Posts Tagged ‘catfish’

Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society Fish Auction Report

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

I went to the Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society fish auction today, this is the second time I’ve been to a Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society fish auction. I received a very warm welcome from members of the society, and despite leaving late from York, and driving like a Forumla 1 driver, got to the auction before it started. Auction started shortly after 1pm, and was well catered for with refreshments, drinks and food, fanastic because I’d not eaten all day (I don’t do breakfast!), so it was nice to get a can of pop during a break, when I wasn’t bidding!

Just a list of the few fish that came up for auction, Corydoras (approx 10 different species), Platies, Mollies, Guppies, Angelfish, L-number catfish, Ancistrus (approx 5 different species), Cichlids, Danios, Gouramis and Killifish. I think there was something for most fishkeepers from beginners to experts, and also for sale F1 (local breed) King Tiger Plecos L66s, it wouldn’t be fair to list prices, just make sure you go to the next auction.Lots of dry goods, filters, food, electrical items, tanks. In my opinion, most tank breed local fish are always better quality than whats available in the local tropical fish shops. (if available).

The next auction, and it’s the last auction of the year is on Monday Evening 12th October at The Pheasant Inn, 822 Barnsley Road, Sheffield, S5 0QG. Auction starts at 20:00hrs.

This is the list of items I won today at auction

  • 6 x Pearl Danios (Danio albolineatus)
  • 2 x “Black Nose Sturisoma” (Sturisoma nigrirostrum)
  • 2 x L147 “Head Spot Pleco” (Peckoltia sp. (L147))
  • 2 x Pairs of “Line Breed Half Snakeskin Round Tail Moscow Guppies” (Poecilia reticulata)
  • 6 x Corydoras Kronei (Corydoras barbatus (Sao Paulo))
two boxes of fish!

two boxes of fish!

Again congratulations to members of the society for a execellent auction.

I was also lucky enough to win a few times in the Sheaf Valley Aquarist Society raffle today, and for first prize I selected a new Aqua One external filter and later some ceramic hoop filter media. So it’s always worth purchasing a strip to help out the society.

Raffle Prizes

Raffle Prizes

I also passed Simply Aquatics, 84 – 86 The Common, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, S35 9WN on the return journey, and this is one excellent shop. Excellent  slection of tropical, coldwater and marines, and very well maintained, and clean setup. Five stars and highly recommended, it will be on my places to visit next time I’m in the area. It’s only been open 6 months, and is definately worth a visit, whether begineer or expert. I also met David Marshall, Secretary of Ryedale Aquarist Soceity purchasing fish in Simply Aquatics as well (I didn’t know, I’d been sat next to him in the auction for three hours!). Just Google for David Marshall, Ryedale (click link and you’ll see who I’m referring to). He beat me to purchasing a very nice catfish, I must contact him, and ask him for the latin name, I also bought, what David Bought.

Purchased from Simply Aquatics,

  • 6 x Purple Zebra Danios (Danio rerio)
  • 5 x Spotted Silver Dollars (Metynnis lippincottianus)

The Zebra Danios were described as purple, but they look red/pink to me, the shop is a member of OATA, and assured me they were not dyed, and were true purple/red/pink direct from Malayasia. David and I were interested how these young danios develop and if they breed true. If DEFRA come knocking at our doors, we will know, thay they are GM fish! The Silver Dollars are to grow on for my large oddball tank.

Interesting!

Interesting!

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Large aquarium for tank busters

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

I’ve made a decision with the largest aquarium (6ftx2ftx2ft – 700l) I have in the fish house, I used to use it to hold my breeding angelfish stock, but it’s been rather empty of late, as I’m not breeding angelfish currently anymore, so I’ve finally accquired some large fish for it. (it’s being filtered and heated, so I might as well use it to house some tankbusters).  The first was a young Giant Red Tail Gourami Osphronemus laticlavius, I introduced a few weeks ago. (I’ll get some pictures), and yesterday evening I was called by my local vets that had rescued a large common “pleco”, approx 12 inches – they had it in their aquarium but thought it needed a larger aquarium, someone had brought it in to them because it had got too big for their aquarium.

common "pleco"

common "pleco"

It could be a Hypostomus plecostomus, the problem with these suckermouth catfish, they are sold as “common plecos”, small specimens to people that have algae problems, but they don’t realize how large they can grow, and then they become rather boisterous. They don’t do well, in my opinion on algae wafers entirely, and require shrimp, mussels and prawns to flourish.

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Bad things come in threes!

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Earlier this evening I was going to post an entry about bad things coming in threes, when only two Fish House issues had occured since Sunday 2nd December, I was going to post, what’s the third, well it happened! So let me wind back to Sunday 2nd December

  1. Early evening there was an initial mains power cut of a few minutes (approx 5 mins), too short for me to find a torch, and start-up the generator to power the fish house, after the main outage, the power flickered on and off for a few minutes and then it went off for good. The only problem this time, street lights were on, and the neighbours house lights, so the problem was localised, I found the 32A ring main for the sockets downstairs had tripped, on switching back-on, the main earth breaker tripped! After running around the house, unplugging all sockets, the fault was isolated to the fish house, my concern that the “brownout” had caused some equipment failure!

