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.