Adventures in Fishkeeping or A Fish Tale

[fishorama]

I remember you lost a zebra & an altum. You shouldn't feel bad about them, your 046 was quite old even with your good care. Your 1 surviving altum, well, the rest of its original group had died.

I think you can cut back on at least some of your tank maintenance. Maybe not the pleco fry grow out tanks as much adult fish tanks. I admit I have lightly stocked heavily planted tanks & do both smaller & less frequent WCs sometimes. Your clown loach tank probably has the most "fish mass" & might need more than say your plant tanks. Now, your altum tank has only 4? plus some other fish probably but fairly lightly stocked I think. It's a larger tank with plants & water that needs extra prep...hmm, I might cut back on that 1. You have TDS meters...use them to help decide WC needs, a little raise in "usual" nitrate level isn't a great big deal & TDS meters are a fast way to check. Go slowly on cutting back & judge by fish behavior too.

The adult pleco breeders...maybe they'll breed a bit less with fewer WCs, not a terrible thing. Or (egad!!) start pulling the females & put them with their same species fry? I know that's a difficult option but you'd still have proven breeders to make up "sale breeder groups" & no new fry...Otherwise you'll always have more eggs & fry...just when you want out of this wonderful breeding pleco madness. I don't see another way for you to stop this year...or 2?...

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It has been a while since I updated this thread. I am inthe process of downsizing. I am down to 3 breeding groups and I have committed on one of the remaining 3. But I still have a ton of offspring. I have taken a 200 sq ft. space in the Vendor Room at the Keystone Clash, I am hoping to sell a lot of fish and equipment there.

I also had to do summer tanks again as a result of the above. I needed places to segregate fish. So I have 5 x 20L tanks going. $ hsve fish and one of these in an H tank for my second biggest clown loach which had severe wasting disease. I managed to cure it but I have been power feeding it three times a day for a while to bulk it back up. I need another week I think and then the tank is free for segregation purposes.

I finally broke down the zebra pleco tank which I have been ignoring for some time. I still have 18 fish. 5 or 6 were huge anf likely all in thr their late teens or early 20s. I was not expecting much of anything in the tank as I have not been working with ot to make fry. So I was pretty surprised to nab 9 very recently free swimming fry. There was also one fish at just over an inch so it was also born there. ANd there may be one or two more that were as well.

The WC 173 are still spawning and the breeder tank is filled with offspring I recently broke down the Super white Breeding tank and I now have about 56 offspring of assorted sizes from about 3/4 inch to over 3. The offspring at 1.5 inch or more will all be going to the Clash for sale.

I will finally be joining some social media to sell fish but on a laptop which has no connection to anything else but fish. *sigh* I am not sure where to go. I will not use Twitter for sure as all it does is to empower idiots as far as I can tell. I really am not a fan of Google but may need to be active on YouTube. I am not sure on Facebook, but I need and want none of their suggestions on anything. I may just have to set such an account as not able to receive anything from any other member there. I have no clue how it works but I HATE SPAM and will do aanything and everything to block it. Plus I refuse to store any cookies or history on my PC and won't on the laptop either. I have never stored passwords. The laptop has a VPN that activates when the laptop starts.

I actually bought a smart phone that was supposed to be how I accessed the net for the laptop. But much of the wor kon it would be done at home rather than at fish events. There are not enough bars here from the phone to be able to use it as intended. I got 3 months worth of minimal data for it. Once I discoverd the lack of a strong connection, the plan was changed and I did not sign up for any more minutes. So I now have a $400 camera and video device I can barely work. Had I known, I would have bought a camera instead.

I edit my fish pics on my PC. So I planned to use the phone camera to take the pics and then move them onto my PC to edit. I do not use the cloud because I only have one device basically and have no need/use for the cloud. I figure I will not need the laptop any more in about a year. So, I would blank it all in terms of any personal information, anything related to social media etc. and then use it around the house. I do not do wireless on my PC, so it would be nice to be able to be online in other rooms in the house. But I hate small screens and the laptop is only 15 inches. I use much bigger on my PC.

I have never sent or received texts and still would not have had I kept the smart phone active. I have a flip phone for voice and I had ATT disable the texting because I pay as I go and I was getting spam texts I had to pay to receive. Privacy is not so easy to come by these days, but have done OK in that respect. As far as I know, there is not a sinle picture of me anywhere on the net. So except for things related to fish (like this site), I do not exist in the online world. I am registered almost nowhere.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I'm getting old for sure. When I said I had about 56 sw 236, I forgot I had put 12 into one of the terrace tanks. So, I actually have more like 68.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It has been ages since I posted in this thread. My fish life has changed substantially. When I last posted I had 3 breeding groups left. I am now down to one.

I almost wiped out the rarest most expensive tank. I lost 75+ fish, mostly offspring but also one breeders, I thought I may have steri;ized the 9 survivors plus the dozen assorted offspring that also made it. This was close to 9 monts ago. i am happy to report I have had 2 spawns recntly from them.

