Marc's fish room build

[BRLaquatics]

Hi Marc

I stumbled onto your fish room build thread and I am blown away by how well thought-out and clean cut everything is.

Absolutely stunning, definitely one of the build rooms I've seen over the internet.
I hope my future fish room is half as nice as yours

regards
BRLaquatics

[MarcW]

Hi BRLaquatics,

Firstly welcome to PlanetCatfish!

Thanks for your kind words, there was a lot of investigation before hand, reading many threads like this one, and watching lots of YouTube videos, which I hope helped me to avoid mistakes, and build things out better than I might have done otherwise. Hopefully this'll give you some ideas for your fish room, when you get started on it we'd love to hear about it and see some pictures .

[BRLaquatics]

Thanks!

My own fishroom is still many years away yet, But I do have a 'fish rack' with some L134s, L201s, Peppermint plecos (L071), Super Red Bristlenose and sterbai corys.

The L134s and peppermints just spawned for the first time a few days ago so the eggs haven't yet hatched.

Any tips or advice on what to do once they hatch and are wrigglers?

Cheers,
BRL

[panaque]

Hi BRL,
My advice would be to leave the dads to do their job and only intervene if they turn out to be rubbish at it (kick the eggs out).
Good luck!

[MarcW]

Hi BRL, I'd suggest the same, leave the dad to it, I have only spawned

Peckoltia compta

once, the first thing I knew about it was finding small fry in the tank, at the point where they had already absorbed the yolk sac.

More about my efforts to spawn them here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32242&p=212851#p212851

It was a while ago, and one of the first dedicated breeding setups I had attempted.

[BRLaquatics]

Thanks guys!

The male seems to be doing a great job so far. Fanning away on the eggs.

Should I pull them a few days after they hatch?

They're in a tank with adolfoi corys and rummynose tetras both of which would probably stack on a pleco fry also there's about 5000lph worth of flow going across the tank.

[MarcW]

Personally, I have had the best luck leaving the fry in the parents tank, until they are 1.5 inches +. I wouldn't worry about the flow it seems a lot for a tiny fish but they will find a quiet spot if needed. I wouldn't think corys or the rummynose would cause them any issues. Good luck.

[BRLaquatics]

Personally, I have had the best luck leaving the fry in the parents tank, until they are 1.5 inches +. I wouldn't worry about the flow it seems a lot for a tiny fish but they will find a quiet spot if needed. I wouldn't think corys or the rummynose would cause them any issues. Good luck.

Thanks a heap MarcW

[Mart1996]

Nice pictures
Thanks,
Jim

[MarcW]

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted, not a lot fishy has gone on in the past few months! I should have been going to the All Aquarium Catfish Convention in a couple of days, but unfortunately it has been cancelled, even if it had still been going on I wouldn't currently be allowed into the US anyway, due to COVID-19 restrictions, not because of anything I have done ! Hopefully things will improve next year and some events can take place.

I'm still searching for some Amphilius or Chiloglanis for my African stream tank, there are just 12 Arnoldichthys spilopterus in there at the moment, a lovely fish but not a catfish! So after some maintenance at the weekend I decided to visit a couple local fish shops, just in case there was anything interesting hidden in a tank.

Just the usual selection, shops near me don't often stock many catfish, if they do, it'll be one tiny gold nugget, a handful of bristlenose, or some common Corydoras. I'd been considering some

Pareutropius buffei

for a while as they seem a nice fish (active, peaceful, and small), given my struggle to find the catfish I am after for the African tank, when I saw a group of 13 at a local store I bought them. They are currently in a quarantine tank, and seem to have settled well, I'm looking forward to getting them in the larger tank soon.

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the update. Those buffei are a great little fish. I kept some for a couple of months to QT them for a friend. Really nice little fish.

Hopefully next Fall you can come to Cataclysm. @Jac and I are among the scheduled speakers.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, I'm pleased I finally decided to get some after passing on them the past few times I've seen them.

