Marc's fish room build

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, I'll update in a few days, maybe a week if I'm lucky, and they develop well and hatch!

[MarcW]

The eggs were gone when I just checked. After looking around I found the remaining eggs, only 4 surrounded by empty shells. They are now in a tumbler, but there are no obvious signs of development yet.

[MarcW]

Bad news unfortunately, the eggs did well for 2-3 days in the tumbler, longer than my previous attempts with other eggs, but they eventually got a fungus. There was no noticeable development, and as the eggs were at least 4 days old before they started to fungus I'm assuming they weren't fertilised.

Hopefully they do better next time!

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,

That's tough, but it happens. My second wabenmuster egg mass failed to develop too.

Have a good Christmas with wife and friends.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

I have had a bit more luck with spawns over the past few days, i'm assuming partly due to a storm which passed over the weekend.

On Sunday my

Hypancistrus inspector

spawned, having been trapping for 24 hours, I've just been to check and one egg was kicked out, but the rest still appear to be good with the male in the cave ~48 hours after the spawn.

Having just checked on the eggs, I noticed my

Sturisomatichthys festivus

male guarding a fresh spawn! Over the weekend, I also moved my

Corydoras(ln9) parallelus

to their own tank, they also spawned, a little haphazardly from the look of it, some eggs are on the glass, some in a woll mop, some in the sand! These were young fish I bought at the last CSG convention.

Some attempts at pictures below, if you look very closely you can see a couple eggs under the pectoral fin of the male H. inspector!

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,

Glad to see your fish getting "back in the saddle." Good luck with the eggs!

Cheers, Eric

[CoryWally]

Ditto Marc, great news. Parallelus are super rare Corys!

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric and Mark. Unfortunately all the parallelus eggs have fungused, they were all 2-5cm or more apart and all fungused independently overnight. Next time I'll collect them and split between a few different containers to experiment a little.

Also, all but 2 of the Sturisomatichthys eggs went bad and were eaten by the male, he is still guarding the remaining 2.

In better news the inspector eggs seem to be doing well, and are still with the male in the cave.

[MarcW]

The rescued inspector eggs are doing OK, I have 4 young developing well so far, and starting to show pigment now. Unfortunately it seems that the male has eaten the eggs/wrigglers which remained in the cave. Next time I'll take the eggs and raise them myself.

I'll add pictures when at my pc, struggling to add them from my phone.

[bekateen]

Unfortunately it seems that the male has eaten the eggs/wrigglers which remained in the cave.

Dad's a jerk!

Good luck, Marc.
Eric

[MarcW]

Yeah he seemed to be doing such a good job for the first 5 days or so!

Some pictures of the egg development below 6 and 8 days after the spawn. Once I move them to a larger container i'll get some better pictures .

[bekateen]

8 days after spawn? Dang! How long do inspector eggs take to hatch?

Good luck, Eric

[MarcW]

They are wrigglers now, but plenty of yolk left! They are warm too, usually 29-30c (84-86f)!

The development does seem to have accelerated, so I'm guessing just a couple days of yolk left.

[MarcW]

Unfortunately I lost one of the fry on Friday, it looked fine apart from a weird shaped yolk, it was 11mm SL and ~13mm TL.

After this i transferred the three remaining fish into a floating breeding ring (6 inch/15cm diameter) to give them some more room. Into this I also put a few small pieces of wood from the same tank, as they appeared to be searching for food, I also added a tiny piece (no bigger than a grain of rice) of paste food.

The next morning I checked on them and all three were dead and completely covered, like they had been cocooned, in what I assume to be a fungus . I have no idea what causes all my fish eggs and fry to fungus! It has happened in a previous property (albeit with water from the same aquifer), I have tried treated tap water, almost pure RO, RO mixed with treated tap water, RO mixed with HMA filtered tap water, almost pure rainwater, and also rainwater mixed with HMA filtered tap water! All water is stored in an IBC for 7 days while being aerated and heated ready for the next water change.

Also over the weekend my

Corydoras parallelus

spawned again, but I only noticed when I saw fungused eggs on the front glass of the aquarium!

There has to be something causing this but I'm not sure I'll ever figure it out!

[bekateen]

Ugh! Sorry, Marc. Better luck next time.

Regards, Eric

[MarcW]

Another first spawn for me,

L397

, I got these as tank raised young almost exactly a year ago.

The females have been gravid for a few months and hanging around/in the caves, but it took the males a while to figure out what to do!

I first saw them trapping about 3 days ago, and saw the eggs this afternoon.

The dad seems pretty keen, he's fanning away quickly, short video below.

[MarcW]

Time for an update.

First the

Panaqolus sp(l397)

, the fry are out of the cave, most of the yolk is absorbed now, and apart from finding 3 dead fry, the rest seem to be doing well, no idea how many there are, they have disappeared into a big chunk of oak! There are two in the terrible picture below!

Now onto new fish, while at the CSG convention last weekend, I didn't pick up a huge number of fish, but did get some interesting ones.

Firstly a group of 8

Ageneiosus magoi

, they are a great looking fish, currently in quarantine (the good fishy kind ), I've also picked up a large power head for the 8ft tank when they eventually go in there, currently they are about 12-15cm TL. Unfortunately they have not shown any interest in food yet, so far I've tried them on, all frozen, bloodworm, mussel, and prawn, any tips appreciated.

The other catfish I got was a single small (for now)

Pseudopimelodus bufonius

there are no problems with this one, eating like a trooper already ! It has now returned to a darker coloration, the picture was taken straight after acclimatizing it.

