The beauty of our hobby is that there will always be a calling to take up just one more challenge. You know how it goes, at 5 years old we might get that gold fish in a bowl, then along comes the 10 gallon tank of tropical fish, a bigger tank to house all those free guppies, the monster tank in the bedroom room and so it goes on. Money of course is no obstacle! Then one day you think to yourself, wouldn't it be nice to have one of those DUTCH tanks in the middle of the living room. You know. the type filled with healthy looking plants, and aqua-scaped to look like a million bucks. Unfortunately, after a few enquiries on all that special equipment and additives that drives such a master piece, you will realise that it comes at an astronomical price tag. Well the good news is that you can have your cake and eat it, but you do have to take up a few DIY (Do It Yourself) challenges along the way. For one thing, you will need to develop some basic understanding of biological and chemical processes. Another is to think creatively so that you can develop the required gadgets and methods, as well as zero in on various readily available cheap chemicals that are going to help foster a good plant environment.

 

 

It is not for me to deprive you good readers from the above challenges, cause that would be like really mean. Wouldn’t it?

 

But....... the end of this article is not yet in sight, since the title implies some 'talk' about CO2 in the aquarium. Besides, I do actually feel like writing something more substantial.

 

 

One of the key elements of a Dutch tank is the infusion of CO2 into the water for an improved plant environment. Healthy plants actively conduct the process of photosynthesis in the presence of adequate amounts of light, heat and CO2 (water is also needed and should be plentiful in an aquarium). Photosynthesis produces a type of sugar (hexose) and liberates oxygen. Sugar in turn is the energy source used by the plant to metabolise various nutrients for growth. It goes without saying that if we do not provide enough CO2 then the plants have limited growth potential. Also worth mentioning at this point is that plants will do anything to get CO2, even by extracting it from the carbonate hardness agents that are dissolved in water (more about this later).

 

 

Properly infused CO2 will dissolve into the aquarium water (H2O), and a small amount of this dissolved CO2 will react with water to form Carbonic Acid (H2CO3).

 

The formula for this reaction is: CO2 + H2O = H2CO3.

 

In turn a small amount of the carbonic acid will dissociate (split apart) into its ionic components, a proton (H+) and a bicarbonate (HCO3-). The increase of protons (hydrogen ions) in water causes the pH of the water to drop (ie makes it more acidic). That's not the end though because a small amount of the bicarbonate ions also dissociate to result in yet another proton and a carbonate ion (CO3--). Once again the increase in protons affect a pH drop, and thus the bicarbonate ion behaves as an acid. If we remove any CO2 then the amount of bicarbonates and carbonic acid must also reduce, this reverses the dissociations that took place and hence the pH of the water increases. Since photosynthesis removes CO2 from water it is clear from the above discussion that the pH of the water has a tendency to rise during day-time (photo-period). Infusing CO2 into the water at the same rate as its removal by photosynthesis means no change in pH, and that is good for plants and fish.

 

The relationships that dictates the extent of carbonic acid formation that takes place is complex and involves the carbonate buffering system (future article if there is interest in this). For now it suffices to say that the amount of dissolved CO2 is related to the carbonate hardness (KH) and the pH of the water. Carbonate hardness is simply a measure of the alkalinity of water, and alkalinity is simply the ability to neutralise acids. Various aquarium books (eg the optimum aquarium) provide tables that allow you to determine the amount of dissolved CO2 based on the pH and carbonate hardness of the water. If you are any good at mathematics then you can use this formula to calculate the amount of dissolved CO2.

 

Carbon dioxide in parts per million (PPM) is:

 

CO2 = KH (1 – 10^(7-pH)).

 

 

Without CO2 infusion there is a real possibility that plants will deplete all of the dissolved CO2 in the aquarium water during the photo-period. When this happens some plants will extract its carbon needs from dissolved bicarbonates. This reaction is called biogenic decalcification and effectively breaks down (removes) the bicarbonates dissolved in the aquarium water. Since bicarbonates are acids (see above) then its removal causes an increase in pH of the aquarium water. The bicarbonates that are involved in this process must come from a bicarbonate salt, since there is no free CO2 and hence no carbonic acid to dissociate in a bicarbonate (got that). The bicarbonate salt is mostly calcium bicarbonate Ca (HCO3)2, the agent that makes water hard (temporary hardness).

