Betta-mania

Uh oh, I think I have become unhealthily obsessed with bettas again. I am growing out a spawn from my multicolor HM male and green HM female at the moment and so far they are all doing fine. Only problem is they grow so damn slowly, despite the fact I am chucking in microworms in their thousands.

Anyway, in a bid to do some good in the world I just designed the new header logo for Steve Bell's www.bettasplendens.co.uk website.

What do you think?:



Can't wait to put my next pair together. I think it's going to have to be my male copper HM and the same green Hm female, as if my genetics research is correct I should get a spawn containing both green and copper HMs, which would be great.

Things are getting worse on the EBJD front, as I think I realistically only have two youngsters worth saving from the 30 or so EBJDs I originally kept from the brood. The rest are belly-crawlers or deformed. Will be interesting to see if I can get more from the parents' new spawn - currently living next door to their sibliings.

I sold on my pair of Jack Dempseys and my male Paratilapia polleni on Thursday morning, plus 5 Ancistrus. Made £40 which will go straight back into TetraPrima. This is great news as I now have a spare tank.

My pair of gold marble angels spawned and are now looking after fry, which will be free swimming tomorrow or the day after I guess. It wasn't a big spawn, but they look strong. Need to put another angel pair together, but want to get my next pair of BGJDs going first.

Lookig forward to the EACG auction on Friday.

Wow - been so busy

So things have moved on quite a bit since the last post, which is hardly a surprise given that was 4.5 months ago!!!

Finally got rid of the Nicaraguans (took them to Maidenhead Aquatics in the end). The Pantosctictus went in an auction (I concluded they were both male). I sold all 20 bristlenoses at the same auction.

I've had some horrible losses. I was snowboarding over Christmas and came back to find all the synspila dead along with my remaining male istlanum. Then I lost my male Rotkeil severum to pop-eye, closely followed by my male cutteri (who was, quite frankly, murdered). Then a couple of days ago one of my gold marble angels jumped out of their tank and snuffed it! Talk about an unlucky few months. To cap it all I nearly lost my stunning blushing paraiba angelfish male because the female I paired him up with got seriously nasty and tried to end him. Luckily he has made a full recovery.

So, is there any good news to report? Why yes, yes there is. Most importantly: I AM GROWING OUT MY FIRST EVER EBJDS!!!! When their parents spawned I was pretty sceptical that any of the fry would be EBJD, but lo and behold the genetics worked and I now have growouts. Unfortunately a lot of them will end up being culled as they have not developed their swim bladders properly, but I would say I have 5 that swim normally and given some more time should turn out rather well. All very exciting.

I also managed to get some amazing halfmoon bettas from a chap called Steve Bell. his website is www.bettasplendens.co.uk and I can't recommend it enough. Truly stunning fish and if you buy his home bred stock the prices aren't too bad either. I've only had my four a short while and already I've had four spawns. I have an additional two plakat bettas I bought at PetPaks in Hardwick for peanuts - they were a lucky spot and the male is gorgeous. the difficulty now is getting any of the fry I have to adulthood - they are TINY!

In other news, I am trying to sell off a lot of my stock to make room to put more BGJD pairs together and also breed my angelfish. I finally managed to sex a pair of gold marbles, so I'm expecting to have more angelfish eggs (this time in a tank to themselves where other fish won't eat them!). I'll be putting the blushing paraiba and his violent ex back together in the next couple of week too as they were outstandig parents - the only reason I don't have growouts is that they spawned in a divided section of my BGJD growout tank and the fry sadly all became food for the ravenous horde.

Right, I am starving, so time to go find some grub.

September...already?

Where has the year gone?! I can't keep up!

First off, let me reassure you that the cutteri arrived at their destination fine, so yet another happy customer and yet another successful delivery by Royal Mail. Nice work chaps.

Also, the two guys who picked up all those fish from the 6' tank also took the two P. melanurus I got from Don Conkel all those months ago. I forgot to mention that in my last post.

Right. So what's happening now?

Bad news first: Sadly I have lost two of my beautiful wild-type Angelfish. I'm not sure what the cause was, they just wasted away. I treated for both white spot ( one of the symptoms) and hole-in-the-head disease, but sadly neither made any difference.

Another slight downer is that the 'pair' of istlanum turned out to be two (admittedly stunning) males. So I'm now short on females. Needless to say, I feel another trip to see Ross coming on.