    At the back of the fish house, I noticed a pool of water, and realised, I’d overfilled one of my tanks, which had back-syphoned into the sump, when the power was off for those few minutes, which had then shorted out a “chocolate block” (terminal block for the layman!) which connects the heater in the sump! This is the only electrical wire on the fish house floor, so if any water gets on the floor, electrics are not affected! You’ll be glad to know, this has now been fixed, no “chocolate block” anymore!

  2. Went todo some washing this evening and found water all over the floor again near my water treatment works at the rear of the fish house, started to move everything out, thinking a water pipe/valve/seal had failed, and noticed the water had blood it in! I then noticed that the freezer, I keep my fish food in, hadn’t been turned back on since Sunday 2nd December! The fozen bloodworm was defrosting, and the freezer had already defrosted all over the floor!
  3. On Monday 3rd December, I noticed two home bred albino Ancistrus (bristlenose catfish), almost in a trance, not moving, I thought they were dead, in my 6ftx2ftx2ft display tank. They weren’t in a very good state, it was strange because all the Angelfish, Corydoras, L number plecos, Clown Loaches were showing no signs of distress, I fished them out and dropped them in a tank full of algae. 24 hours later, they are fit as a fiddle again, and the algae on the tank has gone, so although I cannot see them, I know they are alive and well. (did spot them this eve!).

    Late this evening, I found another Ancistrus (bristlenose catfish) dead in my display tank, this raised the alarm, to check all the water paramaters, still surprised that no other fish are showing signs of distress. The ammonia in the water, was slightly elevated, slightly higher than I’d like, this could have been caused by the dead fish, or another factor, no time to waste, 50% water change with water at same temperature and chemistry, and I’ve added two large sheets of Polyfilter just as “belt’s and braces”, I’ll re-check ammonia/ph tomorrow evening!

So there we have it, Bad things come in threes! No need to worry about the third!

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Corydoras Weitzmani

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

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.

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Tropheus Moorii Ikola & Synodontis Petricola

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

These are currently two of my favourite fish, Tropheus Moorii Ikola cichlids and Synodontis Petricola catfish. I have five wild sub adults Tropheus Moorii Ikola and six Wild Synodontis Petricola. I’m very tempted to convert to Lake Tanganyikan Cichlids, the water here in Yorkshire is suited to these fish. Watch this space. There are many different colour variations of Tropheus Moorii, and these little fish, are very aggressive. I hope to breed them in the future.

Technology has moved on, and it’s easier for me to pop into the fish house with a DV Camcorder, hook up to PC, capture the contents to a Windows Media Video (WMV) file, and upload to YouTube for hosting. So here’s the first one, you can expect some more in the future.

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Teething issues again!

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

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.

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Pier Aquatics, Wigan

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

Pier Aquatics, Wigan

This has got to be the “Mecca” of all tropical fish shops in the North West, I was in the area (well within 10 miles) and had to pop in to checkout the collection of fish. If you are a Cichlid or Catfish fan like I am, you’ve just got to get your “bum” to Pier Aquatics in Wigan, and don’t forget your wallet!

Fantastic quality and collections of Cichlids and Catfish, a baby Tig for 250 pounds, and some fantastic Geophagus, lots of L numbers too many to mention, Stingrays If you’ve never been, why not try a holiday in Wigan for the weekend.

I love the place, and I’m sure I’ll be back for that baby Tig! Maybe an early birthday present, as it’s the big one!

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Fancy That!

Monday, August 20th, 2007

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.

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Nannacara adoketa eggs have disappeared

Sunday, May 13th, 2007

Not surprisingly the Nannacara adoketa eggs have disappeared overnight, only a few remained in the morning, but those that remained, were “eye-ing” up, so I think I have a good male. I suspect the other Nannacara adoketa or Bristlenose catfish helped themselves.

Not too worry, I’m sure they spawn again, and I’ll have chance to remove the other occupants of the tank. Some other sad news, I’ve lost my male Hoplosternum pectorale, I’ve had a pair for years, but I’ve never managed to get them to spawn!

Some happier news, my tank racking has arrived, so I should be able to increase my tanks by another three :- soon!

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Nannacara adoketa have started to spawn

Friday, May 11th, 2007

My suspicions have been confirmed two out of the five Nannacara adoketa in the quarantine tank have paired-off and to my astonishment have started to spawn this evening. Male and female fish confirmed, as pedicted in earlier pictures posted here.

Female Adoketa Spawning in Flower pot
Female Nannacara adoketa guarding eggs

Female and Male Adoketa Spawning in Flower pot1
Male Nannacara adoketa in foreground, female inside plant pot.

Female and Male Adoketa Spawning in Flower pot3
Male Nannacara adoketa fertilising eggs.

This is a young pair, and this is their first spawning, I’m not too sure how viable this spawning will be, with three other N.adoketa in the tank, plus a Bristlenose catfish, and the waters wrong, ph 8! But I wanted to get these pictures on the blog, quickly.

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