The Cichlid Chronicles

[TheFishGuy]

So by demand I've started a blog...I say by demand because quite a few people have told me I should blog about my fishy goings on… Not sure how well I'm going to do but I'm going to try and simply post about anything fish related that’s going on with me. Spawns, changes in tanks or changes in the fish room, newly acquired species and so on.

If you care, here's a little history. If you don't care then skip all this and look at the pictures

I just turned 36 January 9th, I've been keeping cichlids non-stop since I turned 11 at which time I had a 15 gallon tank with a pink and grey convict. So I guess you can say I've been breeding cichlids for 25 years if you count the rabbits of the water... Incidentally I will always have convicts. I like em; they will always have a place in my fish room, along with Oscars.

I live in a quiet town in a small house with my lovely and talented wife along with our four kids, a couple of rats, a couple of turtles, a dog that loves fish food and 50 aquariums...

Here's what's happened lately so as to catch you up.

I've converted the 1200 gallon to a SA cichlid community here's the stock list:
Five Oscars (two of which are a breeding pair)
Seven Port Cichlids (at least two pairs if not three)
Breeding pair of Rotkiel Severums
One Caquetaia spectabilis
One unknown severum with a bad eye
One Green Terror (five more growing out a bit)
Two silver dollars
One tinfoil barb (don’t ask)
Two plecos
Nine psittacum, four of which should have been culled.
And Elvis, the soft shell turtle.
But who cares, here’s the pics:
http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/ ... 2d5b78.pbw
http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/ ... bb349c.pbw
On the 16th the blue gene jack dempseys spawned for the first time since march. And on the 17th the hatiens spawned again.





I attempted to get out as many fry from the previous spawn as I could but a few did not fall for the fish trap. As of Tuesday morning the parents did not care that they were still in the tank.



I also set up my 185 with a few CA species:
Lone male hatiens
Lone Argentea
Lone small barred midas
Lone small carpintis
Breeding cutteri
Breeding convicts
Breeding nicaraguensis
And a handful of slowly diminishing ameca splendens
Pics:
http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/ ... 3fb071.pbw

I promise my updates will NEVER be this big again, and I also promise to post pictures every time I update, you know, so it’s worth looking at...

-peace

[oshp132]

Cool, good read....I was just getting in to it, and it ended!!!!
MORE.
MIKE

[Daniel Smith]

Love the haitiensis i have six growing on at the momment only about 2" TL . What size are yours they look quite young for a breeding pair
dan

[TheFishGuy]

It's good to be home from Pittsburgh! Go Jets! LOL Any way, The BGJD's have wrigglers, a ton of them!





It seems the hatiensis have wrigglers too. She's very good at hiding them, the way she's acting is unmistakeable... She's funny, only allowing the male to be a parent every once and a while...






The fish in the 1200 are acting like the dog got into the fish food and they haven't been fed for three days... Oh wait, that's exactly what happened ...





My hobbies are...


My wife Lora took this picture of Dexter after he ate a pound of fish food:

Love the haitiensis i have six growing on at the momment only about 2" TL . What size are yours they look quite young for a breeding pair
dan

Thank you, we like em too... Male is about 6", female 5" on a good day.

[TheFishGuy]

Some of you, and I do me "some" of you might find this exciting but most will not... I just got some fish via FEDEX and the water was 48*, all of the fish lay motionless on the bottom of the bag, very disapointing for me as I haven't really had these fish in a while, couple three years at least since my male died... I took pictures, contacted the seller and told him all of the fish perished... When I went to go dispose of them I noticed one slightly twitch! LIFE THERE'S LIFE IN THERE. I actually said that out loud to myself in the fishroom...

So in an effort to save as many as possible the plan was to gently open the bags and pour them into a small bucket and let 80* water drip in slowly through air line and an air line valve. The plan was working great up until I dropped the bag... OPEN... Those of you who have been in my fish room know that this is not good because I have two floor drains, and I dropped this bag two feet from one

I managed to pick up eleven of the 1/2" fry. Have you ever tried to pick up a 1/2" fish off a wet concrete floor? Not easy, let me tell you. And just coming off knee surgery I was in a little pain...

After managing to gather up about a teaspoon of water along with the fry I put them in a 2 cup measuring cup and it looks as if they MIGHT pull through...

Incidentaly, they're marble convicts...

[TheFishGuy]

Sheesh, so I've been in and out of the fish room checking on the seven or so survivors of the marble clan and I've lost my beer in the fish room every time... But here's the funny part, and I'm not sure how I missed it but my Thorichthys Mixteco golds have spawned... Seems they did a while ago because she's chewing the fry from their eggs right now They spawned on the front left corner of tank #10. Impossible to photograph... And now she's moving them to the back left corner

The clean spot is where the eggs are:



Here's mom:



Notice the dark splotch on her dorsal fin:


Moving wrigglers:


And Dad, who is VERY shy:


I'm still waiting for the rainbows and the austroloheros oblongum to spawn........... You know, cuz I want 7,000,000 fry to deal with all at once.

I'd Also like to clear out some room so I can give my pink fens a place to spawn... I like those fish...

[TheFishGuy]

Seems like it's seven that have made it...