 

The formula for biogenic decalcification is: Ca(HCO3)2 =CaO3 + CO2 + H2O.

 

Since calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is insoluble, it can be seen from the above formula that biogenic decalcification results in a calcium carbonate precipitate (white stuff on the plants). The C02 produced is of course used to satisfy the biological needs of the plants as described above (and we get some extra water too).

 

If you're happy with the above explanations then do not read the following paragraph, instead skip right to the next section viz, 'DIY Carbon Dioxide System'.

 

 

If you have turned to this paragraph then you must be a sucker for punishment, or you have been saying to yourself "this chap tells crap". Crap because everyone knows that to increase the pH of the water you add a bicarbonate salt (eg baking soda), so removing a bicarbonate salt should decrease the pH.

 

Well, you're right............... and so am I. This is because a bicarbonate is an amphiprotic substance ie, it can behave either as an acid or a base. Which way it behaves depends on whether it needs to react with an acid or a base. If you want to increase the pH with a bicarbonate, it must mean the aquarium water has an excess acid component (usually carbonic acid). In this circumstance the bicarbonate acts like a base. In the situation of biogenic decalcification there are no carbonic acids left and the pH is already quite high. Hence in this circumstance the bicarbonate acts like an acid.

 

Want more on this caper..................................... DIY.

 

A very easy way to infuse CO2 into water is by bringing it into contact with the water over a fixedsurface. A 40 gallon aquarium with a water KH of approximately 4 degrees (70 PPM ) is satisfied with 20 to 30 cm² Of CO2 surface. You can use upside down jam jars or tall drinking glasses to create a C02 gas bell that lasts a few hours. An aesthetically more pleasing gas bell can be made from pieces of window glass siliconed together.

 

 

Make a bell jar about 15 cm deep, 20 cm long and 1. 5 cm wide (the C02 in this will last for up to 1 0 hours, and is perfect for one photo period). For larger aquariums, or if the KH of the water is higher, the mouth of the bell needs to be increased as per table below (surface area required is not that exacting).

 

............... Carbonate Hardness (KH) in German Degrees.

 

Various methods to obtain C02 are described in aquarium books. However none of these appeal to me as they are either to messy, to bulky, to costly, or just a proverbial pain in the butt. As a DIY person I was always on the look out for the perfect C02 solution. One day (many years ago) I struck it rich when my attention crossed over to those soda stream Fizzy Drink Makers (FDM). Surely I thought, this contraption is the answer to my prayers. And just to confirm its potential I proceeded to pull one apart, right there in the shop (after all I was going to buy it, maybe).

 

Fig 1. and Fig 2. shows what the FDM looks like.

 

 

The soda stream FDM uses a 250 gram (net) CO2 gas bottle. This gives you a whopping 125 liters Of C02 gas, enough bell jar refills to last at least 6 months (even if you are a bit sloppy). CO2 bottles can be exchanged for recharged units at Kmart or Big W for about $6.00. Second hand soda stream FDM (complete with an empty gas bottle) are regularly available at Cash Converters for between $10 to $25.

 

To make a fizzy drink. First, the glass lemonade bottle (3/4 filled with water) is pressed against a rubber seal by pulling the handle on the FDM forward. Second, a firm press on the FDM carbonating button charges the lemonade bottle with CO2 (the fizz in the drink). If you over charge the lemonade bottle a pressure relief valve operates to discharge the excess gas pressure (this prevents the lemonade bottle from blowing up). The pressure relief valve is connected by means of a clear plastic tube that runs along side the CO2 gas bottle.

 

This plastic tube provides the means to tap into the mechanics of the FDM for our horticulturally ulterior purpose.

