hovmoller

Awesome job. Beautiful fish.

Congrats, very nice photos too.

Good job, nice fish!

Great write-up, and beautiful fish too!

Awesome fish and great pics. Congratulations

As I have now come full circle with this species I thought I would share the journey on here as inspiration to others.
For the record I am not selling these fish privately so please do not pm me about buying some. They are currently being sold exclusively by Hollywoods Fish Farm who also ship country wide I believe.
First some pictures of what the fish look like now a little over 2 years after I bought them. They are fully matured and the male regularly spawns with one of the other females. ie. they do not form lasting pairs. The largest fish are around 15cm in length and are relatively peaceful towards each other. It is important to keep these fish over a fine substrate such as sand to allow them to sift the substrate through their gills when eating.

 
October 2015: I bought 7 newly imported youngsters. These were the first fish ever to be imported into New Zealand:

March 2016: Growing quickly but still not a lot of red on their forehead:

Dec. 2016: The dominant male is now showing full sexual maturity colours and are starting to impress the girls:

May 2017: First couple formed and the female's forehead is as red as the male's. Their spawn on the glass bottom but end up eating the fry:

Sept 2017: The male has now spawned with another female and has been removed from the tank as it was him eating the fry. The fry has just started to swim freely but often seek shelter in their mothers mouth:

A week later and the female has been removed as the fry are now capable of seeking food themselves:

Feb 2018: The young has grown rapidly in an 800L tank with sand substrate, heavy filtration and weekly 50% water changes. The have now reached the same size as the ones I originally bought. Circle completed:

 
 

 

As I have now come full circle with this species I thought I would share the journey on here as inspiration to others.
For the record I am not selling these fish privately so please do not pm me about buying some. They are currently being sold exclusively by Hollywoods Fish Farm who also ship country wide I believe.
First some pictures of what the fish look like now a little over 2 years after I bought them. They are fully matured and the male regularly spawns with one of the other females. ie. they do not form lasting pairs. The largest fish are around 15cm in length and are relatively peaceful towards each other. It is important to keep these fish over a fine substrate such as sand to allow them to sift the substrate through their gills when eating.

 
October 2015: I bought 7 newly imported youngsters. These were the first fish ever to be imported into New Zealand:

March 2016: Growing quickly but still not a lot of red on their forehead:

Dec. 2016: The dominant male is now showing full sexual maturity colours and are starting to impress the girls:

May 2017: First couple formed and the female's forehead is as red as the male's. Their spawn on the glass bottom but end up eating the fry:

Sept 2017: The male has now spawned with another female and has been removed from the tank as it was him eating the fry. The fry has just started to swim freely but often seek shelter in their mothers mouth:

A week later and the female has been removed as the fry are now capable of seeking food themselves:

Feb 2018: The young has grown rapidly in an 800L tank with sand substrate, heavy filtration and weekly 50% water changes. The have now reached the same size as the ones I originally bought. Circle completed:

 
 

 

As I have now come full circle with this species I thought I would share the journey on here as inspiration to others.
For the record I am not selling these fish privately so please do not pm me about buying some. They are currently being sold exclusively by Hollywoods Fish Farm who also ship country wide I believe.
First some pictures of what the fish look like now a little over 2 years after I bought them. They are fully matured and the male regularly spawns with one of the other females. ie. they do not form lasting pairs. The largest fish are around 15cm in length and are relatively peaceful towards each other. It is important to keep these fish over a fine substrate such as sand to allow them to sift the substrate through their gills when eating.

 
October 2015: I bought 7 newly imported youngsters. These were the first fish ever to be imported into New Zealand:

March 2016: Growing quickly but still not a lot of red on their forehead:

Dec. 2016: The dominant male is now showing full sexual maturity colours and are starting to impress the girls:

May 2017: First couple formed and the female's forehead is as red as the male's. Their spawn on the glass bottom but end up eating the fry:

Sept 2017: The male has now spawned with another female and has been removed from the tank as it was him eating the fry. The fry has just started to swim freely but often seek shelter in their mothers mouth:

A week later and the female has been removed as the fry are now capable of seeking food themselves:

Feb 2018: The young has grown rapidly in an 800L tank with sand substrate, heavy filtration and weekly 50% water changes. The have now reached the same size as the ones I originally bought. Circle completed:

 
 

 

As I have now come full circle with this species I thought I would share the journey on here as inspiration to others.
For the record I am not selling these fish privately so please do not pm me about buying some. They are currently being sold exclusively by Hollywoods Fish Farm who also ship country wide I believe.
First some pictures of what the fish look like now a little over 2 years after I bought them. They are fully matured and the male regularly spawns with one of the other females. ie. they do not form lasting pairs. The largest fish are around 15cm in length and are relatively peaceful towards each other. It is important to keep these fish over a fine substrate such as sand to allow them to sift the substrate through their gills when eating.

