Notes from a 60 tank fishroom.

[MuddyWaters]

Dang, y'all are old. I ain't but 57 I did get a knee replacement when I was 50, though. Titanium is excellent! I've started doing squats while I hold the hose to empty or add back water during water changes. I used to gain a bunch of weight- work out like a fiend and work it off. Last 20 years, it's been more up than down. I'm doing a lot more to keep it down, though, and hope that my joints will hold up (my other knee was on the same path as my right one, but I think it got scared when the other got replaced and got its act together).

I don't see having more than 3 tanks at any point in the future unless we win the lottery and decide to move. Mine are high enough to get into, although I have to wear those headbands with lights on them to see stuff sometimes and getting at my CO2 under the big tank is not that easy. First world problems...

 

[GaryE]

While the rest of the world deals with inflation, my fishroom has shrunk.
Not by much.
I've taken 10 tanks offline and stored them in the corner of the garage, and another 5 to 10 will follow soon. I expanded the room at this time last year in anticipation of bringing fish back from Gabon. Now everything has settled in, and I had too much wasted space. That led to too much time changing water, and not enough time breeding fish. It's time to get back to detailed 'work'.
I have the water changes down to a simple, quick routine, but for a while, life has been not very routine and I have had less 'fun' time overall. I'm going to stick with 2 tanks per killie species, though my favourite, which I maintain longterm, has 6 tanks now.
I have some little 5 gallons I'll switch pairs in and out of for egg collection, beside a couple I've set up for tetra breeding. The remaining 50 tanks include several empty and cycled ones for fry raising.
I also have 3 40 gallons for Cichlid fry that have yet to materialize.

If you ever get into breeding fish, you have to plan space to raise them properly so other hobbyists can get good quality fish from you. I'm in an out of the way corner of my country, so distribution is an issue, but I have some fish in a precarious state in nature that I would like to get out into the hobby.

 

[Oldspartan]

Sounds like deflation

 

[GaryE]

I fell into the old foolishness of a system of infinite growth on a planet with limited resources - I'm aiming for negative growth for things to be sustainable! I like the tinkering out there, but I moved to the country, and that changes everything. This really is a better hobby for urban people, except for the problem of the cost of space. You want the dynamism of a city to trade, exchange, share, discuss and give you an outlet for any rare fish you breed. The local aquarists are really into it, but they aren't into the weirder fish, or the discovery side of things. Without that, you can commercially fish breed only. That's dull and doesn't pay off. All those fish have been bred before.

If you are going to produce limited numbers of strange and beautiful things, you have to be in a space where people want to know what they are, and may want to branch out into trying them. Otherwise, you end up with too many fish. There was a fish auction in my old city last week, and I realized I would have walked away from that with a pocketful of cash, and a network of interesting connections if I had still lived there. Here, I have to change that mindset and adapt.

I've been 'discontinuing' a number of species I can't find homes for my surplus with, simply by not making any effort to breed them. A few species have timed out age-wise, and the ones I'm keeping are ones I enjoy the most. Yup, the prettiest and strangest ones.

I'm unconvinced about hobby preservation of endangered or extinct in nature fish, because I've seen no ability on the hobby for us to develop networks to make that function. This is for fun with no high purpose.

But I am improving sightlines and scaping every tank I keep (with slow growing plants) so that visitors can see the beauties who like to hide. Who knows, maybe the cruise ships will run fishnerd tours...

 

[WhistlingBadger]

You describe the problems of fish breeding and fish keeping in a rural area very well, Gary. I aspire to live in the middle of nowhere again someday, and I have pretty much decided that if I ever achieve that, I will probably retire from the hobby. It's just too hard.

 

[GaryE]

I'm not so much in the middle of nowhere (which would drive me to the drink) but on the outside edge of somewhere. You can certainly have a great aquarium hobby in a place like this, as long as you have a forum of this type to get that fish talk need out of the way. I have a small core of local aquarists who drop by, but you don't get to share projects much out in the sticks.
For now, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. In most ways, I would prefer to live in the centre of a busy city. The rural life is for retirement and withdrawal from the happening side of human activity. But as an old man, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford city life, with the current undermining of living standards. Housing costs are skyrocketing. Now was the time to perch on the edge of a small city and give the lifestyle a try.
@WhistlingBadger - you like the hunting side of the outdoors, and for that, I can see living in more rural regions. But you'd still need fellow musicians to play with, and a scene to play in. Coyotes yelp well, but they don't harmonize... with aquariums, we don't need a band, and it is a good hobby for soloist loners.

 

[GaryE]

Eureka. It has taken 10 months and several failed spawnings, but I finally have fry from Parananochromis brevirostris, from a pair I brought back from Gabon last summer. I just saw them a few minutes ago, and it made my already decent day.

They have to be one of the most secretive spawners I have ever "worked" with. I thought there were fry, but I had to check the tank several times to spot them. It's a good bunch. Now comes the next hard part - raising them, getting both sexes and consolidating the population so it may be able to spread into the hobby.

It took soft water, which I have from the tap, and peat treatment of their 25 gallon tank until I can barely get photos because of the tannins. I swear, it happened, even without photos yet!

 

[gwand]

Do you know this guy?

Cichlid News

 

[GaryE]

I tried Ted Judy's technique (he's a nice guy who works at solving fish puzzles), but it didn't work here. It came close. I think that 2011 importation has been lost to the hobby, as are most rare fish breedings. You need one breeder to become 5 breeders to become 25 breeders, and really difficult fish get sidestepped a lot. Plus with dwarf Cichlids, once you sex them, it's one male per tank, and that becomes a strain on resources. I've set up to have 8 possible tanks if these guys survive and thrive.

I have never been in a situation where I had time and space to do that before.