 

 

Purchase a soda stream FDM (you need to do this). Cut a 6 mm hole in the back cover on the side where the plastic tube is situated. Cut the plastic tube at the height where you have drilled the hole and fit in a plastic T piece. Suitable plastic T pieces are the typewith barbed ends (eg the kind used for micro irrigation systems) and are available at any plant nursery or Kmart. Slip on a piece aquarium air hose onto the remaining free end of the T piece. Secure all of the T piece hose connections with plastic cable ties (of course you get those at Kmart's automotive section), Finally, slip the air hose through the hole in the back cover and put the cover back on the FDM.

 

Having converted the soda stream FDM and constructed a bell jar I can assure you the worst is over (truly). All that is really left is to hook the air hose from the FDM to the bell jar via a check valve and purging tap. Fig 3. shows the complete DIY C02 system in schematic form. Take note of the way things are placed.

 

 

 

What can I say, get the bits and connect everything up as per Fig3. Also, secure the bell jar in the aquarium with its mouth below the water line (be inventive, use double sided suction caps). Don't forget to bring the CO2 feeder hose all the way up to the top of the bell jar (so you can purge it). And, lock an emptylemonade bottle in the FDM.

 

Important Note: CO2 will draw water up the feeder hose when the bell jar is empty (filled with water). To prevent back siphoning water into the FDM a reliable check valve needs to be fitted in line with the feeder hose. I recommend you use the type with the spring loaded neoprene (black rubber) insert. Other types may not close completely with little back pressure, or tend to disintegrate over time.

 

 

Every morning give the carbonating button a little push to fill up the bell jar. Over time some air will get in the bell jar and this progressively reduces its C02 holding capacity. When the bell has too much air in it, just let it escape by opening the purging tap (clamp on hose).

 

CO2 is not the end all and be all of plant growth, other factors are also very important including,

 

  1)  quality and intensity of lighting (don't buy expensive 'aquarium' fluorescence tubes,

  2)  availability of nutrients (major, minor and trace elements),

  3)  proper substrate mechanics (more DIY),

  4)  fish population, and fish foods used.

  5)  water quality (total dissolved solids, hardness, redox potential)

  6)  and more.

 

However, most hobbyist get some improved plant growth with CO2 infusion. Some get quite a dramatic increases in plant growth, despite messing up on the above factors (not fair). Anyway, hope to see you at the next CDAS meeting (together with your excess plants and perhaps even a rare plant-ling or two).

 

The aesthetic value of an aquarium depends on harmony between a few basic components that are essential for ultimate success; these are:-

 

  1.  Harmony between the aquarium and its surroundings in the home

  2.  Internal aquascaping

  3.  Plant selection

  4.  Fish selection

 

In the present article, I would like to discuss the plants as they are probably the most difficult aspect to tackle. A knowledge of how to grow water plants and their basic requirements are essential if frequent failures are to be avoided.

 

Water plants are not as difficult as ordinary indoor plants but maintenance of the proper environment for them does involve certain rules. Of course they do not need watering but a lot of observation and some preventive care are necessary, because signs of growing or dying back are always delayed.

 

Once an environmental balance is struck, all is easy, but the most critical and important factor to settle is adequate light intensity. Probably some 90% of tanks with plant problems are illuminated below the minimum light requirements, with poor plant growth resulting. The lighting regime should be maintained at 12-16 hours daily.

 

The other critical factor is the balance of soluble nutrients and trace elements in the water. Excessive concentrations of nitrate can inhibit the growth of plants significantly, as can large fluctuations in composition of the water.

 

Plants respond to any change in their environment, such as day-night period or differences in light intensity, which can influence the water chemistry. The amounts of dissolved oxygen (O₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) are not steady. During the daylight hours, the O₂ concentration rises and the C O₂ is lowered by the plants' life cycle. This causes a rise in pH value but at night the process is reversed.

 

The plant function influencing these changes is photosynthesis, i.e., the utilisation of light energy and nutrients by the chlorophyll cells to produce plant growth. In water low in free, dissolved CO₂, plants are able to utilise carbonates, such as Ca(HCO₃)₂ as alternative sources of carbon and oxygen. However, this process generates insoluble CaCO₃, together with small quantities of Ca(OH)₂ and this is particularly the case in hard waters, such as those from natural springs in limestone or dolomite catchments (as occur in continental Europe). In severe cases, the rise in pH and the whole chemical process can lead to the incrustation of plants with a white insoluble layer similar to that often found on aquarium covers, where aeration bubbles burst and dry out.

