caserole

I don't know Alan, there's to many variables. The lights come on in the fish room a few hours before I get home from work, so the eggs had possibly only recently been laid and could have died anyway. When I got these fish they were young and had not had an opportunity to spawn previously. As you know a first spawn is next to never very successful anyway, I'll breed them again in a few weeks and see what happens.

Sorry Sophia, I didn't see your question. The tank is 600 x 150 x 150mm = 13.5lt.

No, I don't want to risk it after loosing some of the eggs. The fry look like typical eggs layers fry danio, barb, white cloud etc. the size is consistent with them as-well. I'll up date again when they become free swim, I'm planing to feed them the liquid on micro-worm cultures as the first food.

Just an up date. The Eggs hatched Yesterday. Quit a few eggs died but they were all where I took the picture including the use of a flash. So that May have contributed.

It's very expensive, it cost me $200.00 per sq meter, I bought it from mico-metals, I paid that price as once I had it, I had it for good !, to be used when and as I wanted. Your best option is the plastic mesh from spot light, as mentioned in your thread. If you have trouble getting some I can purchase some on your behalf and send it to you.

Cheers, it's just a shame they are so shy. Adrienne, it is explained above, 4 sided glass frame topped with stainless steel mesh, here is another picture of another on I made. Although the trap used in this case had a finer mesh.

My fish room now days is full of growing guppies but my true love in this hobby of ours is "breeding", so although guppy Genetics is challenging getting egg layers to release there goodies is my passion. I have a little collection of small and micro fish :- Boraras brigittae, Pseudomugil gertrudae, Danio tinwini, Sundadanio axelrodo and Danio Erythromicron. Unfortunately you don't find these guys in the Wellington shops often so I am very grateful to a fish friend in Auckland who keeps an eye out for these beauties for me. Anyway I need to make free an Established aquarium for the Sundadanio so I decided it was about time I had a go at Spawning the D. Erythromicron. I found my fish, as always hiding out behind the sponge filter they are not just pretty but also very shy. Once caught it appeared I had 2 males and 5 females. I selected the the fattest females, the 2 boys and set them a side while I reset the spawning tank. http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=danio+ ... 22&bih=440 The sponge filter was already active I just need to give it a bit of a squeeze and rinse the tank out. I then filled it with 2 day old tap water with 1tp of baking soda/100lt and 30g of plan salt/300lt ( this is the water I use for my guppies as Upper Hutt water is soft and no buffer to speck of = it quickly turns acidic with out the Baking soda ). Which happens to be a bit handy as D. Erythromicron does best in mildly Alkaline water. I then put in a glass framed stainless steel breeding trap topped with spawning moss, the tank was also in the shade due to an out fluro that needs replacement. The water temp in my fish room floats between 21 and 25C ( night n day ), Ph 7.4, with out the salt I think the water is around 30 ppm. Finished set up Monday afternoon Close up of breeding trap and moss Bilbo sent me a culture of Grindel worms Friday, by Monday it was rocking so they got them Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. When I got home early Thursday afternoon I If gave all the fish a feed and shone a light in the tank to see if any thing had happened, this is what I found, I hope you can see the tinny eggs If it all seems a bit easy, well it was. I mean sure I had been feeding all my fish lots of micro worms lately as the cultures were producing large volumes. I hope there something in this that may help you breed them too.

I agree 100% with Ira... Yes They are Bugs!! :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

Hi Ange_AJMS How is your breeding going?? This is a picture of a female to my male note the red speckling on the dorsal and caudal fins. If you google "Philip Shaddock magenta guppy" you will find a pic resembling my female and an albino male that looks very much like our males. So I'm 99.999% positive they are Tai Pink Platinum magenta's. The female pictured is around 3 months old and with the male so as soon as she is ready I get fry from her and then we'll know for sure.

Maybe you need to use a larger worm . Years ago I had an Adult breeding pair of Jack Dep's, they would take a good 5 minutes to eat a large worm, suck it in spit it out and so on but each time they spat it out it was a little bit smaller until :happy2: Happy fish

What for, you don't need them?

Maybe you should send some W. with how you do it info. My Gertrudae Rainbows would love them.

Yes 18% fat, of which most are healthy fatty acids like omega 3 etc. Over feed all animals and they get fatty livers including people :cofn: I fell like a biscuit

What dietary issues?

