I thought it had something to do with one of the sexes having a hooked effect on the end of the tail. Any way of clearing this matter up for me would be most appreciated. I have 6 clown loaches and find it a bit hard to tell as when the larger ones are sorting out who is boss, their black stripes go quite faded.

Congrats on your babies, I have baby purple emperor tetra between the sizes of 10mm and 25mm and all of them have a distinct black stripe running from nose to tail. The main body colour varies from the smallest being transparentish fawn to slightly darker fawn with lilacy blue tinge. Sorry got no photos, camera not working for some reason.

The female honey is slightly smaller than the male powder blue. Will try and add photos but they're not the best as I only have my cellphone camera. Hope that worked

Hi Caryl, thanks for that. I thought the fry may be deformed and I'd have to dispose of them all.

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great christmas and hope you have a good New Year. Have been reading some of the other posts and one said that you shouldn't cross dwarf blue with dwarf honey. What would the main reasoning be for this? My powder blue dwarf male gouramis' mate died, as did my dwarf honey females' mate. They have since paired up and I now have quite a few fry swimming round in the tank. Very tiny but lively.

Hi everyone, hope you all had great xmas and hope you all have good new year. Was just reading in this topic that you shouldn't cross honey gourami with others. Is this a colour preference thing? I have a dwarf powder blue male whose partner died (don't know why) and a female dwarf honey whose partner also died and they have paired up. The fry are tiny and free swimming.

Blue tuxedo platy as well as other colour platy.

Don't know if my fat, grumpy striata loach is a female full of eggs, but have been keeping an eye on them and noticed that out of the four of them, there's the fat, grumpy one and two plump ones. The forth is long and slender, but smaller. There's quite a difference in the body shape. They were all bought at the same time and from the same shop over a year ago, so I'm presuming they are all the same age. Because of the agro between fatty striata and the clown loaches, I've decided to do up another tank for the striata. The tank they are in has pebbles on three quarters of the bottom and silica sand on the other quarter, with a mixture of pipes, plants and driftwood. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi guys, hope everyones fish are doing well. I have 6 clown loaches and 4 striata loaches that I have had for over a year. All growing well, except 1 striata loach which has doubled in length compared to the other striata and is extremely fat and very grumpy. The clowns seem to take delight in teasing this fatty especially when it comes to 1 particular pipe the striata likes. It will get quite protective of the pipe and fight with the clowns (who are slightly larger). The other 3 striata seem quite content just to hang around watching whats going on. Have looked on the net for more info. on striata loaches but not much there. Any ideas would be appreciated. They are in a community tank that is 1200x600x600.

:oops: I'm not trying to act dumb but I thought to join a club or register the fish you're breeding, you had to be in it in a big way. Not sure how to go about joining a club in Taranaki. :oops:

Hi guys, the purple emperor tetra are Inpaichthys Kerri. It's the blue emperor tetra that are the Nematobrycon Palmeri. My little male doesn't have the extra tail piece like the blue emperor, pictures of both are at www.waysideaquatics.co.uk

:bounce: Finally got my purple emperor tetra to breed. Have about 20 healthy 3 week old fry swimming round and 1 bolivian butterfly ram fry.

Hi, thanks for that guys. I'll have a go and see what happens.

I've read that when you breed tetra, you have to black out the tank and use only subded lighting. My question is, would it be the same effect if the tank was kept in a room with no artificial lights on or bright sunlight coming into it? I've been emailing different LFS and distributers all over NZ trying to get some more blue or purple emperor tetra to go with my two but no-one seems to have any, so thought I'd have a go at breeding my own. :-? Any handy hints would be appreciated. Thanks

So I shouldn't worry too much then?

