The box from Liz came today with 6 Discus and a pair of Gouramis. The packing and fish are all perfect. The discus are in the semi dark but I got a pic of the gouramis in their tank. This tank was set up to hold a bunch of plants temporarily. I think I'll leave them in there for a while.
Nobody but Dan knows how stressed I was over this shipment. I tried to take it in stride. I failed. The fish arrived on time and fine. Once again, I can relax and enjoy life.
..very nice.... |^|....the "dots" will love it in there....... |^|
ummm...six of my best Discus grow outs were in that box. I wasn't worried about the worthless Dots ::)
Quote from: LizStreithorst on March 21, 2017, 06:11:10 PM
ummm...six of my best Discus grow outs were in that box. I wasn't worried about the worthless Dots ::)
I was..... ;D....see we tag teamed them for safe arrival..... |^|
It took them 3 days in the tank. They built a nest and laid eggs and its only 77 degrees in there.
Quote from: wallace on March 25, 2017, 08:09:04 PM
It took them 3 days in the tank. They built a nest and laid eggs and its only 77 degrees in there.
....Congrat's.... |^|
now you're in trouble...What you need to do is buy a 190 gallon container and develop a relationship with a wholesaler. Not really. The mother generally eats them once they free swim.
I'm definitely not pulling mom fish out. They are the only fish I'm not trying to breed and they do it instantly, go figure... Hmmm... the rams might like the fry too.
Mom will eat them before they become visible to the naked eye. If not, the rams will have a party. It might just kick start them in to breeding mode.
Thats what I was thinking, pull the mom and feed some golden pearls powder and grow ram food.
I'm still not seeing any pairing among these rams. What did I do, get all males like I managed to do with the HB angels? The odds of getting 12 males (to oversimplify) is 1 in 4096. None of them show signs of femaleness, either in overall shape or in fatness from eggs. huh
their little mouths are too small for golden pearls. They need to feed on green water at first.
That was fast. There are already 100 gourami fry at the surface. I fed them anyway. I have the smallest golden pearl powder, which is 5-50 microns, much smaller than paramecium. That should work, right?
Wow, you have great eyesight!!! I bet you know why I call them Dots, don't you? I've only done it the green water way so I don't know if the small golden pearls will work or not. Dennis is better at figuring that stuff out than I am. Congratulations grand dad and best of luck growing live food. Keep an eye on the kids. You may need to remove dad, as well.
Chlorella algae, a single cell algae like the algae that makes up green water, ranges in size from 3 to 8 microns. I've probably raised as many tiny Danios on the 5-50 micron Golden Pearls as I have using green water. The thing about green water is, you can't over feed with it and ruin your water quality like you can using commercial food.
Dennis
I knew you'd know, Mr. Spock.
These gourami fry are much easier to see than Ram fry. I went ahead and fed the Golden Pearls but this time I'll leave both parents in there and see. I have too much going on ATM to start another tank and I want to keep the tank they are in sequestered from the others.
Pop is keeping the female at the other end of the tank, and so far he is doing his job.
excellent.
There were around 200 fry to begin with, and there are I would guess still about 50 left. The Dad chases the mom fish back behind the filter whenever she ventures out. I wish I had a pair of rams this good.
I think that these worthless Dots are the most elegant, beautiful, gentle fish. They are under appreciated because the ones at the fish stores haven't matured and colored up, and they produce gazillions of fry. Are you using the kids as live food or just letting the parents pick them off? I want so much to breed them again but it would be like flushing money needlessly, like breeding Discus is.
I have 6 adult Dots left of all the millions I started with. They're all in my 125 planted tank at the shop.
I have always liked them too. I didn't feed the fry to anything, maybe next time.
They just spawned again, 14 days from the last time. I don't see any fry at the moment, so they must have gobbled them up today. At this rate I could theoretically produce 300 or 400 per month from this one pair if I was to put a little effort into it. But then what?
Are those pearl Gourami's? Those are kinda neat looking fish
Quote from: ilroost on April 09, 2017, 08:35:47 PM
Are those pearl Gourami's? Those are kinda neat looking fish
Yep, Pearl Gouramis. Neato fish.
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I found something surprising last night. There are two Gourami fry in my filter tank. I have a small tank where I keep unused or soon-to-be used sponge filters. I feed ammonia every day to keep the filters alive and their strength built up. Right around the time the gouramis spawned two weeks ago, I swapped the little square sponge filter that was in the dots tank for a bigger one. The little sponge must have had a couple of eggs stuck to it.
Whats amazing is that the fry in the filter tank are much, much bigger than the ones in the main tank that were being fed with golden pearls and whatever infusoria lives on the plants etc. They have had nothing to eat in there except for a gunky mulm sitting on the floor of the tank. I'm sure y'all have seen this stuff in neglected tanks. Picture attached. Tonight when I get home I will look at the stuff with the microscope. I have always figured it was dead bacteria or lifeless polysaccharide biofilm leftovers. The only think I ever have put in that tank was ammonia. Every day they have been in there I have subjected them to a blast of hardware store ammonia.
Another interesting thing: the level of nitrate in that tank is super high. Its so far off the chart I had to dilute it by a factor of 10 in order to measure it. Its about 600 ppm!
They say Gouramis are hardy fish. That's an understatement.
...thanks for the update post.....that is very interesting....and weird.....must be something there huh
The gouramis are doing well. They sure are nice fish, it seems like they would be more popular.
The baby dots that were born and lived the first week in 600 ppm nitrate are all grown up now, and reached a normal size despite the disagreeable water chemistry.
That is a beautiful male, Dan. I agree they are not as popular as they should be. It might because they cost more to raise than than they sell for. It might be because the ones the pet stores get in are young and have not yet colored up. You and I are the only people I know who are smitten with them. Jewel Cichlids are in the same boat. They are drop dead gorgeous and they will survive in any water. They can even be kept with Discus until they get that sexual feeling when they become extremely aggressive. They are worth nothing despite their beauty because they are too easy to breed.
Thats the male you sent me Liz. He's always horndoggin the female. The accidental younger ones are in another tank with some HBs.
Here is the pearl gourami picture from the Innes book. I got this book when I was about 8 from my grandmother, who was a fish hobbyist ages ago. Innes didn't like the way color film in the 50's showed the fish, so he had somebody paint B&W pictures of all the popular fish. Then Axelrod stole the pictures for his own copycat book.
what an excellent story. Your grandmother gave you the book when you were nine and you still refer to it. A book like that is a collectors item as is the publication you sent me from the International Discus Society.