Forgive my hasty cruddy cell phone photos of the set up :)
As the caption says, I found this tank on a back deck of the house where we rescued the cichlid (see previous posts on rescued tank). The people had moved out and left giant huge piles of trash, hmmm I'll post those photos also, on the deck of the house and I spied this beauty up against an upright for the roof. Didn't even have to seal it! I washed it with salt and let it sit empty in the sun for almost a month before using it, lest there be a disease lurking...........
My new old 10 gallon tank I found in a pile of trash
You can see the tank by the post
Like wow and wow
More holy yucky wow
10 gallon set up as a Killifish spawning tank with my home made filter
I left the bottom bare to make retrieving the eggs easier with some Java Moss and Hornwort anchored at the bottom with a river rock. Some pieces of Java Fern in there also and a whole bunch of floating plants like Amazon Frogbit, and hygrophilia trimmings.
I ran the filter in an established tank for 2 days to pick of some beneficial bacteria and also put some used filter floss in the tank next to the filter to speed things up.
I need to buy a glass 10 gallon lid, using rubbermaid tops right now, as killifish like to jump!
Tank is sitting on the breakfast bar, the Killi's are very friendly and outgoing
My first attempt at a fluidized bed for filtration. Kinda fun. Took the K1 a little while to start rotating in the bottle, not sure why. I'm going to use this filter in my 10 gallon Killifish set up that I'll hopefully put together today.
I managed to rescue 2 oto eggs. I think only one hatched though. I set up the tub with a small sponge filter and some plants from a mature tank with algae on the leaves and a portable light. Guess we'll see if the little guy makes it :)
Terrible video of my 55 grow out tank in the morning sun. Still need a light and glass top for this tank but the fry are thriving and growing quite nicely.
Terrible video of my otos spawning, but all I could manage, they are way to fast and there is too much plant cover to follow them.
The Aeneus fry are starting to color up and are growing VERY fast
My one lone little Ancistrus fry is happy and healthy
The fish seem to be recovering from the treatment and the tank now has blue sand, rocks and driftwood, very attractive. The albino Ancistrus female thinks she's a leaf.
New owner sent a phone photos of the mystery rescued cichlid, he apologizes for the blurry phone pic, but it sure gives us an idea of how stressed and starved she was in that nasty tank we rescued her from. Truly amazing transformation.
The cichlid with its goldfish tankmates the day of rescue
So I'm on my 7th day of treating my two tanks, the symptoms come and go. Yesterday the fish looked awesome. Today I get up and there are blood spots at the base of the pelvic fins of a C. Similis, thats new........, I can see some of the columnaris spots again on the C. blacks, male Killi shows a spot on his head and the Killi pair still spawned yesterday with the Corys quickly eating any eggs............They are all in the 20H.
I have incredible filtration on all my tanks, do 50% water changes every other day then treat again, the symptoms go away for a day then show back up. I plan on treating for at least 10 days and may switch to a sulfa drug and treat longer (if I can find anything in this area) as the strains of disease nowadays are especially resistant to our drugs. No fish actually acts sick in the 20H but having seen how quickly it took that one C. black I'm not taking any chances.
Now in the 36G the C. Eques are scratching and one has a white lump again by its pectoral fins............iiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! I treated them 4 separate times for the same parasite, it seems to be just the one fish but now a second one is scratching. Oh man I'm starting to go nuts I swear. While I was going nuts I managed to shoot the L204 diving under the driftwood.
Now I'm stressed about whether I should be adding PraziPro with Furan meds LOL Can you see me running my finger over my lips like bbblllbblbllbbbbbbbbbb!!! Meanwhile the Amazon Frogbit plant is protesting to the meds and is developing holes and dying, so I pulled all of it out of my tanks. Playing the death song for my other plants...............
Meanwhile back at the ranch, my giant C. Aeneus spawn officially outgrew the 20L yesterday, no matter what I did the water was cloudy, again that was driving me nuts (there's a theme)..... So I moved about 70 of them to the 55 gallon with the C. Trilineatus fry. Still boatloads of Aeneus in the 20L, its crazy! I'm thinking there is close to 100 left in the tank. The water started to clear up this morning, which is good. I've been running a massive sponge filter with a power head and an external HOB with a pre-sponge, its just crazy how water could ever get cloudy in there........the usual 50% every other day water change, making sure no food left.
