Fish

[epaul]

My Amatitlania nanolueus have spawned and the fish world is atwitter! Twenty babies about 3 weeks old. This is not a common species in the trade; these little guys will be in demand. Not "get rich" demand, but they will wanted.

A. nanolueus is small Central American cichlid (cichlids is the common name for large family of fish very loosely related to sunfish & bass. ). Cichlids take good care of their babies, protecting them from predators as best they can (they attack my fingers when I do tank maintenance). They are now herding their young'uns about the tank very much like a pair of mother hens.




The proud parents!

[epaul]

[epaul]

[John B]

South American? I thought you were focusing on Malawian. Third were my favorites.

I did have a tank of pirahna for a while, but they were so gosh darn shy they pretty much stayed at the back of the tank or hung out in the shrubbery.

[howard lee]

Aug 27, 2024 9:43:58 GMT -5 John B said:

[...]

I did have a tank of pirahna for a while, but they were so gosh darn shy they pretty much stayed at the back of the tank or hung out in the shrubbery.

Until you dropped a side of beef into the tank?

[james]

Congrats! I was mostly a catfish keeper myself but those are quite cute. I had some black mollies breed unexpectedly once. A lot of the babies got eaten by their tank mates.

[Cosmic Wonder]

“ Oh, I love the smell of fresh snapper fried light”

Jimmy Buffett, Landfall

Mike

[epaul]

I have five tanks going. My Africans are in one 75 and 5 goldfish are in the other 75. A young Severum is in the forty (when mature, he will be size of a nice crappie, 6" long and nice and round:


My little A. nanolueus (3" F, 3.5" M) are in their own tank, a 20L. And I have a 20 tall filled with guppies. I have two other 20 longs that can be put into service for raising the babies when it is time to separate them.

(the severum photo is a stock photo, but that's where mine is heading)

[david]

Do you need to change the tank water periodically or do filters now take care of that?

[epaul]

Only water changes can remove nitrate, the final, and least toxic, result of the nitrogen cycle. Fish can tolerate high nitrate levels for a good while, but are healthiest if nitrate levels are kept low. How often and how much water is changed depends on the bioload (how many and how large in what size tank). My large tanks are plumbed so it is matter of opening some valves and closing others. I have portable pumps for the smaller tanks. The African tank is the only one I need to do a water change on every week, and I do a big on, 40% or so. My other tanks are lightly stocked, which helps a whole lot. Big tanks with few fish are easy peasy.

A recommended benchmark for a typical tank (which is typically overstocked for the tank size) is a 20% water change weekly.

Nitrate toxicity is low and a long term issue, if I miss a change, I just make it a bigger change next go round. I do have water test kits of every type, but once you know a tank, you have a good idea of what needs to be done on what kind of schedule.

Fresh water is simple. Back on the farm, I had 180 gallon marine tank running for seven years or so. Salts are lot more work. But, again, the right sort of plumbing makes it all go a lot more smoothly.

[epaul]

Live plants remove nitrate. A lot of healthy plants in a lightly stocked tank can do the trick, but growing healthy live plants is its own battle. One idea I am toying with is using one of my 20 longs as a sump filter for the African tank, and in that tank I would grow all kinds of plants... possibly pothos and rhododendrons suspended above the tank with their nitrate removing roots in the water. Those guys grow like crazy with no work.

[dradtke]

Couldn't you put in a row of tomato plants and kill two birds with one stone?

[Cornflake]

Very cool, Paul.

[TKennedy]

My granddaughter caught this guy near our house a few days ago.  We have been keeping him alive with plans to sell him on eBay as breeding stock. Would you like to make an offer epaul?

9

[epaul]

That is a good-sized sunny! Real good-sized!

[howard lee]

Aug 27, 2024 16:28:38 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

My granddaughter caught this guy near our house a few days ago.  We have been keeping him alive with plans to sell him on eBay as breeding stock. Would you like to make an offer epaul?

9

Goodness, Terry! Is that Claire, whose singing was so sweet at the age of 11 or thereabouts?

[TKennedy]

Yep that’s Claire and sadly I can’t get her to sing anymore. Maybe someday, she was good.

[Rob Hanesworth]

Aug 27, 2024 17:14:44 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

Yep that’s Claire and sadly I can’t get her to sing anymore. Maybe someday, she was good.

Did Vermont drop football in 1974?

[John B]

Aug 27, 2024 9:47:50 GMT -5 howard lee said:

Aug 27, 2024 9:43:58 GMT -5 John B said:

[...]

I did have a tank of pirahna for a while, but they were so gosh darn shy they pretty much stayed at the back of the tank or hung out in the shrubbery.

Until you dropped a side of beef into the tank?

They were fond of goldfish.

[TKennedy]

Aug 27, 2024 19:47:45 GMT -5 Rob Hanesworth said:

Aug 27, 2024 17:14:44 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

Yep that’s Claire and sadly I can’t get her to sing anymore. Maybe someday, she was good.

Did Vermont drop football in 1974?

I’ll ask her. I bet they did.