Now for the good news:

My koi angels are doing REALLY well. One of them is practically adult sized already. Twice the size of his siblings.

Noel has taken away all his fish, so no more worrying about their survival. I have to admit to being quite relieved.

I have a massive brood of lovely marble convicts growing out - I separated them from their parents this week and they are already 0.5" long and fat as anything. I know I shouldn't be that proud to have a massive spawn of convicts, but you don't see marbles that often, and the parents are really quality fish. Hopefully I can pass the fry on cheap. Either way I'm hoping to take a few bags to the BCA auction on the 26th.

The two remaining pantostictus are still alive and well. They are cohabiting in a divided 30" tank right now, putting on weight. Sadly I still can't tell what sex they are. I had a hunch they were male and female, but now I'm not so sure. They certainly don't weem very interested in each other thus far.

The bifasciatus pair have spawned again! This time I really must try to save some fry.

The Mayan pair are also looking like they might spawn soon.

I caught around 20 Ancistus youngsters earlier tonight. Very healthy they look two. They've gone into one of my small cube tanks for easy netting. These will also be going to the BCA auction.

Once again, the circle of life has come round again to make up for the losses. Even the Jaguar cichlids look like they might spawn this week. Things are on the up.

If only I could move on my young Nicaraguan cichlids - for someone reason no-one wants to buy them!

What's goin' awn in August? Read on...

So, some action has finally taken place. Noel has collected his pair of Kribs, group of five African butterfly cichlids and the white-tip Synodontis, which leaves the shark (Labeo frenatus) and the neon tetras to go. As a result I have set up another pair of Kribs (another pair that I bred myself - the male is the brother of the one I currently have looking after a healthy brood of free-swimming fry, both lovely 'super reds'). I've sadly forgotten the history of the two females...

Yesterday I posted a couple of spare cutteri to London. Still waiting to hear if they arrived okay - always a bit nerve wracking! Hopefully it will all be fine, as Royal Mail are surprisingly reliable.

Okay...I wrote the above on Tuesday, it's now Sunday and much has happened since then....

First of all, the cutteri arrives safe and sound, so I can add another success with Royal Mail to my untarnished record.

On Friday morning I finally met Ross Evans, of Oddball Express fame. Amazingly it has taken me nearly 2 years to work out that the Oddball Express unit is literally 6 minutes from my work office!!! I couldn't believe it when I put the postcode into Google maps.

The set up is amazing. Stunning rare cichlids galore. As usual I was like a kid in a candy shop and despite meeting Ross at 8:15am, I was still trying to work out what I was going to take home with me at 9:00! There was so much I wanted, but in the end common sense prevailed and it came down to how much space I could provide. I came away very happy with a stunning pair of exCichlasoma istlanum, who spent the whole day in the boot of my car until I got them back to Cambridge from Stafford. They went into the dining room tank, which started off a whole chain of events that have made this weekend a bit stressful!

First off, I decided that the Istlanum pair were too precious to be left alone with my horrible F2 hybrid convct/HRPs, so I promptly caught them all up and removed them from the tank. They were unceremoniously deposited in the 6' tank in the fishroom.

On Saturday morning I went in to the fishroom to find all the fish in the 6' tank gasping for breath and looking genereally miserable - too many fish sharing too little oxygen. Crap. So in I went with the net, this time to catch all but two of the big F1 convict/HRP males. Their time had come to be culled and removing them would drop the stocking levels on the tank and hence improve the situation for the rest of the tank inhabitants.

I was really undecided about the cull, as I find culling adult fish pretty traumatic, but I decided that seeing as I have no intention of spreading hybrid convicts throughout the UK, I should just get on with it. I dispatched them promptly and humanely and the bodies went back into the 6' tank as a large meal for the other fish. In retrospect this was a dumb move.

Switch to this morning, when I enter the fishroom to find it stinking of rotting fish, all four dead bodies left untouched by the other fish and all of the latter looking miserable. Big problem. Quickly I removed the offending bodies and disposed of them. I had already started down the path of culling fish and getting rid of the extras, so I put an ad in two places online offering the following fish for free if picked up today:

- Piar of Brown acaras Male 7" Female 5"
- 2 x Vieja melanurus 7"
- Paratheraps bifasciatus (unsexed) 10"
- 2 x Rotkeil severum 5"

Within an hour I had someone offer to takle the lot!