 
October 2015: I bought 7 newly imported youngsters. These were the first fish ever to be imported into New Zealand:

March 2016: Growing quickly but still not a lot of red on their forehead:

Dec. 2016: The dominant male is now showing full sexual maturity colours and are starting to impress the girls:

May 2017: First couple formed and the female's forehead is as red as the male's. Their spawn on the glass bottom but end up eating the fry:

Sept 2017: The male has now spawned with another female and has been removed from the tank as it was him eating the fry. The fry has just started to swim freely but often seek shelter in their mothers mouth:

A week later and the female has been removed as the fry are now capable of seeking food themselves:

Feb 2018: The young has grown rapidly in an 800L tank with sand substrate, heavy filtration and weekly 50% water changes. The have now reached the same size as the ones I originally bought. Circle completed:

 
 

 

As I have now come full circle with this species I thought I would share the journey on here as inspiration to others.
For the record I am not selling these fish privately so please do not pm me about buying some. They are currently being sold exclusively by Hollywoods Fish Farm who also ship country wide I believe.
First some pictures of what the fish look like now a little over 2 years after I bought them. They are fully matured and the male regularly spawns with one of the other females. ie. they do not form lasting pairs. The largest fish are around 15cm in length and are relatively peaceful towards each other. It is important to keep these fish over a fine substrate such as sand to allow them to sift the substrate through their gills when eating.

 
October 2015: I bought 7 newly imported youngsters. These were the first fish ever to be imported into New Zealand:

March 2016: Growing quickly but still not a lot of red on their forehead:

Dec. 2016: The dominant male is now showing full sexual maturity colours and are starting to impress the girls:

May 2017: First couple formed and the female's forehead is as red as the male's. Their spawn on the glass bottom but end up eating the fry:

Sept 2017: The male has now spawned with another female and has been removed from the tank as it was him eating the fry. The fry has just started to swim freely but often seek shelter in their mothers mouth:

A week later and the female has been removed as the fry are now capable of seeking food themselves:

Feb 2018: The young has grown rapidly in an 800L tank with sand substrate, heavy filtration and weekly 50% water changes. The have now reached the same size as the ones I originally bought. Circle completed:

 
 

 

Fry are free-swimming now. Their parents are doing a good job of corralling them, which makes it easier for me to feed.  At the moment, they are fed on decapsulated brineshrimp and NLS fry starter.  I might try offering them Repashy/pellet food after 3 weeks.
I might also separate the parents within a week or so, as this is just their second spawning.
 
 

If you can wait 3-4 months I will have some Geophagus sp. Tapajos "Red Head" (see my avatar) grown big enough.
They are just as hardy and interesting as G. "surinamensis" (actuallly G. altifrons but that's another story) but don't grow as big as altifrons and are more colourful.
I will not ship them but you will be able to buy them from Hollywoods in Auckland if you are keen.

If you can wait 3-4 months I will have some Geophagus sp. Tapajos "Red Head" (see my avatar) grown big enough.
They are just as hardy and interesting as G. "surinamensis" (actuallly G. altifrons but that's another story) but don't grow as big as altifrons and are more colourful.
I will not ship them but you will be able to buy them from Hollywoods in Auckland if you are keen.

Interesting project! Will be great to follow the progress of this.

hi fishy folk , im in the process of building an aquaponics display system going into a restaurant in Christchurch to display the potential of locally grown veggies and hopefully promote more use of alternative farming methods, because of the red tape involved in breeding/growing fish for consumption ive decided to stock my system with pretty inedible fish instead , hopefully catching more attention , in the past i have had lots of success with small scale prototypes (400ltrs) and now im ready to get a bit bigger, the new system will be built around a 600ltr with a combination of vertical towers and solid media grow beds , i have decided to go with an american cichlid community  with the focus being a group of  geophagus surinamensis, so im on the hunt for a group of about 6 and a few tank mates (yet to be decided) i would love some input from the community and some help sourcing fish (as well as some constructive criticism)  , if anyone knows of any thing for sale over the next 2 months please don't hesitate to ask , (attached is a basic design of the system dimensions are not correct its actually a lot bigger)

Breeding Chocolate Fish
Cocoa pisces (deliscioso)
I recently managed to acquire a trio of Chocolate fish to try breeding with,
A melanistic male, a normal female and an albino female.

 
Breeding Tank parameters.
Minimum size 100 litres
Temperature under 18 centigrade otherwise they get soft and lethargic.
PH neutral to soft.
I used chocolate sprinkles as substrate and fed them Cadbury Flake food to condition them for breeding.
These fish usually spawn in caves laying a large egg mass which the male guards for7 days before they hatch.
Egg mass.

Once the fry hatch I remove the parents just in case they are tempted to eat them.
Picture of newly hatched fry.

I feed the fry fine particles of food, this is easily achieved by grating a chocolate bar on a kitchen grater.

I hope this article helps you achieve breeding these sweet fish.
Fry ready for sale.

Yeah definitely a few male "personalities" in there.
Looking at the video again, to me it looks a little bit like they are just a tad slim? as in maybe slightly underfed... Don't get me wrong they look nice it's just my thoughts.. maybe I overfed mine! hehe.

They certainly look mature enough so could be any time now. Assuming you have both sexes of course. 

Finally got a halfway decent video of the Scorpion fish i have grown on since last year.from a larvae caught in plankton net.
 la

The tanks I got made to fit the shelves but from what I've been reading they are not ideal (especially in an earthquake) so decided to build some instead. They turned out pretty well and didn't cost a fortune. Will hopefully dress them a little them a little better with some panels in the future. 

Hmmm.... little bit jealous of your red tail shark now...

Two weeks in the big tank and they've already had a bit of a growth spurt!