So far I haven't gone over the edge of sanity but it was close this morning when there was no milk for my coffee............
The C. aeneus spawn is thriving in the Cherry Shrimp tank. Not sure how long I'll be able to keep them all in the 20L. I'm not moving any fish until the columnaris is cleared up, not taking any chances. Just gonna have to perform many water changes and careful feeding in this tank until I can split them up or move them to the 55 gallon. The one Ancistrus fry of approximately the same age is also thriving and looking good. Its just been grazing on the algae in the tank.
Somehow, somewhere Columnaris has been introduced to my two main tanks, the 36 bowfront and the 20H. Both are heavily planted and have my treasured Corys housed within their glass walls. Needless to say, I'm more stressed then the Corys at this point! I am not sure whether the bacteria hitched a ride on a plant or if fish arrived already infected. I'm leaning towards the kid's fancy guppies at this point as there is only ONE left out of five purchased.........
I believe I transferred it to the 20H with the siphon when doing water changes. I have lost a black Cory from that tank. I saw it on him and within 3 hours he was toast. I then saw saddle type spots on about 4 other black Corys but no one else in that tank, one had the first part of its dorsal eaten away about the size of a pinhead. I treated with methylene blue and Furazone meds along with big water changes, as I'm a firm believer that clean water makes healthy fish and meds have a way of messing up the tank bacteria. Hate to have them suffer from an ammonia spike also.....
Today I can only find two spots on two black Corys in the 20H and the fuzzed out dorsal spot on the one is completely gone. Believe the Ancistrus spawned during all this............I swear with the reduced light from all the meds, the Ancistrus thought it was night for 3 days now! The female has been out eating off the glass 24 hours a day. I'm making sure I have enough food in there for her.
In the 36 gallon we've lost our first Danio...........I am especially stressed about this tank as its where my Corydoras Seussi, Eques, Caudimaculatus and L204 reside. I am trying my best to sit tight, medicate and watch without stressing any of them for any reason. So far so good. Gave them a water change and new meds today, sit and wait..........try to breathe and not hover.
Wild Caught Haraldschultzi a day after arriving from the Wet Spot
Chickens helping me test the 55 gallon for leaks
Found to be leak free, sitting on its stand ready for sand and water
Filling the tank today after adding sand and river rock
Still debating what fish to set up in the tank. I'd like to use it like a grow out tank for some the larger fry but would also like it to look nice since its front and center in the living room. So I'll get it all up and running then decide who's going to be permanent residents. I think the L204 would enjoy this tank once I get the driftwood and plants where I want them.
The Killifish's natural habitat. Thought it was a great video to show what their natural habitat is like.
My male wooing his female
Zooming, what he does best!
I keep trying to take nice shots of my Killifish but they
zoom around so fast its hard to get a shot that isn't blurry. My female
is nice and full of eggs, the male is displaying to her often, hoping
for a spawn soon.
In this last week, the Ancistrus, C. aeneus and C. trilineatus all spawned. I had added peat moss to my new outside canister filter and I think it was a hit ;) I wasn't going to collect the aeneus eggs but watching the male BN Ancistrus mow through them was more then I could take. Soooo, I scraped them into a net and placed them in the shrimp tank. There is baby aeneus darting everywhere in there now :)
The few Ancistrus eggs that hadn't succumbed to fungus I also placed in the shrimp tank with the hopes of a few hatching. I only had 2 eggs left this morning as you can see in the video up above. I had NO idea that the ramshorn snails eat eggs. I thought they only ate the eggs with fungus but I soon found out I was wrong. They actually ate the yolk sack on the fry in the video up above! It bled out and died. I managed to save the one that hadn't hatched yet and removed him into a rubbermaid container until he's free swimming. Meanwhile I am smashing and destroying ramshorns right and left! The Corys think its a snail smorgasbord......
