Free swimmers today, quite a cloud of the little buggers. The other occupants of this 150-gallon aquarium are jammed over to the far, far right, in an area about 1' wide by 2' high.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Fly! Be Free!
Free swimmers today, quite a cloud of the little buggers. The other occupants of this 150-gallon aquarium are jammed over to the far, far right, in an area about 1' wide by 2' high.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Spawn of the Nasties!
So mean, but so true. The M. festivus that I added most recently paired off and are being more and more aggressive to the other fish. I had decided to net out the pair and leave the singleton that was in there originally, since that one seems like a nice enough chap and never caused trouble.
Today I had a little time and netted out 30 juvenile angels to sell to the LFS (I thought I had about 40 but after netting out 30 I still have what appears to be about 30 babies) and thought this would be a good time to net out the pair of festivus in the big tank and take along with me to sell as a pair. They are not afraid of the net and are always close to the top, greedy for a feeding.
I went in there to net them, and what do I see? Wigglers. This explains why they were keeping the angels from eating, and showing stress bars constantly. The area where they spawned is where I typically put the feeding cone. In the pic you can see the dirty pile of babies near the stem of the Anubias leaf, and there are more babies resting on the leaf above the fish's head in the pic. I did not notice them because of the increased algae growth on some of the Anubias leaves recently. The wigglers blend right in. They are close to free swimming stage. (Click on the pic for a closeup view of the babies)
I decided to leave the parents in there, and feed on the other side of the tank. The worst piscivores in the tank are the festivus, so if they are the ones doing the guarding we may get some babies that get to juvie stage, at which point I could net them out and put them in the 37-gallon to grow out. We'll see. I don't particularly want the 150 to be a breeding tank, since it is a display and breeding cichlids can cause chaos in any size tank, but we'll see how it goes. These fish are capable of injuring my wild angels, and I don't want that to happen. I'll wait until these babies are independent and fending for themselves, and then I'll try to net the parents out, and either give them a dedicated setup of their own or sell them as a breeding pair. They are chunky, brightly colored Mesonauta species, with very bright yellow breeding colors, so I think they are great specimens, but perhaps not the best fit for my 150 display tank. I will leave the third festivus, who has never bothered anyone and continues to glide around with the angels, avoiding the strikes of the Mesonauta pair.
Today I had a little time and netted out 30 juvenile angels to sell to the LFS (I thought I had about 40 but after netting out 30 I still have what appears to be about 30 babies) and thought this would be a good time to net out the pair of festivus in the big tank and take along with me to sell as a pair. They are not afraid of the net and are always close to the top, greedy for a feeding.
I went in there to net them, and what do I see? Wigglers. This explains why they were keeping the angels from eating, and showing stress bars constantly. The area where they spawned is where I typically put the feeding cone. In the pic you can see the dirty pile of babies near the stem of the Anubias leaf, and there are more babies resting on the leaf above the fish's head in the pic. I did not notice them because of the increased algae growth on some of the Anubias leaves recently. The wigglers blend right in. They are close to free swimming stage. (Click on the pic for a closeup view of the babies)
I decided to leave the parents in there, and feed on the other side of the tank. The worst piscivores in the tank are the festivus, so if they are the ones doing the guarding we may get some babies that get to juvie stage, at which point I could net them out and put them in the 37-gallon to grow out. We'll see. I don't particularly want the 150 to be a breeding tank, since it is a display and breeding cichlids can cause chaos in any size tank, but we'll see how it goes. These fish are capable of injuring my wild angels, and I don't want that to happen. I'll wait until these babies are independent and fending for themselves, and then I'll try to net the parents out, and either give them a dedicated setup of their own or sell them as a breeding pair. They are chunky, brightly colored Mesonauta species, with very bright yellow breeding colors, so I think they are great specimens, but perhaps not the best fit for my 150 display tank. I will leave the third festivus, who has never bothered anyone and continues to glide around with the angels, avoiding the strikes of the Mesonauta pair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
