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Re: Species Maintenance..Bag of cents response
Hi David;
Well, I was a little irritated at your comments.
I thought you spoke harshly against a number of very
nice guys who would have helped you immensely if you
had just asked them politely and personally. It would
be wise to check all angles out before you rail against
guys that have been in the hobby a long time.
That said, I will still give you some info on Diapterons.
If you look at the BNL's in 1993-1994 ( I dont remember
the exact month) you will find that I listed Georgiae for
sale in 10 pair lots. I had some where between 200 and 300
georgiae in various stages of growth.
How did I do this? I had two trios that I was keeping at
76F. They were getting BBS & chopped black worms. Weekly
water changes, tender care, but I never got more than 5 eggs
total from them, with the daily average more like one to three
eggs total. Not good. My pairs were about 12 months old at
the time. My good friend Kit in San Diego was having good
success with his, but he was keeping them very cool and he
usually did not get any egg production until they were two
years old or more! His success rate was about 20 fry per
month.
I did not want to wait, so I started observing the fish more.
The eggs were orangish colored, from the BBS I assumed. I read
everything I could find on diapterons, especially collecting
information. In one article it said that the main food items
found in wild caught Diapteron stomach contents were copepod
type water crustacheans, similiar to Daphnia. Ergo I thought!
Just feed them some daphnia!. BBS is much higher in protein
than daphnia, maybe we were giving them stomach aches when we
fed the usual foods that were much richer in food value. Maybe
they needed the bulk represented by the lower protein daphnia!?
I quickly switched them to daphnia only feedings. Their egg
production went up, but only slightly. Bah-Humbug! Their eggs
started appearing almost clear, not orange anymore. H'mm, I
thought. What now? More observation of the fish while feeding
revealed that their tiny mouths could not eat many of the larger
daphnia contained in my usual baster squirt of daphnia. My old
brain finally got in gear. If they liked the lower protein, higher
bulk daphnia, but still needed the total amount of protein, maybe
they were'nt getting enough of the right sized daphnia to eat?
I started feeding them only small sifted daphnia in large amounts.
The second day on this diet ( still at 76 deg.F mind you) I
collected eight almost clear eggs. The daily number of eggs
continued to climb until around the tenth day I collected 31 eggs
from the two trios in a single day. Within a month I stopped
collecting eggs because I had so many fry on their way up and I
had to leave room for some of the other 65 species/locations that
I had on hand at the time.
If you can, try the above diet on your diapterons at your present
temp. I never kept them that cool. It would be interesting to see
what happens. By the way, at the higher temps my georgiae were old
and on their way out by the time Kits georgiae were just starting
to lay eggs at the 24 month age. This applies generally to many
killies. But mine had produced hundreds of fry before his ever came
on line, and more fry than I believe his ever did.
A couple of other comments on the rest of your fish. The ogoense
will do much better if you cram them with lots of mosquito larvae,
put them in a small tank with many mops, temp from 74 to 77.
You must be very careful of your water pH crashing at 0 dh. I would
harden it to 30 ppm. You will still get plenty of eggs, but the
buffering ability of the water is a life insurance policy for your
fish.
A last comment. I have copied this answer to Killitalk in hope
that it might prove useful to other killiekeepers also. I have
no secrets to breeding killies, just techniques that I haven't
been asked about yet.
Regards,
Monty Lehmann ..AKA # 0459
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