The Cichlid Chronicles

[TheFishGuy]

What a dibacle....

I forgot to pull the eggs... But fortunately there's two pair of red shoulder severums in the 125 upstairs and it had seemed the other pair had spawned too! How exciting because I as walked past the tank I noticed wrigglers hatching out of pair 2's spawn!

I had to take a few steps before removing the wrigglers. I needed to move the ten gallon full of amphilophus flaveolus fry to a different location so this new batch of little ones can be easily monitored. That part went smooth... The rest didn't...

I decided to watch a DVR'd episode of river monsters and throw a heating pad on my pulled groin muscle before pulling the wrigglers... Mistake number one... After the show I went upstairs with a bucket, hose and one towel. Mistake number two... I removed two of the three sections of the top on the tank and had left the light strip in place. Mistake number three...

In the time it took to watch Jeremy Wade catch a wolf fish and get struck by lightning it seemed all of the fry were finished hatching and missing! After some observation I decided to just vacuum an entire area where the parents looked as if they were tending fry. They even attacked my siphon hose! So I'm hopefull.

I carried the bucket full of sand and hopefully some fry (and a bunch of ditrius) down to the fish room and slowly dumped it into a ten gallon that was already loaded with methylene blue... which incidently is all over my hands because the cap broke when trying to remove it... My intention was to fill the rest of the ten with tap water but decided to get another bucket full of water from the 125... Why not? Mistake number four...

When I started to fill the bucket the hose slipped out of it and in a panic I knocked the light strip into the tank! In a serious panic I started yelling for help and fish towels! No one came... I was a bit more lucky than Jeremy, I didn't get electrocuted But what a heck of a mess! Water everywhere and I have no clue if I have any fry... The water is too blue and there's crap everywhere all over the floor of the ten gallon tank... I can usually pick out wrigglers but I can't this time... I plan to do 10% water changes daily so hopefully something will wriggle in there! Wish me luck...

And after reading this to my wife she promptly asked "Did you clean up all the water?"

[TYTONK]

Hey! Any update on the Electric Blue Jack Dempsey spawn? Maybe some pictures?

[smitty]

I am not complaining about the size of the thread since my general opinion is the bigger the better.

[TheFishGuy]

Hey! Any update on the Electric Blue Jack Dempsey spawn? Maybe some pictures?

Only two have survived... This is what happens when Jonny gets busy and loses interest... They are a touch over an inch and seem relatively healthy...

[TheFishGuy]

Exciting update! The discovery of between 30-50 red shoulder severum fry was made yesterday morning! Awesome stuff, just when I had given up! I haven't been this excited about fry since the first time I got hatiensis fry!

Happy Birthday America!

[TheFishGuy]

I've recently been involved in a discussion on another forum and this came up:

According to Ken Davis, the Rotkeil without bars are hybrids with H. efasciatus. I was surprised to hear this myself, I had hoped they might be a mutation. However, the red band is obviously the same shape and in the same place on both fish.

Anyone else hear of this?

[smitty]

I have finally taken the time to go thru your blog. I must say I am very impress with your passion and love for the hobby. Pat yourself on the back and after you are done pat the rest of the family on the back for there support. You will be hearing from me again in the future for advice and possible acquiring some fish. I currently have a 150 gal with a mating pair of dovi. 180 gal with 8 managuense 4M, 4F along with several plecos. 200 gal with synspilums, zonatum, hogaboomorums. Along with 6 bifasciatus (rio chacamax) that I picked up at this years ACA convention in MD. They are currently in a grow out container.

[TheFishGuy]

Nice collection smitty! You're going to need more tanks! LOL

Thanks for the kind words!

[TheFishGuy]

So I've got to give my wife some major praise here... Tuesday nite, after golf... She helped conduct water changes on 26 tanks!
That was awesome babe! Thank you! I love you!

[TheFishGuy]

Remember those marble cons that survived the cold water delivery... There's six in a 30 gallon and I believe there's three pairs... THere's some major intense negotiations going on in there! LOL

The red shoulder severum fry are doing great, there's about 40 of em or so... Eating and starting to look like severums...

The flaveolus from lake apoyo spawned again... shocking, I know....

And well... that's about it...

Oh, got some new fish... Sajica and cryptoheros siquia... Should be fun raising them!

[TheFishGuy]

Took some photos of the 1200 today... went a little silly....

http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/ ... =slideshow

[TheFishGuy]

I just finished the final touch on the tank today...

An unassuming wall of awards:


But wait, what's this?


Now to paint the inside of the feeding access... I guess then it'll be 100%

[TheFishGuy]

Ok... A few things transpired today....
The number one voted fish to go in my empty 125, the bluegill, are going to be donated to my daughters 7th grade science class. I'm donating a tank too... And my daughter will do the maint. for extra credit....

Second place were the nanoluteus and the oblongum... Soooo....

By putting the oblongum in the 125 along with a gaggle of ameca splendens essentially free'd up four tanks in the fish room. Not to mention a good friend of mine decided to ship me two female oblongum! They arrived today!

