Shrimps mating and a danio fry has survived

It looks like adding salt may just have done the trick for the shrimps! I should know for certain in a few days, but I've seen the older shrimps swimming around with him mounted on top of her. Quite a bizarre act to observe!

Last time around it was three days after witnessing the potential shrimp mating that I noticed her carrying eggs, so I'll have to watch carefully from Thursday to see if anything has happened.

It's just a shame that if anything hatches this time around it will only be 12 days before my holiday! I can always move her to the small tank after a week and take that to my in-laws for them to keep feeding!

Speaking of the small tank, we have found at least one Danio fry swimming in there, possibly 2. We're planning to release the existing fry to the expance of the main tank some time this week, so his breeding net will be freed up for anything in the tank to be moved to - if we are moving the shrimp in... Not sure then what killed the others off - could have been low oxygen or high wastes if moving them and adding some water saved this one or two.

Sods law is that if it's going to work it will be this time - just before we go away. I expect the Guppy will also decide to drop some fry soon! I have been watching her tummy changes for 25 days...

Quiet day, after the various upsets! The Danio fry is doing well - it must be reaching 2cm, the size of some of the small fish that have been put in, so I'm expecting that we'll be able to release him / her to swim with the older fish later in the week. The last few days have seen a lot of growth there since it's been on it's own.

Likewise the Guppy Fry have also grown well since the Danio was removed to its own breeding net on Thursday. They must be around 8mm - 12mm each. I think at least one has a gravid spot showing and some have been showing black flecks for a few days and one is also possibly showing some yellow behind the black on its tail.

Aside from that, the Danio Fry in the spare tank seem to have died off completely. Next time I collect eggs, I'll have to put them straight into the tank, or at least move them over quicker. I'm guessing that they all died in virtually the same 24 hours because of water quality - too many small fish in the one small volume of water. If it had been lack of oxygen, the fry that were alive when I moved them should have survived as that would have aerated the water. Either that, or there wasn't enough food in the water?

It's a hard learning curve - but I'm sure with experience I'll get there.

Another departure...

Not a good day! Blackie, the paralysed Guppy, was ddead when I looked in this morning. No idea what has happened there - nothing on the other fish. Then I did a good clean with a 20% water change. This had been planned for morning, but got delayed until evening.

I forgot to aerate the bottle the baby Danios are in and it was planned that they would come out of there today - I was intending to use the water taken from the main tank to set up the small tank. When I got around to that nearly all looked dead. There are maybe one or two that are swimming about.

Also, the shrimps haven't carried eggs for a while. Was pondering that and researching what could have got Blackie when I found a few diseases for which the treatment is salt. I've had salt in the tank occasionally, not often. I first added it when the female halfbeak had a strange growth - so the 26 April. 15 May I noticed the shrimp carrying the eggs.

She lost them after a large water change (and low oxygen) and at some point recently I added salt again, and I'm sure it was after that both shrimps carried eggs. Then the last few weeks I've done quite a few water changes.

Maybe, just maybe, the shrimps will only carry eggs when there is salt in the water? I'll hve to watch for that.

Maintenance - O2 normal; nitrate approaching 20ppm; 20% water change; 2 teaspoons tonic salts added; baby danios to spare tank.

Paralysed Guppy?

Not much recently, except today I noticed that the Guppy 'Blackie' seems to be paralysed from the waist down. She's swimming using just her pectoral fins, which doesn't look good. Her back has suddenly arched and she's lost her 'pregnant' look and her colouring has gone slightly.

It's all come on very sharply - I suppose it doesn't look too good.

Nitrate reading down, Danios hatching

The nitrate reading is down more to where I like them to be - although normally after a 25% change I would expect them to be even lower. But they have dropped significantly, so I'm happy. The high nitrate readings could have been caused by many factors - the oxygenating weed dieing & rotting on mass; the filter getting blocked because the shrimps were molting in the bracket etc.

Not convinced the food rotting in the oxygenating weed that was released into the water could have done it, but removing it from the water will have helped stop the problem from getting any worse.

We've been desperately trying to measure the length of the babies - no luck yet! I'm going to have to photograph them again, I think!

I've seen the first sign of hatched Danios today in the bottle of water. I did count 16 eggs in there last week and can now see 3 fry at the bottom of the bottle, each about 4mm long. But they are so little that it's easy to miss them swimming around and as I move the bottle they swim off. Still, 3 wouldn't be a bad start - especially if they do spawn weekly.

