Good week in the fish tanks

[bekateen]

Hi All,

After a relatively slow July, the last few days have been busy. One pair of L397 spawned a few days ago. Early today my L201 big spot spawned, then later today a second pair of L397 spawned.

Moments like these help me feel better about my fish‐keeping skills. Now if I can just get the mustard spots and leopard frogs to spawn.

Cheers, Eric

[Froeschli]

Lol, and here I am still waiting on my guppies to reproduce... (not that I actually want them to, but I've still got to make the effort to keep them happy. Or finally rehome the lot of them.)

Still looking for a male clown pleco. Somehow I'm thinking I may have better luck with those.

[MarcW]

Good job Eric. My L397 youngsters which I bought during the CSG convention have grown well and some are starting to cave hopefully that's a good sign!

I've not had any spawns since I moved everything to the fish room, except rainbow fish from 2 pairs I now have ~300 fry with no effort in 4-5 months!

I have a feeling I've been keeping the fish in way too soft water, I'm now hardening the water gradually to maintain them around pH7.5 and 150 tds, that way after a few months I can do some cool rainwater changes and see if that triggers anything!

[bekateen]

Thanks guys.

I don't want to rub it in, but yesterday was my birthday and today I received more presents. Found two more male L397 on fresh eggs (both caving males in photo below are on eggs as of today). Four L397 spawns in 2 weeks. Dang that makes me happy. When everything else does nothing, or worse, dies, it's really affirming to have good news.

But to be fair, it's all the fish. August is also peak L397 spawning season in my tanks. My first spawn was two years ago, wigglers discovered around Aug 12th. Last summer was another rush of spawns.

This summer was relatively quiet with just a few spawns in June and July. Now they're hitting it, and they're hitting it hard!

Cheers, Eric

[Froeschli]

That's awesome. And I expect you don't mind sharing your birthday with a few fish
Begs the question though; What do you do with all these spawns? Do you sell/rehome them, or do they snack on each other til a viable population density is achieved?

[bekateen]

Begs the question though; What do you do with all these spawns? Do you sell/rehome them, or do they snack on each other til a viable population density is achieved?

I sell them (check out my profile signature below my posts), donate some to my club, trade at LFS. With so many spawns, I do take good care of them, but I do not try to get 100% survival. But they are well fed; they do not need to snsck on each other.

I let them grow, then I clear out the tank. Some older juvies will be for sale at Catfish Cataclysm next month.

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

I sympathize with the your problem of becoming overstocked when many fish are in spawning mode. I have allowed fewer babies to survive as well. For me it was more of an issue of not being on social media and not having a site from which to sell. I also am trying to cease shipping fish as well.

I believe I have found someone to sell all my fish. That way all I do is get babies, grow them out a bunch and then send one box out every few months. August has been pretty good for me as well. Do you think our fish are in psychic contact? That would be a real feat as we are about 3,000 miles apart.

[bekateen]

August has been pretty good for me as well. Do you think our fish are in psychic contact? That would be a real feat as we are about 3,000 miles apart.

LOL, wouldn't that be scary? No, my house I think it's the elevated temperature, possibly photoperiod changes, maybe both together?

Although my house is air-conditioned, my thermostat is set to 78F in the summer, so the house still gets pretty hot. About half of my tanks are heated, and the others at home not. But no matter, with the house this warm, the tanks rise above their thermostat settings, some tanks exceeding 87F for a day or two at a time. Cool water changes aren't as cool this month, with "cool" tap water around 80F also. We've discussed this before, HERE: How do you do a "cool water change" to stimulate corys and plecos when you've got this?!?)

But still, I think the combination is effective.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

I'm pleased to report I've had a bit more success, still no catfish unfortunately but I found a small Moenkhausia sp. kogal yellow when I was doing a water change this morning.

The C. parallus in the same tank are starting to look ready to breed, hopefully the same moss that the tetras used will be a good spot for the Corys.

[bekateen]

Congratulations, Marc. Our fish club just had a presentation by Randy Carey on breeding the egg scattering tetras, barbs, etc. As always, when those professionals leave, I think, "I should be doing that." LOL Well, you are!

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, I have a feeling its down to the java moss, think of a half inflated beach ball, it's a huge clump.

I'd love to breed tetras in large numbers, the goal is a huge group, say 1000 cardinals or 2-300 larger tetras in my 8ft tank, at 1 fry every 4 months that'll take me a while .

[Froeschli]

I sell them (check out my profile signature below my posts), donate some to my club, trade at LFS. With so many spawns, I do take good care of them, but I do not try to get 100% survival. But they are well fed; they do not need to snsck on each other.

I let them grow, then I clear out the tank. Some older juvies will be for sale at Catfish Cataclysm next month.

Cheers, Eric

Ah, tempting but, Canada, eh. Customs for plants are bad enough, I don't even want to try live animals... I'm keeping an eye on local breeders. Though if I don't look at too many more of your posts I may actually manage not to buy more fish until I have the current ones "figured out"

[bekateen]