Lost and found

Sadly I lost my female Chocolate cichlid this week. She got the same awful body rot that her sister died from and there was nothing I could do but watch her die. I went for a combination of salt and Protozin in my attempts to fix her, but to no avail. Makes me wonder at the intelligence of whoever it was who came up with making it illegal to sell fish antibiotics in pet shops. I'm sure I could have saved her with antibiotics, but finding a vet in Cambridgeshire who treats fish and wouldn't charge the earth to do so is a none-starter. All very sad.

Yesterday I parted with my pair of Honduran Red Points. I was fed up with them to be honest. Beautiful fish, but not enjoying their tank and certainly not intending to pair up with one another. I have replaced them with a lovely little pair of African Btterflies who I am very much looking forward to spawning. Here's the closest internet image I could fins that does these little gems justice:



They are the Guinea race, and very smart they are too!

Back from holiday and all is well.

Got back from a week in The Gambia yesterday. Nothing too exciting on the aquatic front, the only fish I saw were some form of Tilapia and of course, several fish steaming away on my dinner plate (all with funny names: ladyfish, butterfish, captainfish...).

Plenty of other wildlife though. Hundreds of beautiful birds, lots of monkeys (Red colobus and Vervet) and my first 'wild' acquaintance with Nile Monitors (Varanus niloticus), one of my favourite lizards of all time. I was lens-to-mouth with one by the hotel swimming pool and got this great photo (among others)...



There's always a feeling of dread when you know that at some point you're going to have to check the fish tanks for casualties. I left everything in very capable hands though, my good friend Noel is a fellow enthusiast and takes great care of my wards when I'm away. To my immense relief there have been no casualties. Instead I have several pairs forming who should, over the next month or so, keep me busy with thousands of fry. Needless to say, I have some remedial water changes to accomplish, but that in itself should get things moving on the spawning front.

The only bad news is that my male Kribensis is probably going to lose his left eye, which will cause him all sorts of problems (and probably put a stop to his breeding activities). It's a real shame.

My list of potential pairs to isolate is as follows:

- Mayan cichlids
- Blockheads
- Red-shouldered severums
- Nicaraguan cichlids
- Jack Dempseys

Plus I'm expecting to get fry from my EBJD/JD pair and also the Jags.

Everything looks set for a productive festive season in the fish room!

Perhaps the happiest sight is my 4 lovely new angelfish that I bought a week before leaving on holiday. I've missed having angels in my life and they're still a species I haven't managed to raise fry from, so it's nice to have a challenge to look froward to. In the past week they have grown visibly and are looking fantastic...

November update

Wow, I can't believe how incredibly slack I've been on the blog front.

It's amazing to see that I was complaining about having issues with my new Kribensis, given that I recently off-loaded around thirty 1" fry from a subsequent pair of Kribensis to Simon P. I also passed him around fifty 0.5-1" Flier cichlids, so currently the only youngsters in the fish room are my lovely Blue-gene Jack Dempseys. They're all doing great, but growing at very different rates, so at some point I will have to separate the sizes out into different tank.

What else is new:

- I had a good run at the October EACG meeting, selling around £80 worth of fish and coming back with 6 genuine P. synspilus that Rusty Wessell had kindly donated to the auction. They are only 2" long and already I can see that they're going to be really special.

- The outcome of all the sales was that I no longer have the pair of F1 Festae, the wild Blackbelts or the lone female Rainbow cichlid. To my amazement I have failed to sell my pair of Firemouths at two auctions now (this and the BCA, which Simon M. kindly took my fish to for me). Don't know why they haven't shifted, but they are looking great right now.

- The best purchase I made was 10 x H. nicaraguense was just £10 - all 2-4" long! I already sold off 4 of them, so 6 stunners left and there are easily two pairs in there.

- Also, my pair of Port cichlids spawned and had fry, but I didn't have space to raise them, so that will have to wait until they do it again.

What's new?

Well, I got my Kribs and it all went predictably wrong. I bought two pairs and put them in a tank together to acclimatise. One pair formed very quickly and killed the other male, so I got a replacement male and separated the pairs. The replacementmale was then killed by the female I put him with!

On the plus side, the remaining pair (which I have now promised to a friend) are guarding a huge swarm of fry, so I have two Krib broods on the go from two pairs. One lot are ready to separate from their parents already!

I bought a stunning pair of urophthalmus, but unfortunately instead of spawning, the male attacked the female, so I had to shift her to the 6' tank. Typical.

All my other fry are doing great. The F2 generation from my HRP/Convict line is very interesting. Now they have grown a bit you can see that a good percentage of the spawn are platinum in colour, and look like they will express the HRP phenotype. The rest are 'convict-type'. Very interesting that the colouration genes should separate in the this generation, but not the previous one. I'm probably going to keep just the platinum fry to grow out.

The Flier cichlid fry are doing great with mom and dad. The parents are doing an amazing job, happily flaring at the urophthalmus next door!



Unsurprisingly, the latest jag fry are doing fantastically well, but I don't know if I'm going to keep them or not, as I doubt I'll find homes for them.

