I am going to also start breeding cory cats for sale to the local fish stores.  My blue rams are in demand and doing well.  The stores aren't having troubles with them, like they have with ones they ordered.  My acclimation to full tap water from half R/O, half tap seems to be working as there are very minimal losses in my tanks or at the stores.  Anyway, I want to add the cory cats as they are another high demand fish and I can raise the fry in the same tanks as the ram fry and they will help eat up any food the baby rams miss.  This of course means adding more tanks to hold the breeding adults, which means more water changes, but all well. 

For cory species, I think I am going to use albino corydoras aeneus, corydoras paleatus, and corydoras panda.  These seem to be the most popular types around here.  If I ever find dwarf corys I will probably try them as well (corydoras hasbrosus or corydoras pygmaeus), just because I like them.  I will set up three 15 gallon tanks to house the breeding groups and keep them similar to my breeding groups of blue rams.  My only dilema here is that they adhere their eggs to surfaces, including the glass of the tank.  Trying to get the eggs off of the glass would be a bit hard to do without damaging them.  Any ideas? 

 

 

Picture credits:elpono_njg, Whisper Photography

I have become a bit bored with my tank, not only do I want to completely redo it, but I think want different inhabitants as well.  I have been considering discus for a long time.  The fish store  I worked at gets fairly healthy young discus in that do fine in our water, despite the pH being a bit high for what is normally acceptable for discus.  My only concern is that my tank is only 13" wide.  It is a 60 gallon tall tank.  I have seen some rather large discus so I'm not sure te tank is wide enough for them at adult size.  I suppose I probably have some time before they got huge though.  I would do a planted tank, as I love live plants and maybe 6 young discus and keep my rasboras and botias.  As the discus grew, I would keep which ever 2 paired off I think.  I don't think a 60 gallon is big enough for 6 adult discus for sure.  Is a 60 gallon even big enough for 2 adults?  I know people breed them in much smaller tanks, but I am wanting a display and I want for my fish to be comfortable and have decent lives.  They are more like pets to me.  My concern is that in such a narrow tank they won't have room to explore and entertain themselves. 

My blue ram breeding is going extremely well.  The rams are very popular in the stores and are selling well.  I added 2 more 30 gallon grow out tanks and have seperated out my youngsters I had kept into pairs.  I had ordered 3 blue rams from an alternate source to have some outside blood.  I paired them up with 3 of the hold backs, and sold the other 3 holdbacks to a store.  I now have 4 pairs (my origional pair and the 3 new pairs).  The 3 younger pairs haven't bred yet, but they do seem to like each other.  I kind of split up by going by who seemed to like who.  I have each pair in a 10 gallon tank, with fake plants.  I have the fake plants bunched up heavily in the corners and then a couple spread about.  This gives them the ability to hide from their mate if need be.  I have sponge and/or box filters running in all my blue ram tanks.  I currently have fry in all my grow out tanks except the new ones.  My origional pair breeds every 14 to 18 days on average.  I am feeding several live foods to the adults and the fry, as well as some high quality flakes.  I have spawn split between 2 grow out tanks currently, as I don't have enough spawns to warrant one tank per spawn.  This keeps the tanks cycled and gives the fry more room.  Some of my younger pairs are looking like they may breed soon, so hopefully I can start suppling my local stores more regularly.  I am currently breaking even on this project, I am hoping to start actually making a profit within the next few months.  I am thinking of finding a way to have automatic water changes done, but my snag here is that I need half the water to be R/O and half to be regular tap.  I suppose I could run 2 drip lines and one have an inline R/O?  More planning and thinking on this is needed.

A new study shows that mosquitoe fish (similar to guppies) can count up to four.  I wonder how high cichlids can count then?

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/26/eafish126.xml

On several of my aquatic plants the older, outer leaves are dying off and if I look in the center, new leaves are growing in:)  I think I will go through and just cut off a bunch of the older leaves before they have a chance to die and rot in my tank.  It may make my tank look a little bit more bare than usual, but I think it will be healthier for the plants and the tank for me to do so.  It might even encourage faster growth:)

On another note, I am hoping that with spring approaching my characodon lateralis "los berros" will spawn.  I have had the heater turned down to 70*F most of the winter, as I was advised to cool them down a bit for winter to encourage spring and summer spawning.  In a month or two I will knock it up to 74*f or so.  I am sadly only left 3 juviniles, who now appear to be old enough to possibly start spawning.  The males are starting to get a red hue to them (adult males are red, juvies are a grey color) and the lone female is actually a bit bigger than the males are.  I have seen both of the males making attemps at courting the female, and their is usually at least one male near her at all times.  I think I am going to remove my harlequin rasboras, as they would try to prey on the fry for sure.  I think my botias will be safe with the fry, they have fairly small mouths and goodeid fry are usually quite large.  

For the last 3 days I have fed my fish in the same spot and about the same time.  Already they  have learned to hang out there and weight for food.  Even my normally elusive peckolita is sitting near the spot I have been feeding.  I've seen some videos of people who have managed to "train" their fish to do certain things, such as syngronized dancing, or to ring a bell, or move a small ball through a hoop in the water.  It is usually goldfish or larger cichlids that are used for these antics, but it seems that even rasboras and catfish can learn:)

When you get several tanks going, this hobby can be expensive in the winter!  My electricity bill has been climbing with each tank that I add.  I have all of my none display tanks in a small room, I think i am going to try heat the room with a seperate little heater and see if that will cut down on costs at all.  Selling the blue rams is helping some with costs, but I would need to increase breeding I think to really see a dent, but then that also means more heaters.  Summer should be better, when it is naturally warm:)

I only lost a couple of the little dwarf sunfish I had gotten.  I moved the rest into the 75 gallon tank yesterday and they seem to be pretty happy about it:)  They ate this morning.  I used a turkey baster to blast food down towards the bottom for them.  They are staying pretty much in the plants, with their heads kind of peaking out.  They make and occasional swim out into the open, but only for a second usually. 

I was able obtain a dozen small Elassoma zonatum (banded pygmy sunfish) last week.  I really wanted the Okeefenokee, but couldn't find anyone that had any available.  Anyway, the little guys arrived just fine about a week ago and are all about 1/2" long give or take juts a bit.  I have them in a 10 gallon for now quarunteening for a few weeks.  I did lose 2 of them the 3rd day, but from what I hear that is not surprising.  The remaining 8 are doing good and eating well on newly hatched baby brine shrimp, microworms and vinegar eels.  I think I am going to keep them in the 10 gallon for a month and then move the to the 75 that is awaiting them:)