Pickle's N-R Breeders Lounge

[ericm1205]

my last darwin hatch got some of their stripes. so meta is almost done. got 20 from the first hatch remaining.

 

if your darwin wouldn't have laid, i would have won the bet. my Clarkii laid today for the first time. got like 50 eggs in a small nest. kinda excited of a new laying pair. gonna wait till their nest gets bigger before collecting them.

 

GSM are hatching tonight. hatching a monster nest. see how many i can get to survive.

[Miltonic]

I have a question when would it be ok for me to put a sponge filter in the tank?

[Pickle010]

I have a question when would it be ok for me to put a sponge filter in the tank?

 

 

How many days post hatch are they? I would hold off until they are all through meta and use a seasoned sponge.

 

my last darwin hatch got some of their stripes. so meta is almost done. got 20 from the first hatch remaining.

 

if your darwin wouldn't have laid, i would have won the bet. my Clarkii laid today for the first time. got like 50 eggs in a small nest. kinda excited of a new laying pair. gonna wait till their nest gets bigger before collecting them.

 

GSM are hatching tonight. hatching a monster nest. see how many i can get to survive.

 

 

LOL.. I know it was close... my B&W's are on the second nest. Hopefully they let them go 4 or 5 days so I can pull the pot and hatch them out. The first nest was nothing to write home about.

[Miltonic]

How many days post hatch are they? I would hold off until they are all through meta and use a seasoned sponge.

 

they are 8 days post hatch and yea i will def wait till all are through meta one down and two to go.

[ryancmatchett]

LOL.. I know it was close... my B&W's are on the second nest. Hopefully they let them go 4 or 5 days so I can pull the pot and hatch them out. The first nest was nothing to write home about.

 

Glad to hear its a little better. Hope it gets even better. I am quite disappointed that they have taken this long, but kind of to be expected I guess. Glad they are doing well so far.

 

Keep up the great work!!!

[latteslave]

Wow - you really got this rockin' and rolling! you offer tours for locals?

[Pickle010]

Wow - you really got this rockin' and rolling! you offer tours for locals?

 

 

Once I finish this transition I'm in - tank changes and what not I'd be glad to. Not much to see right now but a big mess. Are you a member of CVR?

Edited January 26, 2012 by Pickle010

[Pickle010]

So the B&W's ate most of the last hatch - I should say all of it.. they left me with like 5 eggs. I already had the hatch tank set up so I figured what the hell... why not. So I pulled the pot and 3 of them hatched. I know... HUGE numbers right? Anyhow, of the 5 3 hatched that night and the 3 amigos are 2dph. Now I'm straining rotifers out of the water every night because I know they can't possibly put dent in the rotifer count. Hopefully the fresh pot and water changes help them stay on track for the next one.

 

Otherwise my other hatches are still going really well. Last month I hatched out a clutch of 200+ snow / O's and they are all hitting 30 dph with no problems. Then last week I hatched out another clutch of the snow/o's and it's the largest hatch I've seen in a long time - must be 400 + in the larvae tank sitting at about 4 dph right now.

[altolamprologus]

Any pics of the new guys?

[Pickle010]

Any pics of the new guys?

 

 

I'll put something up this weekend.

[saippenu]

I know this has been answered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere by Googling, so thought I'd ask it here.

 

Why can't we just put a hunk of well seasoned liverock in our fry tanks? Is it because there isn't enough oxygen exchange because all we can run is a little airline tubing? I can't think of any other reason not to do it. Or maybe the possibility of introducing hydroids?

 

I didn't have as much of a problem with no filtration when all I fed initially was live foods, but now that I use Otihme starting at day 4, I have far more nitrite so need even more frequent water changes. I don't mind doing them but can't help but worry at each change if I've matched the water well enough not to cause losses.

 

I'd be alot happier if I could just put my fry into a tank that has some form of filtration early on.

[Pickle010]

I honestly wouldn't think you could put enough LR in the tank (with enough flow through the rocks) to make it effective. Water changes are the best thing you can do. I just got in the habit of doing them daily. To be honest I don't worry about matching up my water perfectly - if you drip the replacement water in over the course of a few hours the fry do just fine.

[Pickle010]

Here is a quick video tour of my new broodstock set up - no brood stock in yet - It has some over stock and overflow juvi's in it while I'm working to redo my grow out system.

 

[altolamprologus]

Here is a quick video tour of my new broodstock set up - no brood stock in yet - It has some over stock and overflow juvi's in it while I'm working to redo my grow out system.

 

Looks good!

[Luckedout]

Thanks for the video. Very cool setup. Looks like you have it in your house? For some reason I thought you were set up in your garage. Do you have any video of your growout system?

[Pickle010]

Thanks for the video. Very cool setup. Looks like you have it in your house? For some reason I thought you were set up in your garage. Do you have any video of your growout system?