So long as I'm allowed to travel, and the event still goes ahead I'll try my best to make it to Cataclysm. Hopefully see you there.

[MarcW]

Hi Everyone, it's been a while but I have had a bit of spawning success I thought I'd share.

My

Scleromystax barbatus

have been spawning every week as I have let the temperature drop by 2-3c in the fish room over the winter.

When leaving the eggs, they slowly disappear, I suspect a combination of the parents and snails. Previously when trying to artificially raise eggs of any species they all succumb to fungus.

After a particularly large spawn I decided to try an experiment, I roughly split the eggs into two batches and set up two 2.5USG aquariums. One was half filled with water from the parents tank, an Indian almond leaf, a few alder cones and a piece of bark, I forget the type, it almost forms a tube when dried, this was the 'natural' tank, which until the first water change looked like black tea. The other was half filled with pure RO (well almost, the TDS was 2ppm), to this I added one drop of methylene blue, this was the 'unnatural' one!

Each tank had an airline added, and three 1 inch cubes of poret foam from the sump of my large tank.

After the first eggs hatched every tank received a ~80% daily water change using water from my sump which was next to the small rearing tanks. Therefore over time the water chemistry of each returned to my regular water.

I only lost 2 young from each tank about 1 week after hatching. Quite frustrating that after being unsuccessful for years, both methods worked equally well!

After hatching both tanks were fed the same, in the morning a mix of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and spirulina powder, then in the evening after the water change, a crushed fish science corydoras tablet was mixed with spirulina powder and split between the two tanks.

They are now ~4 weeks old and between 10 and 20mm TL, most are towards the larger end of that scale.

I guess they'll take 4-6 months to reach a saleable size, I hope we are able to get out and about by then as I don't have room for 85 adults!

I hope everyone has a safe new year!

[bekateen]

Congratulations, Marc! That's a nice story, even if it was a frustrating process.

Happy new year,
Eric

[Jools]

Not half as frustrating as getting responsive youtube videos working ( ), but perseverance prevails! Well done Marc, making your own fishes is one of the best aspects of this wonderful hobby. Thanks for sharing your progress.

All the best for 2021 everyone!

Jools

[MarcW]

Hi everyone, after posting in another thread that I haven't had luck spawning Loricariidae, this morning my male

Hypancistrus inspector

is sat on eggs!

I noticed last night he was trapping the female, so after water changes this morning I checked the caves, they swapped caves in the night, but there are eggs!

This is only the second time in almost 2 years that they have spawned. Last time the eggs disappeared in a few days, let's see how they do this time! It strikes me as a fairly small clutch for mature fish, they look small in the picture but are pushing 6 inches TL. The female looks good, no marks and still looking gravid, so maybe there will be a round two soon!

I didn't try to trigger them, but the fish room has warmed up by 2c over the last 3-4 days, either it was that or just a coincidence!

In other news, I had to split the young S. barbatus into two tanks to try and let the smaller ones growth catch up, but I'm happy to report no losses so far and good growth. The parents still lay eggs at least once a week, but I'm holding off raising any more as I'm running out of room!

[MarcW]

Just got a short video, now I'll leave him alone with the eggs. I haven't seen him fanning at all, which seems a little unusual to me, but we'll see how he does!

[bekateen]

Congratulations Marc!

[RobinSm89]

Wow, this is a colossal job! Looks really cool! Tell me, where did you buy all the materials and was it all expensive? I just want to build an aquarium now too

[MarcW]

Hi RobinSm89, welcome to PlanetCatfish!

I bought all the materials, mainly the timer and screws, from DIY stores and builders merchants, similar places to a Home Depot or Lowes. I just had to go around a few of them to make sure I was picking out straight timber!

To get that much timber wasn't cheap, but it was much cheaper than having metal racking made, or buying tanks with cabinets. The tanks themselves were surprisingly affordable, the large 8x3x2 (LxWxH) tank cost less than most stores would sell you a 5 or 6ft tank package. The trick is to find a few aquarium manufacturers and give them a list of what you want, much cheaper than going into a local store and buying some.