Actually Alan :slfg: it is more accurate to to say newly hatched Artemia franciscana The San Francisco strain is a smaller sub-species of Artemia franciscana which is not necessary and more finicky to hatch. The strain at Lake grass maria ( spelling?? ) is most closely related genetically too is the San Francisco sub species and is very uniform in size making it very special for size sensitive aquaculture, however it is also a pain to hatch as you mentioned. Artemia Salina is also imported from time to time and it's nymph are to large for "free swim neon fry".

You should be able to produce enough live foods not to worry about dry foods!

Live food to get these guy's breeding would be microworms, whiteworms and brine shrimp nymph. There is an article here ( Caryl can point you in the right direction ) on how to breed Cardinal tetra. HOWEVER I think you will find the best temp for breeding Green's is 23 - 24C. This would work and I have read they breed best in groups which means the Cardinal set up is probably best. For neon Tetra a 20 - 25cmsq aquarium with a bottom mesh trap as Alan described is best with peat socked rain water and a large hand full of spawning moss/mop for them to breed in. The 21C water should be 50 -75mm above the trap, this is for pair breeding ( this is a tried and true practice ) If you were to use this method I'd up the temp 23 - 24C I've used this method to breed many small tetra very successfully, I even caught some of them in the act. Did you know Glowlights release there eggs in a barrel role??, the eggs fly every where. Both cardinal and neon fry once free swimming can eat NEWLY hatch brine shrimp as a first food combined with microworms etc. So I think it is safe to assume they can too, if not they will be able to eat baby micro worms. Do you have a spot light store near you?? in the cross stitch section you can buy sheets of plastic mesh that works " perfectly " for breeding egg scatters. The fly screen maybe to fine but give it a go. Good luck Joe

+2 :sml1:

Actually a pen oil filled is what I use, maybe you had very old glass as it is less compliant. In saying that I broke down and cut up a tank I purchased 20years ago last week and it behaved just fine.

I've just picked up a Pondone 12000 ( does around 50-60 sponge filters ) for around 250 inclu GST @ Wholesale so it should retail between 400 - 750, I think compressors are cheaper but to noisy for me. It cost me around a grand, prob. a lot more now ( price of copper keeps rising ) Don't put FISH tanks at floor level, use that space for water storage either glass tanks or ply lined with pond liner - what ever is cheapest. As Alan said ... get as much water in the room as possible - and it's a place to store your water for changes. There is a list some where on this site with tank builders, or as Alan said learn to make your own it's not hard nor is glass cutting with the right equipment. P.s it may be cheaper to buy from out side CHCH if there is not a cheap tank maker there.

I used to run a central system with 2 large uv tubes and auto water changes/overflow sumps etc.. It's very convenient and the water was always crystal clear. As to fry tanks I just turned the water flow off if it was required. I would worry about fry sensitivity with in reason( from species to species ), loss of fry to the over flow is a bigger problem. I found using cold tap water at 1lt a minute on a 2000lt system had next to impact on the temp even during winter, I think the worse temp drop I had was 1C, most often it was under .5C. Even when there was no noticeable temp drop the cory's spawned all the time. In saying all of this I have now dismantled the central system as I still had problems. Fish DO come in the country with undetected bugs and virus + I needed more separation/control for what I'm breeding now > guppies, the fry got in the sump and went through the pump and into tanks they did not belong >> undamaged. Also setting up a central system can be very expensive for just for the plastic pipes and the the holes in the tanks , tank connections, values etc..... it cost me $3000.00 in pvc plastic a lone! Another thing is how much water is in flow, you need large enough sumps to capture this when the power cuts out and it will !.....

I think the Native Fish idea is a great one, PM Stella as she maybe able to point you in the right direction.

Maybe due to all this rain we've been having your local water board put a little extra Chlorine in the water supply. I've heard this sort of story before and it's usually after either prolonged bad weather or a storm :tears:

You have described the classic magenta look, but the more pro. guppy breeders understand that mutation and how they can manipulate it the more outrageous the patterns.

These fish are NOT H/B( half black ) I have 2 spawning from my male, 1 grey female carried 1 copy of the h/b gene the other female did not carry the gene at all. Some of the female fry from the h/b grey were not h/b which means the male does not carry the gene and the none h/b females fry are not h/b. Whether they have the NI 2 gene is another matter ( this is the gene that stops Moscow's from going pail ), NI 1 = h/black. P.s I used Grey females for 2 reasons, I wanted to revel what a grey copy of the male will revel as it may allows me to see /understand his genetics and I didn't have a red blonde female available at the time.