 

During the night, both plants and fish breathe oxygen and exhale C0₂, which dissolves in the water, forming a weak acid and lowering the pH. The acid reacts with CaCO₃ and Ca(OH)2 and converts them into Ca(HCO₃)₂. This process is essentially the same as that of shell grit buffering, in controlling the problem of low pH.

 

The other major influence on water chemistry is the feeding intensity of the tank inhabitants and the accumulation of waste products. Buildup of nitrogen compounds can be rapid, some of them being extremely toxic. Fortunately, the breakdown of wastes is possible, through the involvement of microbes, fungi, algae and higher plants. Thus the base for a proper functioning of any ecosystem is a biological balance between producers and consumers.

 

 

Nearly all aquatic plants are able to grow emerse (above the water), if the environment is suitable. Under high humidifies, plants grow in the emerse form more rapidly and multiply readily. Some (Typha, ferns, Spathophyllum, Echinoderus, and a number of Cryptocoryne species) grow in rather dry air, but all need very moist ground or frequent availability of water. Many typically 'bog' plants are offered by the aquarium trade as under-water plants, but the problem here is that most of them live under emerse conditions and do not tolerate long-term submersion.

 

All kinds of plants growing on our planet form the basis of all life, because of their ability to utilise inorganic matter and to photosynthesise. Other living organisms are consumers and depend on plants for food, oxygen, shelter and many other needs. Both groups are interdependent in continuing the chain of life.

 

In the case of life in a body of water, each environmental unit, regardless of size (sea, farm pond, aquarium), has to attain a balanced harmony or it will cease to live. Any sudden shock or failure of essentials will threaten or even kill the unit and, unfortunately, man is often the root cause of such disasters, through his poisoning or upsetting the ecological integrity.

 

In any balanced under-water ecosystem we find:

 

  1.  Inorganic components (water, nitrogen, carbon, etc.)

  2.  Organic components (proteins, sugars, fats, humic matter, etc.)

  3.  Climatic influences

  4.  Producers (autotrophs), mostly as green plants, rooted or floating (Spermatophyta), algae or phytoplankton (Thallophyta) in lighted areas and fungi (including moulds, yeasts and bacteria). With fungi, the boundary between producers and micro-consumers disappears, as moulds are strictly heterotrophic: they depend upon organic matter for their energy and can decompose a variety of organic substances to obtain their needs.

  5.  Microconsumers, releasing inorganic matter as nutrients, after utilising protoplasm. These are called heterotrophs but the distinction between them and the autotrophs is beyond the scope of this article.

  6.  Macroconsumers (fagotrophs), mostly living organisms that consume other organisms or disintegrate matter.

 

Plants growing in water, water-logged areas or within the reach of fluctuating water levels, are classified as aquatic. Mostly, they are green, autotropic organisms, generally attached but occasionally free-floating. They do not commonly depend on seed production but are mostly perennial and propogate by means of runners, tubers, buds or stem fragments. Upon decay, they release organic matter into the water.

 

Unlike land plants, aquatic plants are able through photosynthesis, to build their tissue directly from dissolved C0₂ and other inorganic components and trace elements. The water is actually a 'hydroponic' solution, prepared by nature. In many cases, where the plants are totally submersed, the nutrients, etc. are absorbed directly through the leaves, rather than the roots and the latter function merely as anchorages. The 'waste' is free oxygen but during darkness, this is resorbed to a limited extent, with the production of some C0₂.

 

Aquatic plants with stronger root systems would depend upon them for growth under emersed conditions and many species that are generally considered to be under-water growers (Myrioph,yllum, Ambularia, etc.) can develop a low but sturdy emersed growth.

 

With plants with strong roots systems, that undergo regular cycles of submerse and emerse growth, the situation is more complicated. In the emerse stage, the roots are collectors of nutrients and the above-water structures function much as they do in land plants.

 

Plants with floating leaves have air-filled cavities to provide the bouyancy but these are not present in the submerged parts.