Also, I've found 5 or 6 fry swimming around in the tank - hiding behind the breeding net. Not the way I expected it to save their lives, but great! So I syringed them up and also put them into the bottle - I'm sure there are too many hungry mouths in the main tank.

It does show that once a few are spawning a couple of survivors should make it to a good size...

Maintenance - nitrate 10ppm; O2 8mg/l+.

The shortest lived residents...

With yesterday's higher than I'd like nitrate readings and the whitespot in the tank, I did a 25% water change this morning.

Sadly, all 3 Cardinals died overnight - the smallest - the one very heavily infected with white spot - had died by the time I went to bed and the other 2 died during the night. No idea, of course, whether it was because of the whitespot, the treatment or being in a small treatment tank. It's highly likely I overdosed the treatment given the small amount of water being treated. In hindsite, I'd have prepared an easier to measure amount in a large volume of water and just used some of that to treat the tank. Trying to guess 2/90 of a ml isn't easy! I should have measured, for example, ½ ml of treatment, made it up to 10ml and just used ½ml of the solution. I think that's roughly the right maths!

Gave the main tank their weekend treat of a block of bloodworm and a couple of them got into the breeding net - funny sight for a while of a Guppy Fry swimming around trying to eat the bloodworm. The bloodworm isn't in the net now - so he either succeeded or gave it up to someone else.

Maintenance - 25% water change; removed nearly all remaining oxygenating weed; ½ml whitespot treatment; heater to 26 celsius.

First high nitrate reading

After yesterday's cleaning of the filter, the tank filled with bits blasted off the plants and the current is much better around the tank. But I've just done the tests and the nitrates are the highest I have ever seen in that tank.

It probably isn't helped by the fact that when I moved the fry into the breeding trap I had to pour out their water into the main tank. I suspect that added a bit of waste - but the relative proportions of the water should mean it wasn't that much damage. I suppose maybe the spawning has added to the waste load as well?

The new cardinals also seem to have developed whitespot over night... Now Alan thinks that all fish carry whitespot and it shows after stress. Well, it did take 30 minutes to drive them home (instead of the usual 10) and a badly timed (very long...) phone call that would go away meant their introduction to the tank was slowed, so maybe that's stressed them. I can't believe the tank in the shop would have that much white spot - Sarah's too good to not notice.

Maintenance - Nitrate - 40ppm; small water change (all prepared water) and water prepared for 25% tomorrow.

The party's over...

Finally, I found a spot when the shrimps weren't partying in the filter bracket! Threee were still on the outside of the filter, but these did eventually move as I lifted it out to clean it. But it was a worrying time as they held their ground and I was concerned they might jump!

Then, when I was putting the filter back in, three shrimp were back in place cleaning the bracket... Had to shift them first! But once the power was back on the difference was obvious! Bits of dead plants were suddenly blasted away and trapped food (they weren't fed yesterday at all after the spawning) sent flying everywhere. The water is a right state, but moving well!

No spawning today, even though three Zebra Danios are still very plump. Maybe they aren't quite ready to start. I think I've got at least a dozen eggs collected, so will have to watch that for now. Should know more in a day or two.

Also, this afternoon we bought a breeding net - so the fry are in that. I'm hoping that by being in the same water as the main tank the wastes in the water are cleared away. Hopefully, cleaner water and better oxygenated water will encourage growth. Then in a week or so, there might be more baby Danios to join them.

Also, since our fish expert said there was plenty more space in the tank, we've added a female Peppered Cory as company to the male (?) Peppered Cory and a trio of Cardinal Tetras. It's getting to be a busy tank!

Maintenance - cleaned filter pads; bought breeding net and added 1 Danio fry and ??? Guppy Fry.

Danios Spawning

It's been a quiet week in the tank - just developing nicely! I was sitting with my wife's uncle watching the tank a few days back and he said he thought a few of the danios were ready to spawn. I tried to catch the fattest one last night to move her into a tank I'd prepared for her, but failed...

But this morning, another Danio, which my daughter calls 'Wavy', was being chased by 2 male Zebra Danios and 2 male Leopard Danios. I was watching them for 2 hours! I think they have just about finished and my oxygenating weeds, which were falling apart and ready to be replaced anyway, are battered by the amount of high speed swimming they have been doing.

I've never seen anything like it from them. All the fish are obviously snacking and I did see some eggs at one point, which were eaten within seconds by 'Blackie', the female guppy.