Two days agou I sold 142 fish. I messed up a bit and forgt to put the 5 least expensive into one box. This is a repeats customer. Her bought my SUper White 236 breeders. But when I went to catch them I discovered a trapping in progress. I called him woth two option- I could break open the cave mid-spawn and ship them or we could wait til the trapping ended with spawn or not which would allow me to ship them to him. I also owed him the 5 small fish I forgot. So he he will get a make good then as he declined a refund.

I have been working like mad to get the fish ready to go. Friday I started at about 10 in the morning and the pick person left at 19:30 that evening. I worked another hour afterward.

The good news is the person who picked up was interested in the altums, the clown loaches and a tank of incertain Hypancistru plecos I do not care much about. He may also want the last of my RB 236. This guy is a seller though as well as a hobbyist. It turned out we had met 4 times since 2014. # times at the CatCon weekend and also he was thre booths down from me at the Keystone clash. When my buyer told me his name. I had a feeling we had met.

I had to set up a temp 20 gal, about a week ago for overflow fish going out. That got me back to 20 as I had close down ther 125. AFter the sale I have closed a 40L and 2 x 33L. I will close down antrher 33L shortly. I had to keep the SW breeding tank going as there are about 35-40 fry under an inch in there. I need to grow them for a few months to get them to shipping size (1.5 inch). But if my buyer takes the other three species or even 4, I will then be down to 8 tanks--> 5.5, 15, 2x20L, 25, 29, 30b and a 75.

The pair of 20L will go out for sure in the next few months. One holds the last of my zebras. 3 are 19-22 years old and a fish friend in CA is willing to take them gratis and give them a place the end their lives in peace. There are 8 youngsters growing out to be sellable and that should be in a few months and that tank is gone.

I have a dozen TR parented L173 in two groups of 6 for sale. They are in a divided 22L and I will be selling these in the next 6 weeks- so down comes another tank.

I plan to keep my over under in-wall tanks (75 over a 30B). The 30B holds the RB 236 and the 75 is a planted community. The 30 be will become a tank of corys and likely tetras. It is a shallow tank so plants will be a bit difficult. It has to be all low light slow growers. The 15, 25 and 29 are all planted communities.The 5.5 holds a few CPDs and cgerry shrimp.it takes about 10 minutes or less to do weekly maint. The onlt issue it it is 6 ft. up a wall on a shelf whch means the ladder. So does the in-wall 75. Those tanks will only stay going until I no longer feel safe on the 3 step ladder. After all, I will be turning 76 in the not too distant future.

 

[jake72]

buces make nice low light slow growing plants This is my 10 which might be taller but there are a lot of options for dense planting:

Not really any buces in here just a bunch of crypts - red lip p; nuri rosen; green greco; a moss ball gone wild and coating everythign in the back - the sponges; the driftwood the heater - all soft layer of moss ball gone wild.

Shrimps love shallow aquariums

 

[fishorama]

jake, you might be a "next breeder" of TTA's B & W hypancistrus, several species ...you've got that BIG new fish room & you like to breed fish, that's always fun...If that's something you'd like to do, well, contact him soon! He's getting out of our hobby slowly, ASAP!!

 

[jake72]

jake, you might be a "next breeder" of TTA's B & W hypancistrus, several species ...you've got that BIG new fish room & you like to breed fish, that's always fun...If that's something you'd like to do, well, contact him soon! He's getting out of our hobby slowly, ASAP!!

I don't like breeding fishes i don't like keeping or dont' feel comfortable keeping. While the specific fish is easy enough to keep; they are too reclusive for me. For some of the more interesting pleco i don't have a system setup to create the type of current they require. 'Sides i'm not that young and the 14 aquariums I have are a handfull

 

[fishorama]

Sorry jake, it was only a slight fun suggestion. It seems you were almost offended by my idea. I'm not "young" anymore either...It seems you overreacted, I won't do it again....

 

[jake72]

Sorry jake, it was only a slight fun suggestion. It seems you were almost offended by my idea. I'm not "young" anymore either...It seems you overreacted, I won't do it again....

I wouldn't use the word offensive; just isn't my thing. There are so many things i would do different if i knew 2 years ago what i know today. But it takes a fair amount of effort to deal with the 600 and 500 gallon aquarium plus the other 12 - when i first go into the hobby pleco was my thing and there are some really nice ones out there but turning my 600 into a river today would be a huge amount of effort. Sure the clown loaches would love it but for now i think that last big project this year is redoing the sump on the 600 and then i'm going to take a break for a year or so to get caught up on non-aquarium stuff.

 

[fishorama]

jake, your tanks are way outside of any of my experiences. I've never done a sump or an 8ft tank. But I'd love to read about how you've done it! I want to learn even if I'll never do it personally. & yes, our nonfish lives need some attention too. I'm on taxes ATM, spring cleaning & setting up a plant club meet soon, minutia, but not compared to my dinner tonight, lol. Cooking is my other hobby