Although saying that, I see you are in the US, if you wait for a PetCo dollar per gallon sale I don't think you'll find cheaper new tanks. Get them on a metal rack (one of the industrial 1000lbs+ per shelf types) from Home Depot, with a sheet of ply cut to size for shelving rather than the metal mesh shelves, and you should be good to go for a fairly low cost.

[MarcW]

A few updates.

Unfortunately as expected the H. inspector eggs didn't make it, they looked good for a few days, then there was a mass of egg casings kicked out of the cave, 3 or 4 eggs were still intact, but within 24 hours of me trying to raise them they were covered in fungus.

On a brighter note, during water changes this morning my f1 L128 male was trying to get a suspected female (also f1) into a cave. I'm not expecting anything soon, the male has been hanging around the cave for over a month now, but this is the first interaction between fish beyond shoving food around!

The S. barbatus fry are continuing to grow well without any losses that I am aware of. I think i'm going to have to move them to a larger tank soon!

[MarcW]

Today was the first day in a few months where, in England, we have been allowed to leave home without it being for one of a few defined reasons.

I took the opportunity to trade in 70 juvenile S. barbatus, and 41 Moenkhausia sp. Kogal yellow, which I have been raising over the past few months for some store credit.

So I now have a few new additions to the fish room.

Neosilurus ater

, already very active and great fun to watch.

Plus a pair of

Hypancistrus sp(l471)

, not massively into Hypancistrus, but these seemed nice and seem to stay small.

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the update. Glad you were able to get out... and gladder (I know, not a word... even my phone was smart enough to flag that word as wrong, and my phone is a (truly) smart phone, so it autocorrected "gladder" to "Glaser." I guess it knows where I like to shop)... back to point... Glad you were able to get more catfish!

Great video. That tank is beautiful.

Hoping to see you in October,
Eric

[MarcW]

That is a smartphone!

It's one of my favourite tanks to watch, the decoration is simple, but looks good and seems to achieve my desired look of a hillstream.

In the tank is sand, rounded pebbles/cobbles, two bits of wood, then a couple of each Anubis and Bolbitus. Beyond putting the plants towards the back, I tried not to overthink placement of any decoration, I find the more I try to make a tank look good the more artificial it looks to me!

[MarcW]

Noticed a bit of wear and tear on some of my A. magoi, this males barbel especially, just a few scratches on a few others but no female is noticeably beaten up, so possiblity males fighting.

[MarcW]

Hi Everyone,

Nothing exciting to report, but wanted to suggest that my power backup system has probably paid for itself now! Last night we had a power cut from 7pm until 00:30 this morning ~5.5 hours, caused by high winds blowing a tree/branches onto a nearby power line.

I was beginning to get nervous, after 5.5 hours the voltage was running very low on the batteries, and heavy rain would have prevented me from running my generator outside, but luckily the batteries held out long enough!

Anyone with a fish room, considering setting one up, or even with a single tank, I recommend looking into an appropriate power backup!

[Jools]

Delighted this isn't one of those "pics of dead fish" events. The planning paid off for you and the fishes. Well done!

Jools

[bekateen]

Glad your backup power held out Marc. You've got some really nice fish.

Cheers,
Eric

[MarcW]

A bit more activity from the A. magoi, I've still not witnessed anything myself, but it looks like a male has been trying to hold this this female, some damage at the base of the dorsal and scrapes down her side. The picture was taken about 2 days ago and the damage has already healed completely.

Similar to reports in various Facebook groups my males dorsals have been growing over the past month or so as the water has warmed up slightly, and I've noticed more scrapes of the females. None look gravid, and there hasn't been any evidence of eggs yet.

I have added some guppy grass, thinking they may like some vegetation to deposit eggs in.

[bekateen]

I have added some guppy grass, thinking they may like some vegetation to deposit eggs in.

Maybe a large... really long I mean... spawning mop is needed?

Good luck Marc. Splendid fish!

Cheers, Eric