Older experiments with Pelvicachromis showed the ideal temperature to get a fair ratio of both sexes to be 26.5c. With these guys, above 23 makes them unhappy. So 26.5 is a bad idea. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

Getting fry was only the first hurdle. My equally rare Chromidotilapia nana young from last year are close to breeding size, and I have a fairly even ratio. They are another waiting game. If I can breed the F-1 fish, I can get enough of them to share them. If.

 

[gwand]

Fascinating puzzle. Best of luck.

 

[Colin_T]

Eureka. It has taken 10 months and several failed spawnings, but I finally have fry from Parananochromis brevirostris, from a pair I brought back from Gabon last summer. I just saw them a few minutes ago, and it made my already decent day.

They have to be one of the most secretive spawners I have ever "worked" with. I thought there were fry, but I had to check the tank several times to spot them. It's a good bunch. Now comes the next hard part - raising them, getting both sexes and consolidating the population so it may be able to spread into the hobby.

It took soft water, which I have from the tap, and peat treatment of their 25 gallon tank until I can barely get photos because of the tannins. I swear, it happened, even without photos yet!

Pictures or it didn't happen
obviously wait until the babies are bit older so the parents do freak over the photos, but we would like to see mum, dad and bubbies.

 

[GaryE]

I'll get pictures when I can. The water is tea-coloured, so it's hard to get much now.

I didn't catch these fish. Dr Anton Lamboj did, and he gave me a pair at the end of the trip. They came from a river I didn't think anything could be alive in, as it was bright yellow from the sediments stirred up by gold miners. It took hours to find a couple of pairs. At least the species is also found in other small rivers around the region, unlike the Chromidotilapia nana that only seem to be in one river.

"River" is an interesting word. Since a lot of the region was occupied by France, French is the link language. What English calls a river, French calls a fleuve. Riviere is for smaller waters - more like a stream or wider stream. If you read about fish from the west side of Africa, it can be confusing for English speakers, as some rivers are small rivers, but some are creeks. P brevirostris came from what we'd call a small river.

My other fishroom news is that I made a fundamental mistake, and let my Aphyosemion striatum population fall back to one male and two females. It appears that the male is sterile - the eggs aren't developing. That's usually the end of the line, but a killiekeeper I sent eggs to a couple of years ago is going to send me eggs right back. If all goes well, and it usually does, I'll be back in business with that beauty.

 

[Magnum Man]

You’re making me wish I was retired, or at least had more time… to set up some of these spawning fish from my tanks… assuming the interuptus female, that my male has been chasing around, has eggs, as she is much more plump this morning… I know, nothing rare, but so far, that is the 3rd spawning pair in my African tank… so something likely could happen, if I had the time to cater to them…

 

[GaryE]

All in good time is a fishroom motto. This last group of fry are from a pair that was mature last August. It took all that time to get things right. I've realized the real trick was not the water, a necessity, but. It was temperature. I have fans in 2 windows of the fishroom, on timers since our nights are cool. But they let night air in, and the fishroom tends to sit anywhere from 19.5c to 22.5c. All winter, it was 22 to 24.
A heatwave like the interior is getting would obliterate my killies and Cichlids, given their natural waters. The fishroom will usually be warmer in July and August, and cool again after, til the windows get closed in early October and the warmth gets trapped inside. My success (so far) with this Cichlid is seasonal. I got the food, set up the tank and adjusted the water, but it took nature to pull the trigger on spawning.
Under the arches of the remaining African coastal rainforest, the moving water is cooler than the air around it.

@Magnum Man if you were to breed those tetras, you'd be in rare company. Not many people breed tetras, and even fewer have tried African ones. auriantacus is hard to keep alive for more than a year or so, let alone to breed.

 

[GaryE]

And now, I get busy.
The 3 week old Parananochromis brevirostris are growing very fast. Meanwhile, the Chromidotilapia nana males have commenced hostilities, in the 3 tanks I've spread them out in. This morning, I separated two pairs into their own tanks, which should give me 5 pairs in 5 tanks, with a few probably female stragglers in the largest, a 75 gallon.
The Parananochromis will need the same treatment soon. Dwarf Cichlids are resource eaters. I'm probably the only person in North America with these species, so I want to breed them so they can be available both for research and for the enjoyment of other fishkeepers. Before I can distribute any, I need to get to F-2 - a second captive generation.
If you hopped off a cruise ship or drove by to visit the fishroom, you'd consider it fairly empty. A lot of tanks are waiting. If you want to breed species like these, you need space to raise them in. My C nana are now 9 months old, and there has been no breeding behaviour. It's just starting.
My Enigmatochromis lucanusii spawned, but the spawn failed. Then they got into a fight, and before I could react, the female was mortally wounded. Thus ends a project.
I currently have bought or traded eggs hatched from Diapteron georgiae, Aphyosemion striatum, Chromaphyosemion aurianticum, and Aphyosemion zygaima from the 2021 collection. I have also hatched my A escherichi, Platopochilus sp, Epiplatys huberi, and the 1989 zygaima collection growing. None of these are in numbers I'd sell. No one wants them but me. So I breed a few, keep them in species tanks and in a while, breed a few more. That's worked for 33 years with the 1989 zygaima group.
I also realized I had a brood of Ancistrus gold in one of my communities, and I took pity on them. They would have been eaten. Those will go to a pet store when they're big enough. I thought I was rid of them, but a few fry were missed 2 generations ago. I don't like linebred fish, but these guys have earned a spot. I thought I had sold them all a couple of times, but they hang in.
I really like my jae barbs - Enteromius jae. This week, I am going to try to breed them in a breeding tank, for the first time. I kept them for years in a single species tank where they regularly produced fry, just like that, until they died out. These ones we caught last summer, and I see no fry. It's time to try to fix that.