After a lot of effort I have removed some water, with eggs, so I think I have at least a dozen eggs safely put aside. Next Wednesday I'll remove the same fish into the tank I have ready prepared and see if she'll spawn if I add a couple of males.

The tank should be better settled in by then - the water aging a little... Although I have used tank water and odds and ends of plants to start it off. Plus I've placed some chicken wire across the bottom. It's carefully laid so that there are no sharp edges for the fish to catch, whilst I'm hoping that the mesh it too tight for them to swim through. But it should allow plenty of space for eggs to drop down through and be hidden below.

'Wavy' is looking a lot thinner now - a remarkable difference. Just leaves 'Patcho' and 'Ziggy' still fat. I thought maybe I was missing them spawning and the shrinkage was very little. Obviously not!

Is there a party somewhere???

No idea what's going on in the tank at the moment, but I'm desperate to get the filter out and give it a clean. But, for the last 3 or 4 days there's been at least 3 shrimps constantly on it, probably cleaning it. And they aren't just on the filter - they are also hiding down the bracket at the back, so if I moved it I could crush them.

There also seems to be a cory party right now as well - they are all in a corner feeding on something, even though I never put food there.

On another night, by wife's uncle, a very well experienced fish breeder, has recommended getting a pair of dwarf cichlids after sitting with us and watching the tank for 90 minutes. He agrees that the tank is no way near fully populated yet and can take a lot more fish!

The eggs have gone...

Just a quick one to note that the eggs seem to have gone from the shrimp, again. Didn't quite reach 2 weeks, so I doubt that they have hatched.No idea what has happened this time, when she carried them for so long. Even if they have hatched then it's likely that someone in the tank will eat them before too long.

Next time...

How do you measure fish fry???

How do you measure your new fry to see if they really are growing??? I've read reports by people where they give detailed measurements as the fry grow each millimeter. No way do my quick guess measurements come up to that standard!

So, today I tried a new trick. A digitial photo of the fish with a scale held at water level. And for most accuracy - I'd just fed the fish to bring them to the surface!

The results - well the Danio (???) comes in at 12 - 13mm long - he / she had their tail bent, so it's still hard to be accurate (large fry, dead centre of the picture). Body width is much easier to measure at 2mm...

The Guppies - well they are all roughly the same, so only measured a couple and they are around 7mm long and just under 2mm wide. They are 10 days old and have increased by almost 50%. Not a bad growth rate, I suppose. Especially as there was no sign of growth for the first few days.

Eggs are still there...

The danios are still hungry, but not really slimming down. Hopefully they haven't got bloat or anything!

The shrimp continues to carry some eggs - not as many as there were, but still enough to keep our hopes going. Still another 4 days before the 2 weeks of carrying the eggs is up - so more days of waiting and hoping the eggs aren't lost, like she has already done on the first batch and the other female did on her first batch last week. This one managed to get to 12 days last time - so still not got to that position. But losing her eggs did coincide with messing about with the air flow, so must keep the tank well oxygenated and not move her into somewhere that might be short of oxygen - not sure how I'll preserve these babies if they get to the point of hatching!

The whitespot returns...

The whitespot has returned to the halfbeak - what a nuiscance! Was talking to the lady in the shop yesterday and she noticed as I was talking to her that the whitespot had returned to her halfbeak. I don't know what it is about this infection, but even when I'm treating it (I put a dose of medication into the tank only yesterday) it can still reappear. I seem to have been dosing the tank alternate days for ages now.

The fat fish do seem to have shrunk a little, so the top feeders are on part rations for the next few days to sort that out. It's so easy to feed too much when I'm sat by the tank most working hours of the day. They can easily be over fed!

When we fed them this afternoon the water boiled - they were that keen to get to the food. But still continuing to feed the babies their full rations - maybe even sneaking an extra clean and feed in to keep them going.

More Corys

We've added a pair of Panda Corys finally today - it's taken ages for them to turn up in the shop - we've been pestering the lady for weeks! Hopefully she picked out a male and female for us - my daughter is absolutely desperate to get breeding more inhabitants!

The Albino Cory spends a lot of time swimming up and down frantically. Aparently, that can be the sign of a female looking for a mate - I already thought it was a female, so that backs it up. So it looks like I'll need to arrange a large albino male partner for her - no juveniles for her, that won't do the business!

