Archive for the ‘Fish’ Category
Friday, April 25th, 2008
We’re off today to the Minnesota Aquarium Society Tropical Fish Show.
It’s supposed to snow today, and with the wind chill it’s 10 degrees!
I can’t believe it.
I’m excited about the show, although we probably won’t get any fish because we just got some Green Spotted Puffers, but it will be lots of fun to see all of the different species of fish that you can’t see anywhere else.
Northernlightsaquatics.com is also sponsoring the Marine and Brackish Class of the show, so we’ll be listed in the program, and on the awards for the category.
Posted in Life, Fish | No Comments »
Friday, January 25th, 2008
That’s right - I’ve decided that the fish and the snakes need their own home on the web.
From now on you can read about my fish at the Northern Lights Aquatics Blog, or at the Northern Lights Aquatics Forums, which also feature the Fargo/Moorhead Fish Keepers Forums.
You can read about the ball pythons and panther chameleons ( I know, I haven’t told you about the chameleons yet, have I?) at the Northern Lights Reptiles Blog.
I hope to see you over there.
Posted in Life, Snakes, Fish | No Comments »
Monday, November 26th, 2007
We finally moved our first generation of BN Pleco to their new home - the 55 gallon guppy tank that didn’t have any plecos in it.
We could only catch two of the six BN’s and believe me we tried.
They are fast, and they are small, ranging from 3/4-1 inch long.
These fry were freeswimming on Sept. 24, so they are just about 2 months old.
The second batch and most of the first batch died after we changed the water, so right now we’re trying to be very careful with water changes, and time it so there are no eggs or very young fry in the tank.
We have a new batch that we saw swimming out and around the taco last Wednesday.
So far we haven’t lost any of them - fry can be hard, for a while I was finding dead fry every morning, and it was depressing to look at the fish tank.
The two fry we moved are doing well in their new home - a few of the guppies came over to inspect when we put them in, and after they made sure they weren’t food, they left the pleco’s alone.
We got 8 German Blue Rams on November 10, and a couple of Golden German Rams before and after that, and we’ve had two batches of eggs since then. Unfortunately none of them have made it.
We had read that the Rams might start to eat their own eggs after the lights went off, so we left the light over the eggs on all night - the eggs lasted longer that way, but they were all eaten after 3 days, instead of after the first night.
The Rams are pretty good at keeping the other fish away too.
I used to think I’d never want cichlids, because it upsets me to see them fight, but these keys chase and nip at each other, and don’t seem to cause any permanent damage, so it’s not as bad as I thought it was.
They are fun to watch, and they’re really pretty too!
Well that’s enough of the fishy update for now.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, I did.
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Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
The bushynose pleco fry are doing great - and Monday we noticed more eggs in the taco.
Rumor has it that they only breed during the fall,and I’m hoping that’s the case, or we’ll be swimming in tons of pleco babies soon.
There were just over three weeks between the first eggs, and the second eggs, so we’ll see what happens next.
As of now Spike still lets the fry in the taco with him and the eggs, but I’m wondering if that will change when the eggs hatch.
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Monday, September 24th, 2007
We woke up Saturday morning, and when we looked at our aquarium the tiny baby plecos were all over it.
Apparently they escaped from the taco.
I’ve counted at least 15, but I know there are some places in the fish tank where they can hide, and I can’t see them.
I was really surprised when I found several of them hanging on in the current from their filter, with their poor tails whipping back and forth.
They seem to like it though, because only one corner of the tank has turbulent water, and that’s the one they chose to hang out in.
We did end up taking Sparrow, the female betta, and Darren and Samantha, the African Dwarf Frogs, out of the aquarium.
So far everyone seems to be getting along well, and the fry are spread all over the tank.
They are so cute, and so small.
We can’t even get a picture with our digital camera on the close up setting, but we’ll keep trying.
Ok, I’m off to see what they are doing now.
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Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
We’ve had two bushynose plecos in our 29 gallon fish tank forever, and one of them is just starting to show bristles.
We had a pleco breeding cave, which we call a taco, because it’s white and looks like a folded, soft shell taco, in our clown pleco tank, but they clowns don’t seem to be breeding, so we decided to move it to the bushynose tank Tuesday.
Friday, I looked and saw the brown pleco, Spike, which I’m assuming is the male, in the taco, acting funny, and I looked and I saw little orange dots in the back of the cave.
We had eggs!
I was so excited, but Q-Tip, our other bushynose pleco is albino and not showing any bristles at all yet. We didn’t buy the plecos at the same store so I didn’t know if they are the same species, so I was thinking that the eggs might not be fertile.
But it looks like they were, because last night I looked in the taco and saw babies!
They are so cute, but they are pretty far back in the taco, so I can’t see much of them.
I’ve looked around online and it looks like you can feed bushynose pleco (also known as bristlenose pleco) fry french cut green beans, blanched zucchini, cooked skinned peas, and/or algae tablets - basically you can feed them what you feed the adults, so they are supposed to be pretty easy to care for.
I’ve also heard that the fry, like all plecos, produce a lot of waste, so we’ll have to increase the water changes in their tank.
The only fish in the aquarium now are 9 Harlequin Rasboras, and two African Dwarf Frogs. We had our female betta, Sparrow, in there, but we moved her out because we figured that she was the most likely to eat the fry.
Of course the frogs might eat them too, I’ve heard of them eating guppy fry, so we’ll see what happens.
I’m not sure what we’ll do with the fry, male bristlenose plecos are known to fight, and we did have one other pleco that ended up dying, probably due to injuries that were sustained while fighting with Spike, so I don’t want to keep more than one male in a tank, and all of the other tanks either have plecos, or can’t have them because we’re trying to get eggs in them.
We got our plecos when they were about an inch long, so they were too young to tell if they were male or female. I guess that was a pretty bad idea, but I haven’t seen to many full grown BN plecos for sale either.
The pleco fry are to small now to get pictures, but I’ll get some as soon as I can to share with you.
Oh yeah I almost forgot to tell you - I think Spike is the male, because the male plecos guard and fan the eggs and fry. It kind of looks like Spike is jumping up in the water, and waving his fins when he’s fanning, and if anyone other than Q-tip got too close to the taco he’d chase them off.
It was fun to watch the eggs, and now I can’t wait to see the fry grow up!
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Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Hi! I hope you’re having a great evening.
It’s been storming off and on all day here, but at least I don’t have to water the garden tonight!
We’ve also got bronze cory eggs, again. We’re leaving them alone this time, so maybe they will at least hatch. It’s been about 36 hours since we first noticed them, and there are still some left, so I’m happy.
Twice they all got eaten, and twice we tried to move the eggs, but they never hatched.
Hopefully the fifth time is a charm!
I’ve got a review up for Sally Hansen Smile Brightening Lip Treatment.
If you’ve tried it, I’d love to know what you think, so leave a comment and tell me about it.
I really didn’t notice that my teeth looked whiter, did you?
Posted in Reviews, Fish | 2 Comments »