 

 

Yes... it is in my house and that's why I've been really limited in what I can do. My grow out system is a fish store wall unit - 4 levels - bottom being a 150g sump and the top 3 levels being compartments like you find in a regular fish store. It is aweful and I'd never recommend doing it that way to anyone. It was a cheap quick fix that made the most out of the space I had available at the time.

 

On my property I have a 30 x 40 steel building with garage doors at both ends. I can park an RV in it... it's pretty big with 15+ foot cielings. At any rate the plan is to build a room within the shed for grow out. That will happen this spring / summer. The room will be climate controlled, insulated very well and have enough space to house 6 or 7 100g black round tubs and a filtration system. (plus a little room to grow) I plan on it being modular in that if there comes a time in the future that I out grow that section I can simply add on to it and make it longer and allow for more space. All along I've worked under the principal that I don't want to go in debt to do this hobby. Yes... it's still a hobby. And I don't want to build too big for a couple of reasons - 1st is cash - I will only do it with cash on hand. 2 nd is cost of operation. I don't want to make the room so big that it would cost a fortune to heat and cool. Where I live it can get as high as 110 in the summer and it drops to freezing in the winters. So a large room would take a lot of energy to control the climate in. I would most likely only consider going larger if I can install solar power at the same time.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Pickle010

[Luckedout]

I think you hit on the head with cost of operation. I've been looking at setting up something in my house and my big concern with it is cost of operation. I've been looking specifically at the pumps and heat. That is where people really run up their bills without realizing it. One thing is insulating tanks and the sump. Have you tried that at all? Would it be worth the hassle? The other is low-wattage pumps. It's amazing the different amount of wattage certain brands of pumps use and with them running 24/7 that can be quite the expense. I'm hoping to get setup in the next month if everything goes according to plan. I have 2 pairs of B&W's I want see if I can get them laying.

[Pickle010]

Right on... and yeah the cost of running the set up is a lot - I envy some of these guys that live in those climates with a constant 78 degree temp year round.

 

I haven't insulated the tanks I have now - the grow out room will be very insulated and I plan on wrapping the tubs / sump and lines when I do that build. We keep the house pretty comfortable year round but the brood stock tanks are kept at a higher temp so I get a lot of evaporation and it takes a few heaters to hold the temps stable. I do use an RKL to manage the heaters though and it helps. One heater is constant on, and the other two are set to different temps and only come on when needed. Being that it's a large volume of water I'm not worried about the one heater getting stuck on and cooking the tank. The RKL will shut off the other two.

 

When I do the grow out room I also hope to be able to control the tank temps by maintaining the room temp.

[Pickle010]

Quick update:

 

Tiny B&W hatch - the three amigo's are still doing well - all are through meta. One of them is noticably darker then the other 2. The two of them look just like my regular orange ocellaris fry at the same stage of development while the 3rd looks almost all black already. It's the first time raising the B&W's so I'm not entirely sure what to expect. Caring for a small hatch is more work then the large hatches - seems like it would be real easy to let the rotifer population explode and suffucate the fry. I've been pulling rotifers from the larvae tank since day 3 and only fed rots the one time on day 1.

 

Snow Hatch - in meta right now - 300+ fry all looking great, healthy and developing headstripes.

 

Next snow hatch should be Saturday night. I pulled the pot this morning and got it set up in the larvae tank.

 

Last Snow hatch is all in grow out - huge number of snows to standard O's in this one. I've seperated them in grow out and stopped counting at 50. At one month they are all looking solid.

 

Waiting on the next spawns from my percs and B&W's - the B&W's last spawns where 15 days apart and the last one was on the 16th - so I am expecting one anytime.

[Pickle010]

Three of my pairs spawned over the last 3 days. Percs, B&W's and Snow's - looks like next week I get to see if I can pull off a hat trick!

[Luckedout]

Whoa! Better not make any plans, you are going to be busy!

[hooligan_78]

Question for all of you using 10 gallon tanks in your setups: How hard/nerve wracking was it drilling those things?!

[Pickle010]

Question for all of you using 10 gallon tanks in your setups: How hard/nerve wracking was it drilling those things?!

 

 

For the brood stock tanks I used 20 L's the length of the tanks let me make 3 compartments in each one that was a comfortable size for a standard pair of clowns.

 

As for drilling it's pretty easy - the first tank I drilled some time ago I went on gl#######s.com and watched a tutorial on how to do it and it was no problem. I've drilled several tanks since and haven't had any issues. The key is to take your time and let the bit do the work.

 

I've never drilled a 10g though - the glass just seems to flimsy and I wouldn't trust any weight hanging off of it. Even the 20L's I made sure to support the drains so they don't put any extra pressure on the glass.

 

edit - I still can't believe you can't say "gla ss hol es .com"

Edited February 8, 2012 by Pickle010

[altolamprologus]

If you don't mind me asking, where do you sell your baby clowns?

[Builder Anthony]

three ameigos thats a funny name for them,i wish you luck in there care.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Builder Anthony