All of the wrigglers are doing well, the only ones I have not seen yet are the hatiensis... But then again, didn't seem em last time either...

[TheFishGuy]

Just finished water changes on 10 ten gallon tanks and rinsed the sponges on each. Also did a water change on my wifes 240.

People have asked why I have not drilled my tanks and put in an automatic water changing system. Here's a few reasons why.

1. I enjoy water changes and working with the tanks
2. It's relaxing to me. I could have the worst day and an hour of water changes seems to mellow me out a bit.
3. With a water changing system you're just feeding your fish and not really seeing what's going on with them. I believe in watching your fish. You can learn a lot.
4. It gives an opportunity to check the temperature on the tanks, clean the glass, check to see if there's any issues. It forces you to be involved.

The 1200 is a different story. It used to take almost an hour just to refill the tank. If I tried to put that time to good use I would forget about it and water would be every where. That tank has a constant water supply flowing to it and the water temp is self regulating. All I do is feed the fish.

And because I said I would post a picture with every update...

Meet the Joker. One of the cylindricus in my wifes 240. Notice the markings on his snout.



By the way, there's 8 marble cons...

[TheFishGuy]

OK, Leaving for pitt tomorrow early AM. The JD fry are acting like jumping beans so I removed the parents. Whenever I remove parents from fry I seperate them so one does not take it out on the other that they are away from their fry.

Hopefully they will be free swimming tomorrow. My wife has been left with explicit instructions on feeding and care for the next three and a half days.

Rich, the female is in tank #3, the male in #14. Feel free to come and get them any time.

[Jshakour]

[quote="

And because I said I would post a picture with every update...

Meet the Joker. One of the cylindricus in my wifes 240. Notice the markings on his snout.



By the way, there's 8 marble cons... [/quote]


wouldnt he be the riddler?

[TheFishGuy]

Nice James! I was wondering who would catch it! LOL The same conversation took place here when we got him a year or so ago. The problem now is we can't change his name or he'll get a complex...

I'm still in Pittsburgh, lots of fun being here after Sundays game let me tell ya... At any rate, the reports from my wife Lora are that we've experienced some JD fry losses but not too many. I'm trying to save as many as possible for obvious reasons... She's taken some pictures and emailed them to me!

I'll get them posted in a few moments.

[TheFishGuy]

Free swimmers!











I guess Rich has already come and got his pair and claims to have emptied a few other tanks for himself... Of course I don't know where he thinks he's going to keep all those fish in his dinky little fish room...

I would imagine the hatiens fry are free swimming by now... I'll have to ask her...

[Jshakour]

so out of the Jack fry, how can you tell which are EBJD?

[TheFishGuy]

Rumor has it that in a couple of weeks it will become obvious... We'll see...

[TheFishGuy]

Quick update:

I brought home some cool fish Friday.

4-Aequidens Diadema (looks like it might be three males and a female) They went right into the 1200! What an awesome addition

Also brought home one chocolate cichlid that I hope pulls through. It had some nasty fungus growing on it and I'm treating it but it doesn't look good... I took it to try and save it...

Also brought home six amphilophus sagittae
4-Black moscow guppies (don't ask)
3-barred midas
And 2-firemouths (one's pretty ratty looking and will be going into quaranteen today at some point)

I'm going to see if I can get my wife to take some pictures, she's a much better photogragher than I am!

[TheFishGuy]

The oscars in the 1200 spawned again last nite... I was supposed to keep some from the batch a few spawns ago for a friend of mine but forgot... So I set up a ten and pulled the eggs at about midnight last nite...


In other news... The chocolate I just got did not pull through... Along with one of the firemouths and one of the moscow guppies...

[TheFishGuy]

So the Blue gene jack dempsey fry have been free swiming for about 11 days now... I was doing a water change on their tank just now and thought I'd report that I can see a difference in the fry already. Most are almost double the size of the others. On the 7th (this coming monday) they wil have been free swiming for two weeks. I think I'll take that evening to start removing what I believe to be Electric Blue Jack Dempseys.

[Jombi21]

Nice job with the Oscars. I tried to breed them in a 10 gallon once.

How is the dynamic in your South American swimming pool? Who is in control nowadays?

Jom

[TheFishGuy]

It's a very nice peaceful community. There's no real power struggles.... Yet... If I had to put a label on who would be in charge it'd be the breeding oscars... or Elvis... I'm sure in the future one of the psittacum will rise up and take over. The ports are starting to get annoying as they seem to want to spawn EVERYWHERE........

[TheFishGuy]

Gotta love fedex... A friend shipped me some fish that arrived today... This is how the box showed up:



Upon opening the soaked box I discovered one large bag (no air) zip tied shut with the four fish in it, fiesty as ever!

This was my friends first time shipping fish and it was the perfect fish to do it with too...

Austroloheros oblongum:




That was my pair... They have produced fry once, and rumor has it they are GREAT parents so I left the fry in with them... That was a mistake... They have not produced since and that was a while ago. She seems to always be in the mood but he's less than interested. Now it seems I've got three more males she can choose from and possibly a small female:



Water was 52* and now slowly climbing... I've got to get them in a tank withiuin the next few hours in order to make it to the OCA meeting tonite...