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Temp./Snails/pH!
Hi Guys!
As many of you know; I've been breeding gularis (Fp. sjoestedti)
for a long time. I've also "kept" A.australe. By "kept" I mean
maintained or produced at little more than I lost.
After relocating from NJ to central NM about 18 months ago and
having taken early retirement, I found myself with the time (and
necessity) to study the great difference in water conditions. My
water here has a pH of 8.3 with a hardness of about 50 ppm out of
the tap. In NJ it was 120 ppm with a pH of about 6.8 . My fish
(and many of my plants) weren't happy with the new conditions.
The Red Ramshorn snails seemed to cope.
In time, it became quite apparent that the only way to approach
the conditions I had in NJ was to adjust the water with Muriatic
Acid which is dilute hydrochloric acid. I had tried pH Down - a
product of Wardley's but it contains Potassium Acid Phosphate
which is a great fertilizer since it contains both potassium and
phosphorus. Result - an algae blaze approaching pea soup!
Muriatic Acid can be purchased very cheaply in any hardware
store. It is typically used for cleaning brick and should be
handled with care until diluted since it's vapors are fairly
corrosive and contact with the skin is unpleasant at best.
Anyway; I didn't always get the pH down to the 6.0 to 6.5 range I
wanted for my gularis breeders. Sometimes it went to more like a
pH of 5.0 and was used in the A. australe tanks. The gularis'
egg production seemed to drop off some 50% - BUT the australe egg
production EXPLODED! (These are mop spawning conditions and all
of my water contains 1 tsp.. of salt per gallon. Eggs are water
incubated.)
Now; when it comes to egg production, I find that gularis prefer
somewhat cooler water (60 -68 F) whereas the australe prefer
warmer water for maximum egg production. The gularis' eggs
(water incubated) hatched in just about a month at 65 to 70 F.
whereas at higher temperatures for spawning and incubating, they
took much longer to fully develop and hatch. On the other hand;
the australe egg production was somewhat greater at 75 F. and
their water incubated eggs hatched in about 1 week.
Snails :
I've always found Red Ramshorn to be quite useful. None in the
tanks containing very young fry or eggs. Once the fry are about
a week old I do add very small snails which help get things
cleaned up. All of my other tanks contain Red Ramshorn in
considerable numbers - even my breeders' .
I guess that this little bit of insight can be extrapolated to
mean that under a given environment, not every killie will do
well for you - whether it be temperature, pH, water hardness, or
even light conditions. Not to mention diet. I've even found
that certain fish room locations are more conducive to egg
production for my gularis.
Perhaps my wife's advise is something to be taken seriously.
"Whatever you do best with - stay with." I strongly feel that
your local conditions have a lot to do with your success with
certain genera and species, especially the more "difficult" ones.
Hope I didn't muddy the waters too much,
Tanks,
Bob Schwiegerath
Socorro, NM
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