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I just made a trade :)

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By New Guppy Momma
from the Happy NGM department, Section Diaries
Posted on Wed Aug 06, 2008 at 08:09:55 PM PST
Tags: (all tags)
I just traded 13 guppies for a trio of pineapple Swordtails.



I'm getting out of the guppy business. The strain (one original female) I have is very boring. The females are all grey (some with a bit of yellow in their tails) and the males are all yellow snakeskins or possibly leopards.

But anyway I guess this is as good a place as any to update on my tanks and pond.

To start with my pond is about 150 or so gallons. My husband dug it for me with a pick and a shovel. My Mom donated some left over black pond liner and her old filter. I originally got 20 feeder fish (possibly shubunkins, maybe just goldfish). I'm now down to 9 fish. The first week or so I was losing a fish a day. But I haven't lost one in about 2 weeks (pond is about a month old) so "knock on wood". We have 3 that are very distinct. Big Girl (my 5 year old say's they're all girls) is about 3 inches long, Oreo is black and white, and Tigger is orange with black fins and tail. The rest are orange and we have 2 who are white with orange heads. I have about 6 water hyacinths floating around and a pot with some water lily's (dug up from a nearby "wild" pond). The lily's are beautiful, lots of dark green leaves/pads and pretty yellow flowers. Oh and we have a little frog that jumped in one day and has made his home in my pond. My girls named "him" Kermit :) He lives in my pot of mint next to the pond when he isn't in the pond.
As for water changes....It's been raining quite often (at least once a week) and with evaporation and rain re-filling I haven't yet done a water-change. If it rains really heavily I dip water out and let it fill back in. I also have an umbrella (big one that stands alone) that I put over the pond to give it shelter from the sun and keep some rain off it. But that's my pond.

As for my tank... The Beast is getting pretty full. Tonight I took a bunch of gups to my fish store and traded them for the sword. A nice looking trio. My next planed fish purchase is a male dwarf gourami. The current Princess Pat (Platinum sunset dwarf) is very round looking. I'm guessing full of eggs. So her and a male will go into a 10 gallon and be watched closely until nest building, mating etc has taken place and hopefully I will raise some baby Gourami's.
Just tonight I also noticed little white fish in the Beast. They have black zebra-like stripes on their tails. Guess I have to let them grow a bit and see what they are. I did have to cull a couple. Into the pond and see if they survive. My guess is they're Mollies (I have one suddenly skinny Molly). Oh and I have some bit bigger baby mollies and some baby moons. It would be nice to be able to set up a 10 gallon for each species. (Unc I see why you have so many, So many fish...so little space). But the Beast is like a big science experiment. I have to have patience and see what grows up.

Oh and I saw the cutest angel fish. They're koi angels. They are colored like a koi fish. I may have to get one. Maybe as "fry-control".......HMMMMM

Well It's late and I need to get to bed. See everyone tomorrow.

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I just made a trade :) | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Well done on the trade :) I'm guessing that (none / 0) (#1)
by unclescott on Sun Aug 10, 2008 at 08:34:02 PM PST

your LFS is pretty good at caring for your fish. A lot of us get a little touchy about who we send our "babies" home with.

The koi angels (or any freshwater angelfish) certainly will act as a curb on livebearer fry. It has been a long time since I have hung out with angelfish breeders, but Google and check around for "koi angelfish and color foods." Some people who raise them have never mentioned this, but I vaguely recall also reading of where the person raising up the koi fry, worked very hard to feed them color foods high in carotenes.

The ultimate coloration of at least one other hobby strain of angelfish (leopard) seems to depend upon a certain level of lighting. Check around for details on those if that raises your curiosity. :)

Also, one of the drawbacks to keeping angelfish is that they will pair off and lay a lot of eggs. Given your faithful water changes, they will grow, pair and spawn. Then, unless you have a 55-gallon tank for each batch of fry (the pairs do fine in 20s), you may need to look for something to cull angelfish fry. ;)

I have fed extra cichlid fry to large killies, but one must feed off those fry very soon after hatching. Otherwise, there is a danger of choking the killie on the rapidly hardening and growing fins. Maybe a large pike livebearer wouldn't mind a break from its diet of rosy reds.

Got a chance to browse Mike Hellweg's new livefoods book put out by TFH. I need to look at it more (and save my mad money). Mike makes a strong point that feeding fry (and a remarkable long list of other creatures) is most appropriate. Hw warns against anthropomorphizing our fish.

