Hi My name is Curtis

LyreTail · Post by **LyreTail** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 8:53 am

Hi my name is Curtis and I am a fish addict from Wa State USA just north of Seattle . I keep all sorts of small tropical fish and am mostly interested in planted tanks and successful breeding of the most colorful fish I can find.

Successful breedings include
Long finned Serpae tetras
All the 4 primary livebearers - Lyretailed swords are my pride.
Blue rams
Angelfish
Moliwe Kribs
Normal kribs
Several types of Killifish
Apistogramma Sp "Papagei"
and a few others

Been trying for a couple of years to get my Zebra plecos to spawn. Some info I got here pointed out a few mistakes I have made including cave sizes, so I am hopeful.

I am also trying to breed electric green and orange corys, but have not had the tank space to dedicate them a tank as of yet. Apparently temperature swings are important to trigger their spawning.

Other near term projects include Cardinal tetras, Espei rasboras and Gold Tetras. I suspect the Espei will be the hardest, but right now I am raising the last three types of fish to adulthood so I can breed them.

I have 20 tanks - mostly in the 80 liter range. 11 of which are setup. I need to set up a few more to get my fish fry more room

NeoCult · Post by **NeoCult** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 10:22 am

Welcome to the site and forum, good to see other people joining who spawn a variety

let me know how you get on spawning your cardinals. so far they are the only fish ive not been able to spawn, they need really dark areas and also try and get them to spawn when youngish as if they dont spawn between 1 and 2 years old they usually dont bother after that

Mindy · Post by **Mindy** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:42 am

Hi Curtis and welcome to the forum.

Interesting that you breed tetras. You don't see that very often. I've thought about it, but never managed to get a set up for it. Well done for all your efforts!

And good luck getting your Zebras 'in the mood'!

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:47 pm

Hi Curtis

Welcome on board mate. Glad you have found the site useful so far. If you get on as well as your track record shows I'm sure you will have them spawning in no time.

Your fish appear quite young, but keep conditioning them and you never know!

rob

LyreTail · Post by **LyreTail** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:10 pm

thanks for the tip on the young Cardinals - Spawning the tetras is normally easy, it is just raising the fry that is difficult and frusturating. It does take two dedicated tanks for each species, since you need to turn the lights off, condition the tetras with a varied diet and then move the parents out of the tank after a week or two. Then it is a waiting game with the lights off and a small flashlight. Once you see the yoke sac gone then you have to start feeding very very small foods. I was able to acquire something called "Golden Pearls" from www.brineshrimpdirect.com they do ship to the UK, though I have no idea how much it costs. I use this food for many small fry including my Blue Rams that do not seem to take BBS right away. I finally turn the light at about 2 to 3 weeks old, and then I only use a very dim light.

I use Azoo brand sponge filters - "Oxygen plus Bio-Filter 2" and Java Moss in all my fry tanks from 40 liter to 80 liters ( 10 to 20 US gal) They are easy to maintain and do an excellent job circulating water. The fry can eat stuff off the Java moss plus it provides some cover and shade

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:52 am

Hi curtis and welcome to the forum.

It's good to see that you are trying your hand at some of the difficult to breed tetras especially cardinals. I would be very interested to know how you get on. I toyed with the idea a while back but It didn't even get off the ground when I realised how difficult it was going to be. Here's a link that I found particularly useful.

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/bre ... etras.html

Anyone interested in the brineshrimp replacement "golden pearls" that Curtis has mentiond, you can get them from here. They are the only UK suppliers as far as I know.

http://www.coralculture.co.uk/shop/prod ... cts_id=511

Adam

LyreTail · Post by **LyreTail** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:50 pm

that 20 gm bottle of golden pearls is pretty expensive - I bought a pound - for a little more than the cost of that little bottle ( UK£ worth about 2 x's US$ if I remember right )

Might be worth paying the shipping.( I do not know the details here) The brineshrimpdirect website has testimonials from people in Scotland that said shipping was fast and easy - never hurts to email them and ask questions. I am all about saving money - check out their prices on brine shrimp cysts also - amazing. I order from them at least once per year and sell enough BBS cysts, Decap BBS cycsts, Garlic Flake and Golden Pearls to local friends to pay tripple for my fry food.

A lot of people don't want to buy in bulk so they will pay a bit more for smaller amounts