Also one of the free'd up tanks was a 29... So the nanoluteus went in the 29. They are small but sexually mature... And I've never spawned them... so....yeah, bring in the Barry White...

At any rate...

When the girls arrived today my incredibly awesome wife (who is trained in how to unpack fish) put them in a bucket with an air stone until I could get home and deal with them.

She tells me that one of the girls is really spunky while the other is very laid back. One of my males is the also very laid back. He doesn't care if he's netted or in a bucket or in your hand for that matter! LOL

Here's a few shots of the 5 oblongum in the 125:

One of my three males (the mellow one):


This is an interesting picture... In the back ground is the spunky female in the flower pot. The male in the foreground is the mellow laid back male, to the right of him is the mellow female... And you can see the but of one of the freak males. LOL


The girls... Already arguing over the mellow boy:


Freak girl, mellow girl, mellow boy...


It's pretty interesting how the dynamics of this tank are taking shape almost instantly. The two other males are off fighting with each other while the mellow male hangs with the chicks! LOL (that was always me) (the fish geek)

I can almost predict what's going to happen... After the two freak males finish their bickering the victor will challenge the mellow male.

Timing is key here... If the mellow male has already spawned with one of the girls (more than likely the slutty one) he will not be so mellow and will easily oust the challenging male.

If mellow boy has not spawned yet he will more than likely have to be removed from the tank as he won't stand a chance against either of the freak boys... I guess we'll have to see what happens...

I guess I'll mention that the red shoulder severums are about an inch so they'll be in the OCA BAP buck a bag auction tomorrow nite!

AND! I've got about 75 free swimming marble convict fry! Yay! I bred convicts! Oh wait... I did that 25 years ago too... LOL I'm excited though, they are excellent parents to observe!

I should also mention my friend who sent me the oblongum sent me about 20 Andinocara Latifrons fry! They're about 3/8" so I get to raise them too! Fun fun fun!

[HONDO]

Awesome update on the Oblongum!
Are any of these guys the ones I sent you?


Taylor

[TheFishGuy]

All three males are from you!

WOW! So I've got the day off today and decided to make myself some sausage egg and cheese Mcmuffins! Ran out and got some english muffins and cooked em up. I said to myself, self, I'm gonna sit at the table in the livingroom and watch the Oblongum whilst I eat my delicious sandwiches. I made two but was attempting to hurt the second one down when I noticed something quite odd besides me being full after one sandwich... One male in the tank was extremely colored up and constantly chasing the other two...


So imediately I'm thinking... Do we have eggs already? No way... Well, we do! AND I think he spawned with both females! One of which laid eggs on the bottom of the blue flower pot! It took all of me to squeeze my head against the wall to see if I could see eggs! LOL This is a bad shot but here she is:


Now I believe the other female (who is also colored up and acting the same way) might have eggs in an aquarium decoration that looks like a rusted out old car. Here she is darting back in after chasing off one of the lesser males:




Now here's a full tank shot, the rusty car is in the middle of the tank and the blue pot is on the right. They're about 2' from each other!


The question is... Do I pull the eggs that I know for sure are there? I'm not 100% sure the other female has eggs. I'm about 80%

Thoughts?

[TheFishGuy]

Ok, couldn't wait, I pulled the eggs... I always feel bad pulling eggs but... on the other hand it is very rewarding to incubate and raise them yourself...

I filled two five gallon pails with water from the 125, pulled the pot and put it in one of the pails... Took em down stairs to a ten gallon tank, poured the water in from one of the pails, put the pot in then put the bucket of water in that the egg pot was in. Filled the ten perfectly. Here's a shot of the eggs... And since I'm waiting for my 185 and 240 to drain I'm going to print the picture out and count the eggs.

[TheFishGuy]

543 EGGS!

[TheFishGuy]

The other female does indeed have eggs!

[TheFishGuy]

The eggs are starting to fungus even with methylne blue in... I'd say about 1/4-1/3 are fungused...

[TheFishGuy]

The oblongum eggs never hatched... well, one did but I vacuumed it up by accident Good news is they're colored up once again! Time will tell!

I thought I'd answer a question that's often asked of me. "What's maintenance like on your big tank?"

I'll take you all through it step by step... We were rained out today and the filter pads needed rinsed... Which is all I do for maint aside from sending one of my kids into the tank to clean the glass every couple months...

Here's the filter, it's a 55 without a bottom. Water comes in through three 2" pipes and hits a diffuser of sorts ( a 36" under gravel filter plate) to ensure the water isn't just blown right through the 2" sponges.


At 3:00pm eastern standard time I unplugged the pump that runs the filteration system. Since the system is gravity fed it takes about ten minutes for the water to stop trickling through the filter. When it stops the cover on the 55 is removed along with the UGF plate and this is what we see:


The filter pads are removed and taken to the fish room on the other side of the basement to be rinsed in the slop sink. Egg crate is used to hold up the filter pads above the bio media:




The pads are rinsed and put back into the filter tower (55 gallon)


Diffuser put back into place:


Lid put back on and pump plugged back in... Done!


Closed the door to the back of the tank at 3:30 on the dot!

Thirty minutes of maint once every couple months! Not bad!