ONE MAN'S JUNK IS MY HARD SCAPE!

MOMMA MIA

This morning after completing my water changes on my 55 gallon juvenile community and my 40 gallon "for sale" tank I noticed a female holding. Of course I noticed her holding after I had everything back in place and cleaned up. I would normally have left her until the next water change but I'm planning on getting rid of these fish this week as I'm running out of room.

I was lucky and caught her without too much fuss. I didn't remove anything from the tank, but when I had her in the net she spit 4 eggs out. I stripped her of the rest and placed them in my 20 gallon grow out in a tumbler. I took a photo so I could accurately count the eggs. There are 31 but I can already see that one is not fertilized. My success rate with my tumbler has been really good. After removing any that aren't fertilized I have continually succeeded in raising 100% of the fry.

There are 3 holding moms in my brooding tanks. All are very close to spitting. One mom actually let 4 fry escape her mouth. I think she is having trouble containing her brood. I'm sure she will be spitting in a day or two. The other two moms will be also spitting this week so I should have a ton of new fry. I keep saying I will have to let them spit in their community tank but I just haven't been able to let that happen yet. I feel so bad for the babies trying to survive like that.

One of these days I'm going have to or get more tanks!

PERFORMING AFRICAN CICHLIDS

Yesterday was CANADA DAY.  Everywhere you could see red red and more red. Patriotic Canadians celebrating CANADA'S birthday. 149 years!

Our neighbour girls brought us some cookies they made as a treat. While they were here they wanted a tour of my cichlids. I began at my 55 gallon juvenile tank. They loved it and thought it was so huge! From there we moved to the 40 gallon "fish for sale" tank. Moving on to my 75 gallon community show tank they were very impressed.

Showing them how the cichlids greet me they laughed. I held my hand in the aquarium making an O with my thumb and middle fingers. My two chubby OB's love to swim through the circle of my fingers actually stopping for a rub. The girls were so surprised they never imagined fish could be this amazing. They really enjoyed the tour so far.

When I finally took them up to MLFR to show them the full stages of cichlid breeding they were most excited about the babies in the tumbler. They couldn't believe fish could be so tiny. My young fish - as young as a couple weeks already come to the front of the aquarium looking for food knowing it's coming upon seeing me.

The girls really enjoyed the tour and
asked if they can come back when the yellow moms have their babies. I told them I will call the over when they spit.

Making up treat bags for the girls they left very happy. Telling me they were looking forward to a fireworks show they were going to have as soon as dad said it's dark enough.

It was a very nice CANADA DAY!

MY LATEST PHOTOS

WHEELIN' AND DEALIN'

Today I got myself 2 more fish tanks. One is 30x12x20 (30gl) and the other is 36x12x20 (40gl). They are used but look to be in decent shape. The seals look really good and haven't been resealed or tampered with so I'm optimistic. In return I traded 23 fry. 13 Red Top Zebras, 6 Yellow Labs and 4 OB Peacocks. Funny thing is, with these two new tanks I would have had room to keep them ha!

I was up early getting the fish caught and ready to go. I kept them in a 5gl pail with a sponge filter running while I got the newly empty tank ready for the fry that I was moving in. I did a water change and vacuumed and fixed it up. The fry that are moving over are only .5" but I need my 10gl empty for another holding female in my community tank. The easiest way to move little ones like that is simply to vacuum them up. It's quick and easy. I put the fry into their new digs. Of course they are a little intimidated with the size of their new
home. However, it didn't take them long before they were looking quite at home.




The fish trader guy got here right on time and we had a good fish chat as we got the tanks unloaded and fish ready to go. It's always fun to meet people who share your passion. I enjoyed our chat and may call him again as he still has a few tanks sitting around.