Fish Room Progress

Moved existing tanks and fish to the new fishroom over the weekend. Now to bring in the new tanks. I've had 6 ten gallons and a twenty nine gallon in my Subaru for 4 days now.

First Shelf Assembled In New Fishroom

I decided on some Whalen shelves carried by Costco. At $55 per unit, 1000 lb rating per shelf felt it was very cost effective.  I am only using the middle two shelves for tanks so I don't have to climb or kneel.

Moving Operations To A New Fish Room

Arbor covered patio.  I plan on seasonal outdoor tubs + aquatic plant areas here

   Crismore Corys has outgrown their current space............AND since agreeing to take Don Petty's Corydoras breeders the need for tank space became imperative!

I am moving my breeding operation into a 16ft x 16ft room that was an add on off the back of my house.  It has two exits to the outside, one to a concrete patio with arbor overhead and the other to the deck and carport.  Perfect..........no carrying buckets, tanks and fish through the house anymore!  Now it won't sound like we are in Niagara Falls while trying to watch tv ;) 

View from carport to entrance

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I replaced the hideous curtains with natural wood blackout shades

Video of Hasmani Whiptail Cat Tending His Eggs

As I said previously in a post, my Hasmani Whiptails recently spawned and this is a video of just what it takes to keep the eggs healthy.  Poor guy! He works day and night.  They look pretty close to hatching soon, so hope the next video is some fat wrigglers :)

December Update - Visit To Finatics Tropical Fish

I've fallen a bit behind with my postings over the fall months.  As some of you may already know, we stepped in and removed Mike's grandchildren from their drug addicted mother in May 2013.  Having two extra children + 2 current court cases has certainly taken its toll on the amount of free time I've had lately.  Thankfully the kids have a dad/step dad and he would like to raise them :) Lucky kids! So it looks like by January I'll be devoting more time to my fish breeding hobby, which makes me very happy!








This fall an old friend of mine, Don Petty, opened an exclusive Aquarium store in the  Tri-Cities area in Washington State, Finatics Tropical Fish.  Don is known for his specialized breeding or Corydoras catfish for almost 20 years in the Aquarium Hobby.  Mike and I just spent last weekend in Kennewick, WA taking photos, video and delivering about 200 green Cory's, around 50 BN Plecos, and some Northern Red Oak leaves to Don.  I'll be making another trip down this month to deliver some plants I've harvested:  Rotala Vietnam, Water Primrose, Sunset Hygro, Water Wisteria, and some tall Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia, I may be able to spare some Java Moss.  I'll also deliver some HMF filters from Swiss Tropicals.  If you've never seen one of these foam filters in action stay tuned as Don will be outfitting one of his 55G tanks as an example of what you can do.

The list of what I brought home from Finatics:  8
Red Spot Rasboras (Mike's pick), 5 Celestial Pearl Danios, 3 Siamese Algae Eaters, 2 pair of German Blue Rams and a school of African Glass Cats (Mike's pick)





My Hasmani Whiptails spawned a few days ago with the male in a cave guarding a bunch of green eggs.  I've moved him, his cave and his woman to a 20L with a HMF filter. The tank currently houses a small Corydoras Similis spawn (their first, happened about 2 weeks ago).




 I lost one of my large fat healthy Corydoras Seussi last week.  When I pulled it out of the tank it had evidence of parasites.............. I treated them and the Eques multiple times after receiving them, as I do with all new Cory's.  The tank has been healthy with no issues for months and this fish showed no signs of being sick.  I've since netted all the Cory's from the 36 bowfront and quarantined most in a 20L for parasite treatment leaving the 36 for a colony of L204 plecos.  I placed the adorable Corydoras Caudimaculatus in my 20L planted shrimp tank in the hopes of them spawning soon.  I also placed the Celestial Pearl Danios, 3 Siamese Algae Eaters and all the of my Ototcinclus in the shrimp tank.  The shrimp tank had previously been home to about 100 or more of the C. Aeneus  juveniles and when I removed all plants and decor there had to be 1000 cherry shrimp!  It was crazy.

Update On Rescued Cichlid

Well it seems the mystery cichlid is some type of Flowerhorn and definitely male instead of female!  Can't wait to see the next shot Zach!

Bushy Nose Plecos Take Over A 20H

Well, in a past post I called my male bushy nose the worst father ever........this is certainly not the case. He and the female have produced two large spawns back to back and filled my old 20h with a wriggling, eating, pooping mass youngsters. At any given time there is at least one or two hanging off their parents, which doesn't appear to bother them much. In this video they are about a month and the small guys 2 weeks old now. Half of each spawn are long finned, not sure what color variation they will be but their 3 month old sister looks like a calico long fin and is really an attractive pleco. I'll be taking some of the older ones and some really nice green corys to the Finatics Tropical Fish store in Kennewick, WA at the end of this month.

I'm also taking some more Amazon Frogbit down to Finatics.  If you've never used or grown this aquatic plant I recommend it highly in your freshwater shrimp, community and fry tanks.  It propagates rapidly in my fry tubs with minimal care, helps them feel secure along with helping with the waste cycle.  The freshwater shrimp enjoy hanging from it and I'll also place food in the floating plants for them to consume without interference from the Cory fry at the bottom.  It is not an invasive plant like Duckweed and is easily removed.  FYI ramshorn snails will eat this plant.  I've found that Bladder snails will not though.