The shrimp is still carrying the eggs and the tiny Guppies are continuing to survive, and might even have grown slightly - width if not length. They definitely are far more interested in feeding - I spent 5 minutes tonight dipping food into their tub after removing the waste from the bottom.

Also did a 10% water change today - although the nitrate reading last night was only 10ppm, 12 after the last water change. But I did notice the male Guppy looking like a barrel - and so are a few of the Zebra Dabios. I'm assuming / hoping that it's just too much food, so no evening feed for anyone tonight.

Another quiet day...

Nothing much has happened today - the Guppy fry continue to grow at an impossibly slow rate - will they really reach a decent size by 4 - 6 weeks as I have read? If I'm optimisitic, they might be a whole 6mm long now. The Danio fry does seem to be growing - maybe 10mm long. But it's hard to work out the size of any of them - they are all so active.

The best way of feeding the Guppy fry seems to involve gently chasing them around the tank by moving the floating plants. Once they are woken up properly they are really eager to feed. Or maybe it's just their age - they are more willing to feed.

Still the older shrimp carrying eggs. Sometimes I think the other might have a few eggs, but I think it's just her keeping her balance.

Apart from that, I've not noticed the dreaded whitespot for a few days. Hopefully, the cycle has finally broken. Now I need to work out why the halfbeak has lost his colour and get him back on form.

Are the babies growing?

Little sign of growth on the Guppies - but I am wondering if they are going wider. On a couple of the feeds, ones when I cleaned out their tub first, but didn't add water, a lot of the fry did come to the top of the water to feed. Maybe they are getting wider, before they grow longer.

No sign of growth for the baby danio and there's still one of the shrimps carrying eggs. I also noticed in the water removed from the tank over a week ago something swimming in the waste water. There are usually some little tiny insect type blobs swimming around, but I also saw some longer blobs in 2 of the waste water bottles. Maybe if I moved them upstairs to a window, where they would be warmer and more light to create algae, then there might be some growth.

Watching the second female carefully, her tummy has also flattened out slightly and she's hiding around. So I think she's going into a container for the night...

The local shop had an arrival of Panda Corys yesterday - a pair of the cuties are reserved for us. Was tempted for a trio, but apparently they aren't easy breeders. Save the space for some Corys that might breed.

The babies continue...

I'm continuing to change small amounts of water for the Guppy fry and feeding them regularly, but at most they have grown 1mm to 6mm - but it's hard to measure any of the fry in the tub. They are only 48 hours old, but I'm impatient! I wasn't sure whether they actually fed for the first 48 hours or not, but with the Danio fry also in the tub, some feeding was required.

I am a little disappointed that the eother Guppy doesn't look heavily pregnant, but reading up on how many fry are usually in a drop, it looks like this wasn't Blackie's first drop - there are still about 30 survivors - and I don't know if she ate any of them.

But I was looking carefully at her today and wondering if she is carrying a small number of fry - reading up last night, a first drop can be 8 - 25 fry. So watching her carefully as her gravid spot is speckled slightly, like Blackie's on Saturday. So I'll watch her behaviour tomorrow and see if her tummy flattens at all.

It's also a shame about the shrimps - the newer female, that was carrying plenty of eggs, has lost most of her eggs. There are still a few there and she's fanning them with her swimmerets, so there is still a chance of babies. Pity, my plan was to watch for when the eggs were hatching on the older shrimp and then to move the younger shrimp into a separate tank, expecting her eggs to hatch the day after the older shrimp's eggs. That plan is out of the window...

The Guppy fry survive their first night

All but one of the fry survived the first 24 hours - the one that didn't looked a bit deformed, or that could just have been the way it died. We had noticed one had an interesting colouration on top - too much black on one side. It was either that one that died, or the black patch has cleared up.

I dropped the dead fry back into the main tank and in the blink of an eye it was eaten - the little fry wouldn't stand a chance in there alone! They are still around 5mm long, but do seem to be trying to take some of the food off the surface. I expect that once they start eating, then as long as the water stays fresh etc, hopefully they will put on some decent growth.

It is fascinating watching them. They all hide at the back when I open the tank, but if I stand still and watch them they make their way to the top to find food. The Danio (???) fry is about 8mm long - possibly grown ever so slightly. Really need him to make some progress so he can be put into the main tank. It's almost a month since I recorded him as 5mm - 6mm in length. Mind you, I thought there were 3 of them then, but only found one the next day.

Come on little fishies - do some growing!