When they arrived things were going from bad to worse in the 6' tank, but all the listed fish were doing okay and the guys who came to pick them up were very happy. To be honest they got an amazing deal, I reckon they got well over £100 worth of fish for diddley squat!

Then fish started dying. I lost the loach that has been terrorising that tank since the day I got it (sad about that even though I hated his guts for abusing my other fish). Then some of the small hybrids started dying - they went straight into my Jaguar cichlid tank. But then my male Blockhead was lying on his side, followed by two of the Paratheraps synspiuls from Rusty Wessel. Oh....MY....GOD! I went into panic mode. The Blockhead went straight into a spare cube tank, as did the two synspilus (both held upright by a stone each). Then I started a huge water change and crossed my fingers.

The end result? Well, thankfully I think the 2 synspilus have pulled through, as has the Blockhead, so all in all I lost one loach and two hybrids convict/HRPs. It could have been sooooo much worse. I just hope the fish I gave away have all made it safe and sound.

What a day! Seriously, sometimes I wonder how I cope with the stress of it all...

Oh the misery of this hobby sometimes!

Another long overdue update. I keep saying to myself that should do more writing; that somehow this might open the door to new things; that I should finish off that damn book about EBJDs...somehow life gets in the way - or more accurately I get in my own way.

There has been an EACG auction since I last posted. It was a bit of a let down, to be honest. Great to see friends and listen to a wonderful (if excessively long) talk from Juan Miguel Artigas on the cichlids of Mexico, but the auction was depressing - not enough people and too many lovely fish going back from whence they came. I put it down to bad timing, rather than poor promotion of the event.

Anyway, I came home with a bag of 'super-red' Kribensis grow-outs, a lovely pair of marble convicts (now with free-swimming fry) and three Herichthys pantostictus which I obtained for the princely sum of just £6!

My joy has been short lived. I have been losing precious fish over the last few weeks. Just before the auction I lost my female Amphilophus cotrinellus 'Costa Rican Red Head' after the male beat her up (post spawning). Then I lost one of the pantostictus (turns out they really can't stand large water changes). Finally today I found my stunning male Green Terror lying dead on the tank floor having been very obviously beaten up. That's a real tragedy as he was beautiful.

On the plus side, I have my spawn of marble Convicts, my healthy colony of Israeli bred guppies, a seething mass of baby bristlenoses and the latest bifasciatum spawn to contend with. Two of my Rotkeil Severums have also finally paired up and I have plans to breed my two remaining pantostictus (if they do indeed turn out to be a pair, as I suspect they are).

I have been fish-sitting for my buddy Noel for several months now and will be giving the fish back soon, so hopefully I'll have a bit more space soon.

I wil undoubtedly have baby kribs in a few weeks' time and probably another spawn from my Jaguars and Fliers. However I've got so many busy weekends for the rest of the year that I don't know when I'm going to do all the necessary water changes.

So much to think about. I do way to much of that. Less thought and more action required!

Happy hybrids

A quick photo of one of my pairs of F1 convict x HRP and their fry. They are merrily defending them against a 6' tank full of other Central American cichlids as if it was child's play.


I was in the fish room with a torch just now and it looks like I have even more fry: the new guppies have already started giving birth and, best of all, I was wrong about the bristlenoses - I shone the torch into a pot and it was full of baby Ancistrus!

Sad news and good news

First off, the sad news: my breeding male EBJD died about a week ago. I started treatment too late and he was gone in days. Absolutely devastating to lose such a beautiful fish.

However, my other fish have cheered me up by breeding away merrily. I never got those baby suckers I mentioned in my last post, nothing came of the eggs, but currently in my tanks I have:

- Mayan cichlid wrigglers

- Flier cichlid fry



- Nicaraguan youngsters (1.5") (I sold the breeding pair on eBay, posted last Friday)

- Paratheraps bifasciatus fertile eggs!!!



Also I have pairs of Kribensis, CRRH midas and Cutter's cichlid getting ready to spawn.

So much new life!

My shoal of BGJDs is also still doing well, growing at a good rate and keeping their bellies fat.


Recently bought some Israeli bred guppies from Swallow Aquatics - they are lovely green cobra tails, so I'm looking forward to breeding them en masse if I can.

