RE: [Killietalk] FW: [Northwestkillies] I've got babies!! ... Me too..

["Tranquility Base" <TranquilityBase at netzero_net>]

Greetings Brian, et al:

There is more than a little truth in this story. Some four years ago I
acquired a trio of BIT from a local fish store. For some reason no one at my
local club seemed to keep them so I figured that LFS fish without a pedigree
were better than nothing. I floated a mop and only collected one egg that
hatched and grew to be a healthy male fish. But I never got another egg. I
moved the mop, sunk the mop and even picked through the java moss for eggs
but there were no eggs to follow. As many of you know, BIT can color up to
be magnificent fish with red, green, gold and purple tinges and delicate
markings etched by the divine itself, or down to a dull grey fish with two
horizontal black bars and red fins. This particular strain prefers to remain
dressed drably. I thought to dispose of the fish at an auction but the week
before the club meeting, the male swam up to the front pane and in the
resplendence of the morning sun, colored up to book cover splendor. I lost
heart for my conspiracy to dispose of the disappointing trio. Instead, I
left them in their old metal frame 3 gallon fish tank and added back the now
young adult male. I just left the java moss to grow. I occasionally scraped
the algae from the viewing pane in hopes of a command performance from
either of the males. But such would never be a common experience. The java
moss overgrew the tank and reached the surface. I finally decided to cut it
back to once again see the fish. To my surprise, there were some 20 plus
sub-adult fish in the moss. I distributed several pair of the offspring
adding the tag 'CI99'. The F1 generation males all had a bright red
horizontal bar starting above the eye and running below the dorsal fin. They
colored up more often than the original male. I moved the fish to larger
accommodations and again never collected an egg. Even when I let the java
moss grow no fry ever developed in the fish's new digs. One day when I
cleared the java moss to see if they had multiplied I realized that I was
again down to just a few aging specimens and a young ANN that had somehow
snuck into that tank as an egg with some java moss. I moved the remaining
fish back to the old 3 gal tank let the java moss grow back and another
generation of about a dozen fish magically appeared. Most of the people I
distributed fish to were not successful with propagating the fish.

So what's the secret? What is it about that one old 3 gal fish tank that
makes the fish want to reproduce there and not anywhere else? I haven't a
clue, but it works for me. I might add that that fish tank is next to my
desk and today one of the males colored up and stood in the center of the
tank for about 20 minutes. It was hard to get any work done. My wife
described it as a little rocket with flames coming out of the tail.  She
usually ignores my fish completely.

Now with regard to cichlids, I confess this spring I caved in and picked up
a pair of Apisto. panduro a/k/a A. pandurini.  I figured I needed a little
change of pace from the rigors of a fish room full of killies and a pair of
easy colorful cichlids fit the bill. Now every killie keeper knows that if
you fail at killies you still have a great career ahead of you with
cichlids. Some of these fish will care for their own young if you are
incompetent to. In many cases the only instruction a new cichlid breeder
needs is "just add water".  For those of you killifolk unfamiliar with
panduro, it is also known as the sky blue Apisto. The male is a bright sky
blue with a red or orange trim on the caudal fin that is usually filled with
a black diamond or triangle. the pelvic fins have bright yellow margins and
the anal fin is a pastel yellow. The female breeding colors is a striking
golden or honey yellow similar to golden rams with jet black markings and
the orange trim on the caudal fin. My female is always garbed this way. When
the female is stressed or in a pet shop she resembles the male except for
the black in the pectoral fins, still not all bad. Despite its unfortunate
association with the cichlid clan, it is a very sharp little fish.  It
almost could have been a killifish.

I put the pair into a 10 gal tank with a rock covered with java fern some
java moss and a box filter. The cave was an inverted flower pot with a
doorway cut in. The fish immediately went into breeding colors and looked
like they were guarding eggs. But there were no fry. I lowered the pH, the
fish still looked like they were busy breeding but no fry. I added black
water extract, no fry. Unfailing overconfidence is both the constant
companion and insidious advisory of many fish breeders.  I was obviously
doing nothing wrong. The fish were clearly defective.