Loaches ate all the eggs my bolivian butterfly ram was guarding by himself (after beating up his missus :evil: ) so I put them in another tank that I'd had set up as a quarantine tank. It has white silica sand on the bottom, a few large-ish pebbles, java moss and various other plants, a cave, filter and airstone. Temp is at 26o. Before I put them in the tank, they were both well coloured. Now they both have lost all colouring, except for the occasional black smudges when the couple of young orange swordtail females I put in with them try to get their food. They are eating and swimming around (but not as much as usual). Any ideas as to why this happened would be much appreciated.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE. HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT FISHY YEAR. My bolivian butterfly rams have just laid their eggs and now the male has decided that he doesn't want the female anywhere near them. He's doing a good job fanning them and keeping his site clean but is really ho-ing into the female when she comes near. The other pair I had shared the job of fanning etc. This dude is MEAN :evil: Should I remove the female and leave him to it, or leave them together (she does have plants to hide behind)? Any suggestions appreciated.

From the sounds of things, no one has yet bred clown loaches in New Zealand, but are there any types similar that have been bred here?

Hi everyone, just wondered if silica sand is ok to put in a tank with loaches or will it irritate their gills? I have a 1200x600x600 community tank with various top and middle swimming fish, 7 clown loaches, 4 zebra loaches and 2 albino corys. Was thinking of doing half the tank in sand and leaving the other half (nearest the filter) in the original mixed size stones. cheers

Yep, have seen their colours change off and on like you said when stressed, being territorial or chatting up the females, etc but this wasn't the usual smudgey blackening on parts of the body, this was all over, plus the grey/blue round the face and mouth isn't something I've seen on any of them before. If I didn't know what he looked like normally, I would've thought he was a real exotic fish going by the colouring. He seemed really disorientated and unable to swim straight.

Hi everyone, one of my male bolivian rams had 'an episode' this morning. I fed all my fish round 7am, then had to go out and when I got home at 10am, 1 of my rams was swimming round nose down and bumping into things. Normally his colouring is pale grey round the nose area, yellow on the head carried part the way down the body then pale grey to the tail (usual black stripe down either side of head and black spot on body,red on fins) but he was almost black all over his body and his whole face was dark grey/blue and it look like he was gasping for air(reminded me of someone choking on something). Couldn't think what to do so put him in a plastic container with lots of holes in and floated it on top of the tank over one of the airbubblers. Left him there (shaded from the light,no spare tank) for a few hours till he looked better. Checked ph levels etc, all normal and all the other fish in the tank fine. He seems perfectly fine now, eating, swimming, colour back to normal and chasing the other rams round the tank. Any ideas what this may have been? Nothing different added. Really freaked me out the way his colour changed so dramatically.

Morning everyone, just wondering if clown loaches will eat 3 week old fry?

Hi everyone, tried to get photos of my bolivian butterfly ram fry but my cellphone is on the blink. Two days before my rams started spawning, I'd treated my tank with stuff called Wunder Tonic cause some of my fish had white spot. I noticed the stones with eggs on and 1 of my loaches being very determined to eat them :evil: so after reading some of the posts you ppl had placed, decided to remove the egglaiden stones some 'blue' water and put them in a clear plastic caulender with airstone and java moss. Only two eggs went white and mouldy looking. They started hatching out the third day after they were laid. Once they started free swimming I transfered them into a spare tank and have been feeding them liquifry and finely ground flakes with brineshrimp pellets. I do a partial water change each day and although I've noticed 1 or 2 dead ones, there would still be approx. 150 little dudes swimming round. :bounce: When I first put them in the tank, there were hundreds of teeny little worms on the glass front, now the fry seem to be eating them. Any ideas what these are?

Goodmorning, would water that's been sitting in a water trough for the last 2 weeks have any beneficial food for ram fry?

Hi, my tank is 1200 x600 x600 and I have 6 neon tetra, 6 beacon fish head&tail, 4 angelfish, 2 albino cory, 1 female opaline gouramie (the male died), 4 striata loach, 3 clown loach, 6 platy, 2 female emperor tetra plus the 6 bolivian butterfly ram. Have a combination of medium and small gravel, with a few larger stones, plus assortment of plants (live and plastic) run 2 airstones and an Aqua One CF 1200. The light is a 4foot flurescent tube.