Only other news is that I got my old Paratilapia sp. Fiamanga male back from Ian A. along with two fish that I brought up from Brighton for him when I picked the original group up. All three fish had body rot of some decription (which explains why they were free), so I've been treating with Myxazin. Unfortunately, the Myxazin worked too well and the male regained his need to kill things, so I promptly lost the medium sized fish and went into the fishroom this morning to find that the male had had a good attempt at skinning the smallest fish (which I am hoping is female). She has now been moved to a different tank, so I'm hoping she won't a) die, or b) pass the disease on to my Saddle cichlids.

Babies, babies, everywhere!

I've got baby Jags, baby Kribs, baby Convict/HRPs and I'm pretty certain my new pair of Fliers has spawned too, so I'll get to meet their babies soon too.

Upsettingly, my female Red Terror took it upon herself to lay a bunch of eggs in her plant pot without the male being present (he was on the other side of the divider, so didn't get a look in!). Problem is, she doesn't want to spawn with him, but she certainly can't spawn without him!

I moved all the growouts into the middle 4' tank the other day (the female Green Terror is in the 6' tank with her mate now). Basically this was all the young Jags, Pearls and unidentified Vieja.

Just found a source for adult Kribensis, some of which are 'Super Red', in a local shop. They're on sale tomorrow, so I might have to head over and snap the best pairs up quick. Very exciting to be getting such nice adults.

...and then it was May!

How time flies. It has been three months since my last post and there have been a lot of changes in the fishroom.

- I have a new male Green Terror (the old one went to Simon P. to see if he could get it back in shape). I've had two spawns out of the pair now, but only one very tough fry remaining (I wasn't really trying to rear them up).
- The female marble convict now lives with Ian A. as does one of the male HRPs.
- The male wild con died (but I was never really convinced he was a true convict).
- The wild male cutteri went to Simon P. alongside a trio of wild Blackbelts.
- My sajica '24ct gold' died. Gutted.
- I sold all 6 of the Mozzies, the remaining 3 Aequidens (tetramerus) sp. 'Peru' and the female Egyptian mouthbrooder at the EACG auction in Moulton on the 3rd May. Woohoo!
- I have a new female Krib, as the old one has gone rapidly downhill (face falling apart). The male is super shy, but still a lovely fish for breeding purposes.
- I have 4 Blockheads remaining (3 males and a female)
- I bought what I believe is a pair of Aequidens tetramerus 'Ecuador' from Tranquility in Brighton (mistakenly sent as Blue Acaras). Very rare in the UK and a snip at just £10 the pair.
- I have just two melanurus left that I am hoping are a pair. Both have the bizarre blue 'wash' to their scales. I think they will be something special when they 'grow up'.
- I bought about 100 baby F1 convicts from Ian A. at the EACG auction, who are all doing well in the hall tank with no heating.
- I have culled a large number of jags and hybrid convict/HRPs as there is no real market for them. Some of the hybid fish are stunning, so I have put the two best together to see if I can get another generation out of them.
- The Festae are now alone in the display tank. The male is still 1/3 the size of the female, but has started to show mature colouration. He's got high hopes!
- All the Midas youngsters are now playing 'survival of the fittest' in the 6' tank along with quite a few hrid convict/HRPs that I chucked in there in the hope they'd be eaten.

Not sure how I'm going to move things around in the near future. I want to have a go at breeding from one of my various pairs, but not sure which fish to try next.

Update

So, I sent 4 of the Red-head Midas off to Nev in Newquay successfully despite the cold, cold weather. I was really glad that they arrived okay and that the heat pad did its job properly. The package only just came in under the 2kg limit.

I'm now trying to shift even more stock. I spent yesterday separating one batch of jag youngsters from the cutteri they've been growing on with. I also did a 100% water change for my red male betta, who has been looking miserable for a while now. I added some Endler's livebearer fry to his jar to perk him up a bit and he seems to be responding well to having something to hunt.

Hoping to sell another two melanurus (leaving me with a pair) and also the male wild cutteri and the female calico convict (to Simon P.).

I've also got interest in some of the jag youngsters and possibly some of the Blackbelts (which will hopefully reduce the strain on the filters in the 6' tank).

The brasiliensis in the hall tank have been having a great time in the cool water. THey were stuffing teir faces with bloodworm yesterday and are growing well.

I had to remove my male Green Terror from the tank he was in as he's really been missing out on food and the female was being really nasty with him. He's now in with my female Egyptian moutbrooder in the hope I can fatten him up again.

I put the krib pair back together again. I shifted the decor around, so hopefully tha male won't be too mean to the female.

It's been a while...

Bad Blogger!

I have been rubbish. I admit it. Life got in the way a bit.

Anyway, here we are in a new year and here is an update to kick 2009 (the Year of the Ox) off:

- My lovely Jags have another massive swarm of free swimming fry
- I have only one Super-red krib fry left! (Wrong size tank, bad management etc.)
- Some of the fish in the 6' tank have HITH disease. I'm working on it.
- I've had great success with my livebearers: guppies; platies; and Limias.
- Transferred my G. brasiliensis youngsters into the hall tank.
- Two of my hybrid cons paired up today!
- Lost all my female fighters. All to the same dropsy/ body-eating disease. Gutted.

I have too many fish growing on! Hoping to shift quite a lot in the early part of the year so I can get some decent breeding projects running.