I like dwarf gouramis. And it is cool watching the males build their nest. The spawning act is an event all in itself. After the pair has spawned, it is imperative to remove the female soon. The eggs in the nest may be hard to see, especially if we miss the spawning. The fry look like pin heads. (Newly dropped guppy fry are huge in  comparison.) Look for a decided change in the male's behavior and a female hiding as far away from the nest as possible. (In nature she would flee away from harm by stealing down the shore or across the pond or rice paddy. That allows females to forage for food and rebuild her egg supply. while the male watches the nest. When the fry are free swimming, though males may leave them alone for a while, there no need to keep him in there.)

Is the platinum dwarf gourami another commercial sport of Colisa lalia? As you know, there is the even smaller honey gourami a.k.a. the honey dwarf gourami and the red flame honey gourami.

By the way, I doubled checked names at the quite authoritative Fish Base http://www.fishbase.org/ComNames/CommonNameSearchList.php
and was very surprised to see that the honey gourami is now Trichogaster chuna (previously   Colisa chuna or Colisa sota). The dwarf gouramis are still being called C. lalia, though miss-spellings of that name are common on the Net.

You may need some very small food for the fry. To get a good sized batch raised up, you probably want to hatch baby brine shrimp. I would suggest hatching two modestly sized batches, starting them in alternate days and harvesting alternately. The empty culture should then be restarted. The salt water should be replaced if it seems at all rich organically. If there are extra bbs (baby brine shrimp) there are certainly livebearers in the Beast who will take care of them.

Some gourami fry will grow up in a well planted tank where they can take some microscopic food items growing on plant leaves. A greenwater pond without predators might serve them sell. The plants or greenwater should be supplemented by some small dry food and clean up corps of pond snails. Mosquito eggs rafts hatching and micro Daphnia (such as Moina) are welcomed too.

Enjoying pretty warm water (75-84 F/24-29C), the dwarf gourami is one of those "lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer" spawners. Certainly they will spawn at other times in heated aquariums, but a dwarf gourami nest goes well with long sunny days, ball games on the radio (while doing things in the fishroom), the softball and little league games in the park, visiting friends, meeting half the neighborhood (while being taken for walks by the schnoodle), puttering around the yard and feeding 20-gallon container "ponds."

Re-roofing, painting and falling off of ladders will never make the hit parade. ;)

Your big aquarium is great for raising larger swordtails. We too often either crowd them or keep them in aquariums smaller than ideal.

Gotta grin to think about getting rid of guppies because of their capacity to overpopulate the place. So you replace female guppies that might max out at as much as 100 fry with swordtail females, which might max out at even 300 fry. ;)




Just call me crazy :) (none / 0) (#2)
by New Guppy Momma on Mon Aug 11, 2008 at 02:17:48 PM PST

I like Swords tho. Plus with more grown-ups in the Beast I don't think I'll be too over run with fry. It took about 3 months before I noticed my first Moon fry. And I just noticed Molly fry (had mollies since the end of March).
I have so many gups because they were all stuck in a 10 gallon. I am starting to cull tho. I had to fish a twisted spine little Moon out (into the pond) as well as a couple of bent spine gups. No sense in keeping inferior stock.
Baby Gourami's might have to wait til next year. By the time I'll be able to afford "Daddy" it will be too cool out. And considering the temps today we're in for a long cold winter. It was just barely above 50* this morning. But my molly females are skinny and I saw some black babies about 1/4 inch swimming in one corner.
I have noticed that of the 3 main live bearers Guppy babies are the biggest.
I may have to get some bbs's. The Beast occupants like mossy larvae. They would probably do good with the BBS.
Oh and Mrs Gourami is a color variety of Colisa lalia. Found this in my search http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=428
I also have a tiny Honey in the Beast. He doesn't seem to be doing so good tho. Likes to hide in one corner.

As for 4 legged furry pets that bark...I'm sure you know all your neighbors by their dogs names and what breed! There's a white Bishon named Max who's madly in love with my Sasha (my mutt, collie/terrier)

Well Gotta go.... Back to work...:) Dinner time is creeping up on me.
Before all else fails....do a 25% water change ;)
[ Parent ]



"I'm sure you know all your neighbors by (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Fri Aug 15, 2008 at 10:55:55 AM PST

their dog's names..." Wow! That is an interesting observation. Certainly know a higher % of the dog's names than all of the neighbor's names. There's room for a little guilt. :(

It is a little bit like having kids and coming to know the neighbors' kids and eventually their parents. Partly a matter of opportunities.

My wife spoke just spoke of the people who have such a great garden next door to Charlie the beagle's house. Of course if you have kids, you will amble through the grocery and be greeted with... "Hey Matt's mom" or "Hello Jen's Dad!" :)

[ Parent ]



I just made a trade :) | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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