Today's a new day.

[elephantnose3334]

It's Wednesday. Looking after my younger sister's fish because she and Mum left for Queensland a few days ago.

 

[Colin_T]

Aren't you going to Queensland for the ANGFA conference?

 

[elephantnose3334]

Aren't you going to Queensland for the ANGFA conference?

Maybe, but in September.

 

[elephantnose3334]

There are things that I like the most. I'm actually asking the parents for a bigger tank (bigger than 40L). A nano community would look nice in a 121.5L aquarium. I heard that ember tetras would go well with Kubota's rasboras. The Canning Vale LFS has a setup that houses both of them. I picked the following fish that could do well. Just experimenting on the stocking to see if one of the suggestions are good for the setup.

 

[Colin_T]

Get pymgy Cories and celestial danios and breed them in the tank. Then use the money form the babies to buy more tanks.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Get pymgy Cories and celestial danios and breed them in the tank. Then use the money form the babies to buy more tanks.

That's a nifty idea. But I'm doing a community tank (121.5L) for nano fish, so I'm not quite ready to breed fish yet.

 

[Colin_T]

The thing about pygmy Cories and celestial danios is you don't have to do anything special to breed them. Just give them a nice clean tank with lots of food and water changes, have a load of plants in there and they will breed. You start out with 6-10 or each and after a few months you have 20-30 of each. You keep some of the young and sell the rest and go from there.

 

[elephantnose3334]

The thing about pygmy Cories and celestial danios is you don't have to do anything special to breed them. Just give them a nice clean tank with lots of food and water changes, have a load of plants in there and they will breed. You start out with 6-10 or each and after a few months you have 20-30 of each. You keep some of the young and sell the rest and go from there.

Ohh. Got it. Do celestial pearl danios eat their eggs? But I do like your suggestion to breed them. Not so fun fact: The White Cloud Mountain minnow are banned in British Columbia, Canada because they're a pest overhere. But they're not banned in Australia. I was thinking of a community tank with nano fish, pygmy cories and CPDs included. I just need to explain to my parents why a tank upgrade is a good idea before I do the community tank. I don't know if pygmies and CPDs breed like rabbits but CPDs are data deficient and we don't know if they're endangered.

My younger sister has 4 pygmy cories, which is too small for a group of them, but they're partially an inspiration for my community tank. They're her fish, and she doesn't like adding more pygmies in her 10 gallon tall tank.

 

[elephantnose3334]

White Cloud Mountain minnows get up to 5cm, but they're larger than the other nano fish I will be stocking. Maybe another time, once I have a separate single species tank for them. The pygmy cories, celestial pearl danios and Microdevario kubotai are a good candidate for community tank inhabitants. I understand that dad doesn't want the family home cluttered up with fish tanks. I respect his opinion, but I wanted to expand my hobby a bit more. I want to try my best in keeping 2-3 tanks all by myself since I learnt how to clean my 41L tank with the gravel vac.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Today's Thursday. Busy day today. Looking after my younger sister's pygmy cories and they're doing fine currently. I like experimenting on some things because I like to do that. Experimenting on the hardscape and stocking list flexes my creative muscles. I like freshwater tropical fish because of their beauty. They're colourful and easy to look after with some exceptions. There are tall tales in the hobby and some are interesting. As long as I'm ready for a larger tank, I can do that.

 

[Colin_T]

Do celestial pearl danios eat their eggs?

If the adults are well fed they don't normally eat their eggs or fry.
They don't breed out of control.

 

[elephantnose3334]

If the adults are well fed they don't normally eat their eggs or fry.
They don't breed out of control.

Oh. I thought they're like tetras, eating eggs and cannibals to fry. I think the best way to breed them are a single species tank, but could breed in a community tank with other fish. They don't breed like rabbits or guppies, they're easy to breed as long as you have a big tank and leaving them alone with a varied diet. Here goes my breeding project then.

It's the school holidays now. I'm planning to get my second aquarium, but bigger than my current 41L and may even be a third aquarium, if I'm lucky. I have a strong focus on fish welfare nowadays. I might have multi tank syndrome and like @Colin_T, once I move out, if I'm lucky to get a property to myself (I don't know how to look after my own house yet), I might do a fish room. Preserving the need to keep and breed certain fish species i.e. Lake Inle fish and the now extinct in the wild (in their original range) White Cloud Mountain minnow.

I wonder there is a captive breeding program for these fish (except in areas where they are prohibited in because they're a pest). These fish are common in the hobby now, but very rare, if there are any, in the wild. British Columbia doesn't tolerate these fish very seriously because they are a serious pest here. But I'm lucky to live in an area where they are not prohibited in any way. I like anything somewhat rare to very rare in the wild.

 

[GaryE]

White clouds are illegal in BC because they could become established as invasives, with their cold tolerance. That province generally (in places) has a milder winter than the rest of Canada.

I wonder, with climate change, if we are going to see more species banned in areas where sub tropical fish used to be no danger to the environment. It's pretty clear no one can count on the intelligence of hobbyists to police themselves. Just look at Plecos.

 

[elephantnose3334]

White clouds are illegal in BC because they could become established as invasives, with their cold tolerance. That province generally (in places) has a milder winter than the rest of Canada.

I wonder, with climate change, if we are going to see more species banned in areas where sub tropical fish used to be no danger to the environment. It's pretty clear no one can count on the intelligence of hobbyists to police themselves. Just look at Plecos.

Oh. Common plecos are even worse in Florida. And speaking of WCM minnows, why are they extinct in the wild in their original range (White Cloud Mountain in China)? We do not know what the streams in WCM looked like, but some aquarists recreated the minnows' natural range from memory. And it's rare in the hobby when people do that. Little information exists on the natural range of the species' habitat.

 

[GaryE]

The best way to vanish from the planet without anyone knowing, if you are a fish species, is to:
a) be close to a vibrant economy with an expanding human population;
b) be small and harmless;
c) not be worth money;
d) not be edible.

At that point, people are too busy trying to pay their rent or get by (or building over habitats and checking their stocks if they're rich) to even notice you were there in the first place. It's suspected that swamp drainage projects have made a few species of Bettas extinct before they were even noticed. That pattern is repeated on every continent.