If you know the PH of the water they are coming from I would try to match that. I have never been one for taking a long time to acclimate fish especially ones that have been in a bag for an extended period of time. Even with fish that have been properly prepared for transport will produce enough ...

It is sad to see the decline in well run family owned fish stores. However, the well run family store is not dead, at least not in Michigan. Jackson isn’t too far from Detroit and there are some good stores in the Greater Detroit area. About an hour away from Jackson is a store called Fantastic Fins. ...

Sunfish,

You are, of course, correct. I mixed and matched what I was looking at and reading, I hate when I do that and I agree with you that the first picture is of a female.

I don't know what species this is but I would say that it is a male. Notice the "hairs" on the pectoral fins. Also notice that this fish does have a "beard" which would definitely make it a male.

What have you been feeding the fry? They are meat eaters and worm flake works well, as do micro worms and really small grindal worms (what I use for all of my catfish fry). You could also try the new Rapashy fish food, I have been told by friends that it works well for fry. I find that these fish ...

Nice set up. Those fish are going to love being outside and should show great color by the end of the summer. With lots of plants you should get crazy amounts of white clouds, although the Corys will probably love the eggs. But that will get them to breed and if you remove the eggs should have more ...

I agree that having the male raise the eggs is the best method, if possible. However, if your eggs are in an open-ended tube incubating is not that bad. In the picture is a tube that has eggs in it. This was my first attempt at artificially hatching these fish and it turned out pretty good. A few ...

I have many different brands of heaters but the only ones I will buy now are the Jager. They just work and don’t give me problems. Other heaters I have just don’t hold water temperature or eventually stop working or worse boil the tank killing everything (well almost everything). You get what you pay ...

Sorry, I forget that not everyone lives in an old house with a cold basement, I mean fishroom. If you don't have heaters and your tanks stay in the 70's I am jealous. Really, you just want to keep the water in the hatching tank the same temperature as the tank in which they were laid. If you can do ...

Once the fry hatch and leave the protection of the adult male they are easy prey for any females or other males in the tank. That is probably why your eggs disapeard after 7 days and you didn't find any fry. For this reason, I remove the male to his own tank just before they eggs hatch. It doesn’t n ...

Nice group of eggs and they are not snail eggs. Once you breed both species you should be able to pick out what species these are without a problem. Until then you will have to hatch them out and grow out the fry to see for sure. (Unless someone else with more experience can tell from the pic.) I ...

A bi-yearly convention is going to be held this year in the Washington DC area http://catfishcon.com/ I went to the one in 2010, my first for a catfish convention, and it was a great time. It really is worth going to and it is a bit closer than the UK, although a catfish and loach show and auction ...

Well, I thought I would give an update. It appears that tilting the entrance of the cave may have helped, thanks for the suggestion Andypex. During the last spawning events in the two tanks I tried this with both males actually had eggs that stayed in the cave. One male spawned with three females ...

Thanks for the idea, it is worth givng that a try. In looking at my closed ended caves, the angle is down with the opening slightly lower. However, the eggs are adheasive and should be stuck down. With my orignal group the only time I found eggs at the front of the cave was when the male was already ...

So here is my problem, I am hoping that I can get some good suggestions on how to fix this. Several years ago I purchased wild Rineloricaria sp. “Peru” (that is what I purchased it as but I have never been able to positively ID them so that is what I still refer to them as). They bred for me like no ...

Thank you. That is a nice fish and I am always on the lookout for good fish stores. I am going to need to do some shopping next week. Thanks for your input.

Do you mind if I ask what store you found them at? I am going to be in Chicago area shortly and always like to check out local stores when I have time.

It's a nice looking female. Males have short spines or "hairs" on their pectoral fins. However, I can not ID the species. It could be R. sp. "Peru" along with the ones that you listed.

Hello all. I am hoping that members of this forum can help me. I am working on a Family Feud style game for my local aquarium club. I need at least 100 answers for each question and ideally would like to have 200+ for each question. I have already had most of the members of my local club fill this ...

Nice videos and photos in the report. Thanks for posting.

My guess is that there is food and waste particles getting trapped into the substrate, rotting and causing the problems. Any substrate particles that are larger than sand will allow for waste and food to get trapped at lower levels. There is no oxygen much below the surface of the substrate. You ...

What type of substrate are you using?

I don't think it would be much of a problem to move the eggs to a breeder net. You might want to put the male with them. In the cave the male is keeping the eggs aerated, cleaned and safe, in a net you won’t have that advantage. We just had a club member write an article for our local newsletter a ...

Please in a month or two or three let us know if thier barbles have grown back. It would be nice to document if they will or not.

They have probably been introduced but I find conflicting information on that. Peterson's Field Guide shows it is native and the Audubon shows it is not native to Michigan. This guy actually gave the fish to a man and his son so they could eat it. I am sure it was good for at least a couple of meals.

This was in the news the other day so I thought I would share it. The Grand River runs through Grand Rapids Michigan, US. This is a section of river that is pretty well fished during the fall salmon run due to a 6' high damn on the north side of town that forces the salmon to pool below it. However ...

Nice healthy looking fish. How big is that tank?

Very nice pictures. I liked your photos and descriptions of the different parts of streams. I love to get out to streams and rivers and poke around and I am glad to see other people do as well. If you keep feeding those Dace bloodworms you are going to have some big fish on your hands. They are only ...

I haven’t been to the OCA (Ohio Cichlid Association Extravaganza) for two years. I really want to get back maybe this year if I have a job. I was at the Catfish Convention last year and did sell some of them from my room. I have also sold bags of them at Michiana auctions. I have a bunch of F-1 that ...

Here is what I do for my Rineloricaria sp. Peru which is a very close relative. This was taken from an article that I wrote for my local club. “Feeding the fry is not a problem once you know how to do it. I left the first brood of fry in with the parents and found out the hard way that they will be e ...