Then finally, also eventually for the large tank, I'll try to slip in some non-catfish , I got some Chalceus erythrurus, these will get quite chunky, from what I've heard ~8-10 inches, these are already eating very well!

[bekateen]

First the

Panaqolus sp(l397)

, the fry are out of the cave, most of the yolk is absorbed now, and apart from finding 3 dead fry, the rest seem to be doing well, no idea how many there are, they have disappeared into a big chunk of oak! There are two in the terrible picture below!

Congratulations! The L397 babies are pretty dang sturdy, but you will have the occasional losses. That said, they will start to produce about 25-50 fry per spawn, more as they age, so losing 2 or 4 per clutch won't be noticable after a while.

Now onto new fish, while at the CSG convention last weekend, I didn't pick up a huge number of fish, but did get some interesting ones.

Firstly a group of 8

Ageneiosus magoi

, they are a great looking fish, currently in quarantine (the good fishy kind ), I've also picked up a large power head for the 8ft tank when they eventually go in there, currently they are about 12-15cm TL. Unfortunately they have not shown any interest in food yet, so far I've tried them on, all frozen, bloodworm, mussel, and prawn, any tips appreciated.

These are so cool. Your tank seems the right size. Without personal experience, I've read they do well with live food at first, so I hope you have something to try - Earthworms? scuds (if you have them in the UK)?

Then finally, also eventually for the large tank, I'll try to slip in some non-catfish

Abomination!

Good luck with them all Marc. I missed the Pier tour with you this year.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, I do have some earthworms, I'll give them a go, and maybe try some smaller live foods, daphnia or similar. I'm sure we get scuds but I've not seen them for sale myself.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Thanks Eric, I do have some earthworms, I'll give them a go, and maybe try some smaller live foods, daphnia or similar. I'm sure we get scuds but I've not seen them for sale myself.

"Scuds" are Amphipod crustaceans, usually species of Gammarus.

They aren't easy to culture inside, because they require cool, hard oxygenated water. Most people who culture "Scuds", use the Mexican Hyalella azteca because it is tolerant of warmer water (but still needs hard water).

If you still have the Crangonyx or Asellus? They are similar, but a bit smaller and much more likely to persist in a planted tank with fish.

cheers Darrel

[MarcW]

Thanks Darrel, I do still have a few Asellus, they didn't seem to reproduce, but a few are still kicking around!

I also still have a few ostracods in one tank, I'll give them a go too.

[MarcW]

Well the handful of juvenile (1.25 to 1.5 inch) rainbow fish which were too crafty for me to catch out of the quarantine tank went missing a couple nights ago! Plus today at least one of the A. magoi ate an earthworm, two were eaten but it happened so quickly I can't be sure it was two separate fish. None of the others were interested and just backed away as I wiggled the worms nearby with long tweezers.

I'll try again with shrimp and worms when the lights dim later, I also have some whitebait arriving tomorrow, which was part of their diet in the store, hopefully they'll remember .

[Martin S]

Very envious of your new arrivals! How are they looking whilst seemingly not feeding?
Have you tried live river shrimp? No doubt the rainbows were an easy snack for one or more!

[MarcW]

Thanks Martin! They are still looking healthy and not skinny at all, they tend to hug the bottom and swim in place when the lights are on, then at night (it needs to be really dark) they are swimming around all over the tank.

I haven't tried shrimp yet, i only have one cherry shrimp kicking around somewhere! I have some daphnia coming soon, I'll see if I can get some shrimp delivered to me. Ideally I want them eating frozen/pellets, but if they start to look skinny I do have a couple hundred juvenile rainbowfish that can move tank!

[MarcW]

Well they are eating daphnia, 3 of them at least! They were eating larger food (shrimps, whitebait, mussels, etc.) in the shop, but for some reason it seems they like smaller food at the moment. I've been offering all the food they ate in the shop plus live earthworms every night but they just aren't interested and it is always all there the next morning! The trouble is mail ordering large amounts of live food for a reasonable cost given the current circumstances! I have some live bloodworm arriving tomorrow hopefully they'll like that too!

[MarcW]

Some good news on the

Ageneiosus magoi

, this smaller female seems to be eating best, although only small things, a couple days ago, live daphnia, and today live bloodworm.



In even better news, I was trying to place some small prawns near the fish to make it easy for them, and one of the males swallowed a whole prawn! You can see the bulge in his stomach!

I'm hoping it's just a matter of a few days before the rest find their appetite!

[bekateen]

Those fish are gorgeous!

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, they really are stunning fish, they still have loads in Pier. These, some which look the same, have a more yellow base colour and are bigger ~8-9 inches TL, unfortunately just 3 females, possibly just larger A. magoi. They also have several

Ageneiosus marmoratus

, picture below.

I can't wait to get these into my large tank once they are eating well, I'm hoping they will become more confident and active with more space.

[MarcW]

Some new fish arrived today, after a couple week pause, the one courier in the UK who ship live fish have resumed their live fish service.

In addition to some rainbow shiners for my small outside pond, and some Garra sp. Red Tail, I got the following catfish.

Group of 10

Trachelyopterichthys taeniatus

which are quite large already, the biggest ~130-140mm SL. After quarantine (the fish kind ) they will be going in the large 8x3 feet tank.

To go with the Garra sp. Red Tail in my new Asian hill stream tank I have 12 Akysis sp. sold as

Akysis portellus

, the Akysis all look very similar to me, but purely based on the pattern I'm thinking they may be more likely to be

Akysis prashadi

?

Already covered in sand!

[bekateen]

Very nice. Marc, you get some great species.

Good luck with them,
Eric