Plecodoras
Active Member
Well RCZ'ers, some times there is more to life than cars - did I just say that, well yes I did.
Now after that blasphemy another not so well know fact is I keep and breed some rare tropical fish all from the mighty Amazon and it's tributaries in South America. Some of these fish are on the endangered list and it is illegal to export from S.America and some are nearly there, so it is imperative to help these fish and their survival. One way is to try to breed them and swap / trade etc with other breeders and maybe even sell back to aquatic shops in the country, this way they don't need to purchase them or get fishermen to catch them and send them half way round the world.
So what you may say? well of course you can say whatever you like, some like cuddly Koala bears, some elephants, or even jaguars, lions, leopards and tigers and even rhino's. Well aswell as some of them, I like to do my bit with these fishes I keep and breed.
As mentioned on another thread recently I have at last count forty, 40 fish tanks !! yes you read that right 40.
As some of you know I have just come back from a trip to Italy in the car, and my fish needed some extra care when I came back ( don't worry I had someone feeding them whilst I was away ) and this is where the story and headline starts.
I was cleaning one of my larger tanks and extracting the fish from their caves, separating them and then cleaning out the tank and emptying the water to refill, this is a huge task and not one I relish. Whilst cleaning the tank and hand full of gravel, I noted that I had some eggs in my hand, bugger I thought that's them dead - ( in the wild the fish I keep dig little caves in the bank or make residence in an old rotting log, when Mr fish is ready he lets a Miss fish into his cave, he then traps her until she has given him what he wants !! then he kicks her out. from that moment on he is the carer for the eggs and further down the line the fry that hatch, once he thinks they are big enough he kicks them out too. Sometimes if he thinks the eggs are bad he ejects them from the cave or he eats them, nice dad LOL. Once the eggs are ejected from the cave and away from the dad, they will not hatch as it is near impossible to give them the care what dad gives them in his cave ) That is more often than not the case and upto now out of all the eggs that I have found outside of the cave, I have only had three fish hatch and they died. Anyway I have found eggs previously and as said they are doomed without dad, but neverless I thought I'm going to try to hatch these, so I put them in an upside down pop bottle which I use for hatching brine shrimp to feed my fish. I then added some anti-fungus treatment ( the reason the water is green ) and turned on the air to circulate the mixture and fan the eggs.
Today to my surprise, many of them have hatched as you can see here in the following pictures. There are still eggs in the bottle but if you look closely you can see little fish with huge yolk sacks ( they will eat from these for the next 3 -4 days and they are in fact the newborn fishes stomach ) once they have depleted the yolk sacks, they will be ready to take small food, which is another challenge !
This ends my story, if you want to see how the fish grow on into adulthood, just say and I will show you Z'ers their progress.
On a foot note, I cleaned another tank the day before this one and in the process changed 50% of the water for cooler clean water. This stimulates some fish into breeding as they sense the cooler water as the onset of the rainy season and fresh rain water running from the Andes. This is a natural trigger for many fishes, as this denotes the rainy season and the fact there will be food in abundance for the fry to aid their survival. Anyway the fishes in that tank laid eggs on the glass surface..... I have as yet not removed these ( a different kind of fish ) but will in a days time.
Anyway I have bored you senseless so for the few who are still awake, here is the pictures, not the best because from my mobile phone with a torch in my mouth !!!
Now after that blasphemy another not so well know fact is I keep and breed some rare tropical fish all from the mighty Amazon and it's tributaries in South America. Some of these fish are on the endangered list and it is illegal to export from S.America and some are nearly there, so it is imperative to help these fish and their survival. One way is to try to breed them and swap / trade etc with other breeders and maybe even sell back to aquatic shops in the country, this way they don't need to purchase them or get fishermen to catch them and send them half way round the world.
So what you may say? well of course you can say whatever you like, some like cuddly Koala bears, some elephants, or even jaguars, lions, leopards and tigers and even rhino's. Well aswell as some of them, I like to do my bit with these fishes I keep and breed.
As mentioned on another thread recently I have at last count forty, 40 fish tanks !! yes you read that right 40.
As some of you know I have just come back from a trip to Italy in the car, and my fish needed some extra care when I came back ( don't worry I had someone feeding them whilst I was away ) and this is where the story and headline starts.
I was cleaning one of my larger tanks and extracting the fish from their caves, separating them and then cleaning out the tank and emptying the water to refill, this is a huge task and not one I relish. Whilst cleaning the tank and hand full of gravel, I noted that I had some eggs in my hand, bugger I thought that's them dead - ( in the wild the fish I keep dig little caves in the bank or make residence in an old rotting log, when Mr fish is ready he lets a Miss fish into his cave, he then traps her until she has given him what he wants !! then he kicks her out. from that moment on he is the carer for the eggs and further down the line the fry that hatch, once he thinks they are big enough he kicks them out too. Sometimes if he thinks the eggs are bad he ejects them from the cave or he eats them, nice dad LOL. Once the eggs are ejected from the cave and away from the dad, they will not hatch as it is near impossible to give them the care what dad gives them in his cave ) That is more often than not the case and upto now out of all the eggs that I have found outside of the cave, I have only had three fish hatch and they died. Anyway I have found eggs previously and as said they are doomed without dad, but neverless I thought I'm going to try to hatch these, so I put them in an upside down pop bottle which I use for hatching brine shrimp to feed my fish. I then added some anti-fungus treatment ( the reason the water is green ) and turned on the air to circulate the mixture and fan the eggs.
Today to my surprise, many of them have hatched as you can see here in the following pictures. There are still eggs in the bottle but if you look closely you can see little fish with huge yolk sacks ( they will eat from these for the next 3 -4 days and they are in fact the newborn fishes stomach ) once they have depleted the yolk sacks, they will be ready to take small food, which is another challenge !
This ends my story, if you want to see how the fish grow on into adulthood, just say and I will show you Z'ers their progress.
On a foot note, I cleaned another tank the day before this one and in the process changed 50% of the water for cooler clean water. This stimulates some fish into breeding as they sense the cooler water as the onset of the rainy season and fresh rain water running from the Andes. This is a natural trigger for many fishes, as this denotes the rainy season and the fact there will be food in abundance for the fry to aid their survival. Anyway the fishes in that tank laid eggs on the glass surface..... I have as yet not removed these ( a different kind of fish ) but will in a days time.
Anyway I have bored you senseless so for the few who are still awake, here is the pictures, not the best because from my mobile phone with a torch in my mouth !!!
