I’ve not blogged anything about the fish house in a while, because nothing really exciting has happend, and I didn’t think you be interested in feeding the fish, or bi-weekly partial water changes. To conserve electricity, I shut down six small fish tanks in December 2008 (18inch x 10inch x 10inch, and smaller), they were used as quarantine, and for smaller fish, but more recently I’d increased the fish house, by six tanks, so these weren’t really used a great deal. These four fish tanks, were the first four that started the fish house in 2004. Time for a change.
I’ve had three four foot fish tanks in storage since the fish house move of July 2006. One four foot tank would replace these four nicely!
I’ve cleaned, soak tested it for leaks, and painted the sides white with some spare matt emulsion. It’s not the tidest of fish tanks, but it holds water, ideal for the fish house.
Before – fish tanks that will be replaced
These are the four dirty fish tanks in the fish hosue that will be replaced by one single 48x15x12 fish tank. I just noticed that one of the tanks, has a successfuly breeding colony of snails. Most of the time, I’m trying to get rid of these with Clown andCandy loaches, and have successfully removed all snails from the fish house. I’ll keep these in another small tank, so I can rear them for live food for the loaches. (I’ll regret it later, I’m sure).
After – removed! Fish tanks removed.
wires, and new polysterene required, and a bit of tidy up required before I site the replacement fish tank. That’s another day.
Apologies for not posting for a while, life just gets in the way. But with the arrival of some new fish, starts a New Long Term Breeding Project.
I saw mature large “breeding pairs” of these fish three years ago at a local auction in West Yorkshire, they were advertised as a breeding pair, definately males and females but I suspect the owner, had no success in breeding them and hence they were up for auction. To this very day, I regret not keeping my hand up for longer, they sold for little money! and it’s taken me that long to obtain some young fish so I can grow on, and hopefully ontain some breeding pairs.
Well if you wanted any for a pound a bag you should have gone to the 1st Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society Auction today in Sheffield. Congratulations to Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society on a great auction. Auction promptly started at 1.00pm, and closed at 4.30pm, 20 large boxes (lots) of fish and stuff, and the first ever Fish Auction, I’ve been to where, they had a catalogue of the Lots, booked in, in Advance! Guppies, Platies, Mollies, Swordtails, Corys, Angelfish, Endlers, Bristlenoses (LDA016), and some very unusual home bred corydoras. I purchased the following :-
This is a rarely seen catfish from Peru. I have a wild breeding group of six.
In this video you can see two young F1 corydoras weitzmani, I have breed, I’ve left two of them with their parents. I also have large breeding groups of Wild Corydoras sterbai.
I also purchased many months ago a breeding pair of Geophagus proximus and two unidentified Geophagus. I think one is a Geophagus sp. ‘Red Head Tapajos’ – possibly, the others I don’t know. In this video, you can clearly see the red head and the proximus, the odd things is since, I’ve introduced the red head into the tank with the pair of proximus, the red head and a single proximus seem happier together, leaving a loan proximus!
Tags: breeding Posted in All, fish house | Comments Off on Geophagus sp. ‘Red Head Tapajos’ and Geophagus proximus
Web hosting server is still giveing me issues again!, appears to be back on again!
I’ll update the webcam pages, and relocate the camera tomorrow.
One of the Geophagus that I removed from the display tank of other Geos’ started to beat-up the catfish in the quarantine tank, so now his tail has grown back, I’ve moved him into the 6″ display tank with all the Angels. Hopefully he’ll calm down with fish his own size.
Lobsters have hatched and disappeared in a 48x18x18 tank, with lots of ocean rock, time to remove the female lobster, if I can catch her, and return to the breeding tank with the male.
I’ve kept these Cichlids twenty years ago, and I’ve been trying to find a pair since, these cichlids have spectacular colours, especially when breeding. I’ve not seen them in the shops, and in the late 80s, was lucky to have three females and one male – long since gone.
I was lucky to find, that a local cichlid breeder, was giving up a very young pair. I put them in a quarantine tank, with a pair of Geophagus proximus, I like to quarantine all new arrivals into the fish house, for four weeks before moving them into breeding tanks. I picked these up on the 9th September, and I noticed the Geos were being bashed to hell, only to notice in a plant pot, fry a few days off from free swimming.
The unusual thing about the Nicaragua Cichlid Cichlasoma nicaraguensis is that the eggs they lay, are not adhesive, and roll-around the floor. I assume so they can move them from nest to nest, unlike most cichlids, that use a surface to spawn on, and their eggs are adhesive.
Female Cichlasoma nicaraguensis with fry.
Female Cichlasoma nicaraguensis with fry.
Male Cichlasoma nicaraguensis with fry.
Male and Female Cichlasoma nicaraguensis with fry.
I’ve just been talking to a local fishkeeper recently new to the internet and the world of computing and he recommended I visit the following website:-
This was the comment he made about it:-
An excellent diary of fishkeeping events from andys fish house somewhere in Yorkshire, he breeds Angelfish and Catfish, currently breeding Sturisoma Aureum, also has live webcams from the fish house, and live temperature gauge of internal and external temperatures. Lots of hints and tips from a real fishkeeper. I liked reading his daily ups and downs in the fish house. It’s good to read success and failures, real experiences in the fish house, from a fishkeeper.
Umm. Sound familiar!
I didn’t reveal my identity to him, but I’m sure he’ll be reading this, and the penny will drop!
Okay, back to things, I’ve been busy completing the installation of the latest six tanks, these are now all complete, fitted and filled, filtration is performed by Algarde dual Bio-Foam 200, and heating is provided by Visitherm 200 and 300 watt heaters. It’s taken me a while to tidy-up all the wiring.
I’ve also been very busy, collecting fish from around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I’ll take some pictures of all these new fish and list the contents of the fish house shortly. I’m away on a course over the next week, so it will be in a few days. I’ve also got the results of my food trial, which I’ll also be publishing.