Nics a plenty!

The mighty brood of Nicaraguan cichlids is growing like stink!

Mom and dad are still very shy, but attentive.

In other news:

- finally switched on the Fluval FX 5
- about 30 BGJDs all growing well
- sold the tinfoils, firemouths and spare HRPs weekend before last
- the Ancistrus trio have spawned, so hopefully I'll have baby suckers soon


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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.

December update

Recently swapped a pair of mealnurus, the male salvini and the pair of Paratilapia sp. 'Fiamanga' for six wild Blackbelts and six Tinfoil barbs from m mate Ian. I'm really happy with the swap as my 6' tank now has something worth watching in it!

Hopefully we're going to swap my male HRP for his male Rainbow (to go with my female) in the near future, at which point I should be all set in terms of my fish collection for a while.

Happy days!

In other news:

- The jags have spawned again (woop! woop!)
- The baby kribs are growing well

Sadly I lost the following last week:
- My adult female Humpbacked limias
- The female salvini
- A male Blockhead from the dining room tank

New arrivals, tragic losses (again)

Sadly I lost a whole group of baby jags after moving their parents to the 4' tank. They all got either fungus or Lympho. Horrible having to watch them die one by one each day. The tank they were in now holds a supply of live river shrimp and a coupld of female Bettas who are in recovery.

To add to this, the jag pair had a big bust up, so I had to divide them. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the temperature in their tank being higher than they're used to.

On the positive side, I have over 10 baby guppies from the red-tailed females I bought (from Ely Aquatics) a couple of weeks ago. The females don;t appear to be eating their offspring, so hopefully the babies will turn out to be 'pure strain' and I can establish a pure breeding colony.

Even better news is that the pair of super red kribs I picked up at the CDAS meeting have just brought out their first spawn (hence the recovering Bettas!).



Things are ticking over nicely in the fish room. My biggest challenge at the moment is working out how to overcome the problem that many of the tanks have suspended matter in the water as a result of having no substrate. Makes for some pretty nasty photos.

BCA, FoF...recents changes

Much has happened since I last posted. The BCA meeting was great fun. Some lovely fish for sale (I was extremely hard pushed to hold back and only spend £3.00!). I sold some Jags, Cutter's, G. brasiliensis and my pair of Bangui. My only pick up was a bag of six juvenile Aequidens sp. Peru, which I am now convinced are a geographical variant of A. tetramerus. Lovely little fish from Andrew Wood.

The Festival of Fishkeeping was really interesting. Some very informative displays and some great fish.

The meeting worked well from the point of view of attracting new members, but I do feel the location (Hayling Island) meant that many established members were put off and didn't show. As a result the auctions followed a recurring theme of being fantastic for buyers, but pretty rubbish for sellers as most lots went for very close to their reserve.

What else has happened?

Bullets:

- the Firemouths lost their eggs (I think the Bristlenoses finally had them);
- the crowntail fry never made it (temperature too cold or perhaps eaten by snails - they did hatch);
- Amber and I moved the 30" tank from upstairs into the fishroom (it now holds the Ports, female Paratilapia and female BGJD);
- I set up a 24" tank underneath it for the larger baby Jags;
- I have moved the Jag pair into the lower 4' tank (they're not too happy!) and all the fish from that tank into the 6' tank;
- the salvini pair are also now in the 6' tank;
- I still have six baby Vieja hybrids doing well;
- I separated the hybrid cons from the Redhead Midas yesterday. Both species are so fat!
- I now have Humpbacked Limia fry from one female, they have grown incredibly fast;
- I also have baby platies!

I now have an external flash for my camera. I'm so pleased with it, it has made such a difference to my fish photography:



I think that's about it for now, other than the fact that I successfully sent some Jags to Newquay (to Nev) and they arrived safely.

Happy days

Looking forward to the BCA meeting tomorrow. Should be a really good road trip with two Simons and two Martins in the same vehicle!

Have more good news today as the salvini are getting ready to spawn and my crowntail bettas are spawning as I type. Mum is visiting at the moment and she was really impressed by them! Lovely fish.

The Firemouths still have their eggs too, which is amazing given that there are two Ancistrus in the tank. The parents look amazing right now.

Not looking forward to getting up at 4:30am tomorrow to bag fish...