The trilineatus spawned mid day and I collected 19 eggs for their new owner Zach. Of course they were placed one by one all over the tank, only two were easy on the glass..........my neck still hurts LOL
Zach has purchased my 6 C. trilineatus and 4 C. aeneus breeders. He's also graciously offered to take the rescued cichlid and nurse it back to health :) Zach and I also are awaiting a new order of fish from the Wet Spot in Portland. Zach ordered some Jack Dempseys and I'm getting in 6 Corydoras HaroldSchultzei, 4 more Corydoras Seussi and 4 Corydoras Similis. I also went out on a limb and purchased a pair of Killifish. Should prove interesting!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the micro worm ranch, the worms are exploding and fish are chowing down! All of my fish love to seek and destroy these little guys, plus the fry are growing well having at least one meal of micro worms a day. The Zebra Danio fry have great color and the now month old C. trilineatus are looking large and healthy :) photo below
We thought about making some outfits, a bit superheroish, film ourselves
in slow motion to show how badass we are while trying not to shatter
tanks and drop fish
My 16 year old son Lane, his good friend James and I all went over to a house where the people had recently moved and the power had been shut off for 2 days, leaving a 30 gallon fish tank with what we were told was a female Red Devil in it. Someone else had just recently came and rescued the hedgehog that was also left in the home in a little cage. As you can see from the videos we eventually discovered there was no Red Devil but 2 large Goldfish, a 10 inch Pleco and mystery cichlid.
Spent the rest of the weekend saving the cichlid from starvation and ammonia stress. The slime coat on the Pleco and cichlid was extreme, thank God they had a means of protection that I'm sure was built up over time. The little guy is meaner then hell! Now that he's not in a brown swamp he can now seek and shred Goldfish tails! I think he's feeling better. Not exactly the weekend I had planned........
You can see sand stuck to his extreme slime coat
Their 30 gallon tank, cleaned and set up on my counter
Now, Sunday morning, I'm headed into town to take the 2 goldfish and 10 inch Pleco to their new digs, a nice pond in Spokane, WA. Folks have been great, really reaching out to help re-home and rehabilitate these fish. The goldfish, of course, act like they just had a walk in the park, AMAZES me always what type of water conditions they can survive and even thrive in.
So, out of all this I gained a 30 gallon and 10 gallon tank to add to my collection. Worth it? Saving those poor fish was worth it, I'll NEVER forget that smell draining that tank. There had to be dead fish in there.....
Bad Fish Fathers.......
My Ancistrus male has proven to not be the greatest of Dads. The poor guy was so freaked out over the absolute circus that happens in the 20 gallon every time the Corydoras Aeneus aka Weeble Wobble spawns with her 3 males. They rip and tear through the tank like little freight trains and would race past his cave, smashing into his tail causing him to zoom out and threaten. Well each time he would do this he would drag eggs out with him. Eventually I ended up with all 31 eggs in a container and him sucked up to the driftwood, completely abandoning his cave. So now I'm trying to "fan" his eggs like he would to keep them from getting fungus, looks like I might get about 20 to hatch, fingers crossed.
I think he needs a quieter setting next time, once his frazzled nerves settle that is.
Must have been a trial run last night because today the ancistrus spent all day in and out of the cave. She's finally done and there's a large amount of eggs. Four had fallen out off the cave so I retrieved them. Now I'll be able to track how the eggs look visually as they develop. The male is in his cave fanning and guarding :-) Female looks deflated and her beautiful fins look like tattered sails.
There is NEVER a quiet moment at our house, really there's not. As I'm sure you've heard, cartoons, video games, dishes slamming, and talking are a normal occurrence as background noises for my fish videos. However, the chickens had not shown up until today. The weather is cool and there are a few raindrops so the house windows are open and its chickenpalooza all day........ I'm hoping to catch an otocinclus spawn and have a close eye on this very fat female. They go crazy after I feed with microworms and spend a lot of time checking the plants and glass for strays.
The video kind of speaks for itself. What totally cracks me up is how the "elusive" new goby flits cross the screen during the first few seconds of filming LOL yet I can't find them.......
I still cannot believe what a mess those earthworm sticks make! Or how loud my son Lane likes his video games..........He says "What?" and "Who the hell are you talking to?" towards the end of this dramatic film.