A friend gave me a 45 gal tank that contained a single 10 year old giant
kissing guarami. I moved the panduro into a larger planted 20 gal tank and
tossed the guarami into the empty 10 gal tank. Over the course of the
summer. I fed the panduro well on live foods including daphnia and skeeter
larvae. Still no fry but their spectacular color and outgoing personality
made for an excellent addition to my living room.  I pretty much neglected
the guarami, feeding it with surplus live foods and flake. The water
evaporated down to about 2/3 and I finally gave the big pallid panfish away.
The day after I disposed of the guarami I noticed I had left the lights on
in the 10 gal tank when I netted the guarami. As I went to turn off the
lights I noticed a few 1/2 inch long laterally compressed fish scurrying
along the bottom of the tank. Before any of you newbies get any strange
ideas, single guarami's don't reproduce. I mean their not killies after all!
The little guys were panduros! No BBS, no fry foods of any kind, no parental
care, and a huge guarami in the tank and somehow the little cichlids were
already in adult coloration.  See, I told you cichlids were easy! I heard
that some cichlids are excellent at hiding their fry but I never heard of
them hiding them in another fish tank on another floor of the house. Worst
of all how am I ever going to raise any more of these stupid fish. I got rid
of the guarami!

Well all in all, the long and the short of the story is, that fish will do
what they will do despite our best efforts. Sometimes, the fish follow the
formula contained in the books, sometimes they just don't. Rumor has it that
the fish can't read anyway.  And take my advise, showing them the book
rarely works, it does make the book soggy, fades the color photos and the
pages stick together. The most successful breeders adapt to the fish, not
the other way around. If your methods don't work try something else.
Sometimes it is the smallest change that does the trick. Now that I know
that the fish are not entirely defective, and at least capable of producing
young, last week I redesigned the cave for the adult panduros. I replaced
the flower pot with a large inverted clay saucer with a doorway cut out with
a diamond hack saw blade. The female has been in the new improved cave for
three days now. Will the new cave finally produce schools of fry? I don't
know yet, but she never went into the old cave. In Peter Sinfield's immortal
words 'I'm closer to believing than I've ever been before.'

Peace,

~RJ~

-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces at aka_org [mailto:killietalk-bounces at aka_org]On
Behalf Of Brian Perkins
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 11:39 PM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: [Killietalk] FW: [Northwestkillies] I've got babies!! ... Me
too..


This is from our resident Cichlidiot. I thought some of you might find a
giggle in here somewhere..............

Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Northwestkillies-bounces at aka_org
[mailto:Northwestkillies-bounces at aka_org] On Behalf Of Krampetz at aol_com
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 5:39 PM
To: Northwestkillies at aka_org
Subject: Re: [Northwestkillies] I've got babies!! ... Me too..


How to raise killies after a fruitless year of trying.

First, you will need lots of small tanks or bowls and
2-4 spawning mops for every pair of killies.   Mops
are made of yarn and corks.  You can drink lots of
wine and get lots of corks.

Trade the spawning mops out every 10 - 14 days and
put them in an empty tank of water.   Place new
mops in their tanks.   Get disappointed that nothing
shows up.  Continue this for months until you're
almost ready to give up on killies.

Write to the email list,  discover new methods from
the other killie keepers. (they're good people)

Drink more wine, get more corks, make more mops.
Begin a regimen of not only trading the mops but
also checking the mops for eggs and place those
you find in a separate container for hatching.
Watch all the eggs fungus.

Again write to the email list, learn some other new methods from those
lying killie keepers that claim they have no problems raising these
impossible fish.

Start moving the pairs of killies to new tanks and watch
the  vacated tanks for signs of life.   Watch for eggs and
watch them fungus.  Trade more mops,  drink lots more
wine and get lots more corks to make more mops 'cause
those damn corks are sinking to the bottom.

Cuss at the water after  three weeks and nothing appears.
Note that the new corks are also beginning to sink.
Switch to martini's, 'cause you have enough corks
and you don't really care for that two buck chuck!

Fatten your killies on lots of live food,  get fustrated that they eat
all, get fat, and nothing results except those fruit flies that all flew
out of the last culture you made! Wife complains about flies in the
kitchen.  Put your innocent look on, and shrug your shoulders and have a
double
martini before checking mops and empty tanks for fry.

Look at the calendar and realize that 12 months have
passed with no fry.  Threaten them all to no avail, killies don't hear
you,  but the kids do and the wife doesn't like that language around
them.

Prepare to sell them (the killies, not the wife & kids),
move  all those fish from their  individual space taking
tanks to one large 15  gal tank before bagging them up.

Wait a week, have a beer & relax (that wine & gin was
making you crazy!) - no more fustrating killies.

Examine the now empty 15 gal tank ...

               Killie Fry ....

    ARRGGhh

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