L777
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“fish stick” — hadn’t heard it before NEONCORY used it, but great name!! The little sticks frozen to the walls of the tank between hatching and free swimming definitely aren’t “wigglers”! Like needles with bug eyes. Silly things don’t even blink. :wink:
Fishman,
welcome to the forum!!This thread has a few thoughts:
http://www.celestialpearldanio.com/viewtopic.php?t=605&start=15My humble 10g setup is shown — I got over 70 fry in about 2 1/2 weeks, so separate conditioning is not *necessary*, but I also assume there were losses to adult predation, and the females may not have been in peak condition that separate conditioning may have afforded.
Steve (Ste1200) has a more systematic set of breeding tanks going, so his information may better answer your question in terms of optimum breeding conditions.
As for the live foods question, my experience is that the fry are able to take microworms not right after first free-swimming, but within the first week (infusoria and/or fry food powder until then), and BBS within a week after they start taking microworms.
Keep us posted as your fry start to come along!
Chris, one thing I’ve noticed when cycling tanks is that many fish lose their appetite when the nitrite starts to pile up. For whatever reason, my experience with truly virgin tanks (not boosted with bacterial additions from commercial products or stable tanks) is that the nitrite readings take several weeks longer to decline than do the ammonia readings. Sorry if this is all stuff you know, but thought a reminder about loss of appetite might be useful to watch for in conjunction with your water tests.
Hi everybody!
My name’s Dean. I’m 38, and live out in the prairies of the middle of North America. Our ecology includes my wife, our two daughters, a Westie (Scottish West Highland Terrier), a calico cat, and a growing population of finned young ‘uns! We home educate our daughters. The oldest is out running a blanket drive for local homeless people this month — it gets fiercely cold here on the flatlands in the wintertime, global warming notwithstanding.The breeding fish are fancy guppies, bushynose plecos, CPDs, and a surprise small hatch of praecox rainbows.
The “not yet breeding” fish are marbled hatchets, cardinal tetras, sterbai corys, hillstream loaches (Schistura cf balteata; Botia(?) sidthimunki; kuhlis), and a bunch of swirl-striped fancy plecos — 1M/2F L-401’s and 4 L-66 King Tigers (1 of which may be L-333?). If the king tigers or L-401’s breed, I hope to add a breeding trio of L-46 to the family. The girls’ tanks also have cherry shrimp, Endlers guppies, and kribensis cichlids, with aspirations to breed the shrimp and the kribs.
It’s been a pleasure to be welcomed into this forum. Thanks to all for being and building such a great online community here!
Sure am! Just not set up with CO2 yet, and I like to push a lot of algae wafers and zucchini through the system to keep the plecos happy, so I just stick with simple old java fern for now. And even that tends to sprout black brush algae a bit at the fringes if I miss a water change.
Site does seem speedier. Looks like I may be the only one, but my avatar got squished in the transfer. It fit the specs before (80×60 pixels, .png image <6kB). Anything new to consider in remaking it?
Steve, thanks for the separated sexes and bushy-nose advice from the master’s experience! Good stuff to know.
Atlantis, glad to hear you’re back in CPDs again!!
Well, yes, I have to concede my daughters also grab their noses and complain when I open a lid of worm soup, but no general complaints from daughters or wife about odor in the room except at feeding time. I rotate a few trays of them around and try to start a new batch before they get more than a couple weeks old — once the colo(u)r of the culture starts to turn darker it does go sour and get noticeably rank (worm production slows considerably then also). But for the first few weeks, as long as I open the lids for feedings a couple times a day and swirl the culture around to let it breathe before setting the lid back on, the smell is more yeasty than nasty. BBS on the other hand can get downright evil smelling after more than a couple days — septic if the airflow stops! Plus the bubbler is constantly pushing the BBS air/smell into the room whereas the worm smell stays contained to brief moments when the container is open. (Sorry if this is digressing; hopefully still related to Atlantis’ fry feeding question…
)Atlantis, there’s good reason to keep adults from young, but not sure why to keep male CPDs apart from female CPDs. Mine came into condition together, and while they do chase around a lot, I’ve never seen any of them actually “picked on” by others to the point of distress. I’d say keep them together unless you think there is some bullying going on (?). We’re excited to see your new group once they get situated!
Ste, bushynose are the purest vegetarians I’ve ever seen. Of course, I can’t answer whether there might be *more* CPD fry without them, but it would surprise me if the plecos were taking any eggs. I’ve read other breeders (of smallish soft-water cichlids, etc.) who keep BN plecos in with their breeding fish for the express reason that they won’t eat anything living (except lower plants and biofilms). I haven’t had any new fry appear for the last week or so, but expect this has more to do with need for water change, reduced frequency of micro-worms/BBS feedings (adults actually get a chance to get hungry and hunt the fry), and possibly the older fry in the tank — my “downstream” grow-out stage tanks are full up! (But I don’t mean that to sound like a complaint!)
Edit: the BN plecos were in the fishery since before and during the CPD breeding.
‘Dude,
thanks for all your efforts in maintaining this forum. It’s one of the better ones I’ve seen, with a friendly and helpful group of members, and an involved administrator.As we say here in Minnesota, you betcha!
Here’s the earlier CPD forum link, with other links and info:
http://www.celestialpearldanio.com/viewtopic.php?p=1905#1905Next time I set up a new batch, I’ll get some photos of the plastic ring I mentioned — px are worth a bunch of words…
Walter worms — my CPDs swear by ’em!
had similar problems for the first time a night or two ago, even with firefox. Seems to be okay again today though.
NEONCORY,
welcome to the forum, and glad to hear about your early success! I found that adding each day’s new fry to a second tank worked for a little over a week. After that, the oldest fry were big enough to start snacking on the new free-swimmers (just past the “fish stick” stuck on the glass stage). Then I let a week’s worth of free-swimmers pile up in the breeding tank, and kept the adults full of micro-worms to encourage not hunting their young. After a couple weeks, the first batch was big enough to survive in a third (guppy) tank, which has become the final grow-out tank stage for my fry.Good luck with raising the batch you’ve already got, and then more.