Last Monday is was the death of the favourite resident, today it's a birth. Well, births to be precise - 25 to 30 of them! The female Guppy, Blackie, whom I managed to catch late last night did indeed drop her fry this morning.

She was sitting quietly at the back of the ice cream tub, with most of the fry swimming around the other side of the tub. I was amazed that it happened so easily, that I guessed the right night (first time!) that they would be born and how big the fry are! I would guess that they are each 5mm long and actively swimming around.

The other baby we have - the possible Danio, isn't gowing that quickly, although it is growing. So since we now have a tub in the top of the tank setup for growing on (if only for a week...) we're in the process of moving him over as well. It means only 1 baby tank to care for but the benefit for him is that the water in that tank is far warmer - heated by the water around it and the lights overhead in the daytime.

I read that Guppies do show growth spurts when a water change takes place, and the danio fry has been in the same water with only small amounts changed. Given the position etc of the tub I'll be changing water from it quite frequently. I'm not sure how long they are in the tub before they get to a size at which they can be released to the main tank. I did read that they are mature at 1 month - so it can't take too long.

And the other good news is that I'm sure we have not one but two shrimps carrying eggs. I saw the second one for certain yesterday, without eggs, so she's only laid them overnight. Looks like one is making the other maternal. I suppose it's nature's way of producing more baby shrimps at the same time and thus increasing the chances of some surviving.

So the cold baby tank might have 2 shrimps in it soon enough!

Guppy Drop Update....

After quite a few attempts, I finally persuaded Blackie to swim to the front of the tank and then, with the lights long since off in the tank, gently netted her.

If only it could be as easy as it sounds... The male Guppy was also caught and I hadn't prepared a container to put her in. So I left them both in the net and whilst keeping it perfectly still with one hand, managed to move off the tank covers with the other hand and then lower a cleaned out 1 litre ice cream tub into the tank with the other. A bit of twisting and I released the male (I'd left him in to make her more calm) and then slowly raised the net up the tank, whilst still pressed against the glass.

This was the nearest to disturbed Blackie looked in the process - I don't think she felt properly netted in the dark. I was able to twist the net into the ice cream tub and almost fill it with water, so that it floated just below the lights.

With the addition of a few loose strands of plant and an artifical plant to provide plenty of cover, she looks quite calm and relaxed. I've also thrown the switch on the lights so that they don't come on in the morning - I should be well up by then, by it is the last day of the school holidays, so I might just get a late lie in...

I'll check on her first thing and I think if there's no sign of fry then I'll release her (rather than baking her under the lights once they come on) and try to catch her again tomorrow after lights off... I'm assuming / hoping that the fry will be born over night or early morning.

She definitely looked slightly more relaxed in the tub. But I'm too worried that I'll not be able to have the lights on or that the waste levels will get too high or the oxygen levels too low... I'm a worrier about my fish!

Guppy closer to dropping

The Guppy, Blackie, must be getting very close to dropping her fry. Her tummy is starting to square off, the gravid spot is black, with other colours there and she's spending most of the time hiding in the corners.

We did try to net her, but she wasn't having any of it. I'vertried a few times, but she always hides behind plants (there are loads) or decorations - and it's not easy to net her in a cave... Although now that the lights are off she keeps swimming out into the open - until I put the net in...

Also, the older female shrimp is once more covered in eggs, so maybe that was the shrimps mating that I witnessed a few days ago. I'm pretty sure I saw her yesterday, without eggs, so today is day 1. Must keep the oxygen levels up this time and see if we can raise any. Quite a fast turn around since the first batch of eggs were lost - less than a week ago. It must be a good sign - they at least are happy in the water.

I was also watching the Corys for half an hour this afternoon. Fascinating little fish, just watching them and the shrimp feeding on the algae pellets and a few flakes that had drifted to the bottom of the tank. The Corys really struggle to find the food then take little nibbles, whereas the shrimp appear from nowhere, steal a whole pellet and swim off to eat it in peace. The large shrimp even 'fought' off the loach - which is about 8cm long! The shrimps then sit in a plant and eat away at the pellet, although loads of it does drift off in the process - messey little eaters.

When the loach finds a pellet there's a load crscking sound - almost a pistol shot sound, as he is biting bits off. Sometimes he takes several bites before losing it, other times he can't find it after his first bite. Then he swims around until he smells out another pellet.

The bottom feeders are surprisinlgy interesting to watch. Not like the top feeders that charge at the food and then it's gone. Much more fun than I thought they would be.