 

The most important macro-elements for plant growth are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and potassium; the essential trace elements include iron, boron, manganese, sodium, copper, zinc and magnesium.

 

Some plant species are able to concentrate particular elements in their bodies: Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) absorbs large quantities of nitrogenous compounds. Such plants are useful in biological treatment of waste waters.

 

Nutrients in waters may vary considerably in composition and concentration, according to the natural cycle, the largest fluctuations occurring in rivers and creeks. The larger the water body, the more stable are the levels and so, in the aquarium long term stability is difficult to achieve.

 

Waters with little nutrient (oligotrophic) have less than 0.01 g of dissolved matter per litre and in these, the levels of plankton are restricted and the numbers of fish are low. Oligotrophic peat waters are in this category. Waters rich in organic matter (dystrophic) are usually low in dissolved minerals (particularly Ca ions) but high in humic acids. In such conditions of low pH and nutrient levels, characteristic peat-bog plants are found.

 

Waters saturated with inorganic nutrients (eutrophic) show mostly alkaline reactions and here plants with high nutrient requirements, such as Myriophyllum, Nuphar, Ceratophyllum, Elodea and others grow.

 

Only the halophytes (Najanus, etc.) can tolerate waters with high salinities.

 

In a following article, we shall examine the body structures of aquatic plants.

 

The next time you’re out shopping buy a goonie of plonk, just over half the quantity of the goonie in Cider Vinegar, an apple and a small bag of sugar.

 

The short term advantage of starting a Vinegar Eel culture is downing the plonk, so you can use the bottle and eating the left overs of the apple.

 

If you don't drink alcohol, the next time you go to the tip to drop your re-cycable bottles off, have a look in the bins for an empty goonie and ask someone if you can have it.

 

Thoroughly wash the goonie in warm salt water and rinse well with warm to hot water. Place equal amounts of water and vinegar, having enough left over for a top up when the culture starts to evaporate, six two centimetre squares of apple and two teaspoons of sugar into the clean goonie. Now is the time to add your starter culture, which you've aquired from someone who has a culture, (ask around the Society for a culture, a few people have them). Once this is in the bottle all you have to do is wait. Check your culture in about four hours, the eels should settle towards the top of the bottle, mark the lower edge of the eels with a texta and date it.

 

This is the hard part, sit back for a couple of days to a week and check it again. If it is growing, mark and date it again. If it isn't growing, don't be to disappointed, just check it again in a week and if it has grown it's o.k. If it still hasn't grown, ask for another culture and start at the checking and marking stage.

 

I've discovered, through talking with others, that some cultures take off and increase almost straight away and others take up to two to three months to take, but I know that all the trouble, which is little, is well worth it.

 

After all this is done, all you have to do is feed it to those newly hatched fry. To do this, you acquire a piece of nylon from a nylon coffee filter or something similar and put this in the mouth of the goonie with a little piece of it hanging on the outside of it, making sure it won't fall in. When you are ready to feed your fry, get a small jar or glass and place some tank water or green water ill it (if available) but watch that it doesn't contain any cyclops or hydra - this will give them a choice of food. Take the piece of nylon out of the goonie and place it into your handy glass, dunk it a few times and just watch the amount of eels that will be rinsed off into the water, this amount will amaze you. But be careful not to over use your culture and dry it up. Rinse off only the amount you require for that feeding.

 

 

Volvox is a giant infusorian, a slow swimming colonial algae but vastly larger than those species like Euglena that are found in ordinary "green water". Adult individuals or colonies are visible to the naked eye (against a good light) as green or pale green globules, almost perfectly round. Their lack of projections and the fact that they do not thrash around like microworms or vinegar eels makes them suitable food for baby egg-layers. The fact that they move slowly to the light enables them to be bred in a vat and concentrated for use.

 

The Encyclopaedia of Live Foods says that they are found in iron-rich waters, usually under a layer of duck-weed (ie. not in full sunlight) and they can coexist with daphnia. It comments that during the session when they swarm "fish fry grow fat".

 

My culture appeared last winter as an almost pure culture in a one gallon (5 litre) glass jar left out against the north wall of my house. (There was a half teaspoon of salt in the water to make it less likely to freeze and crack the jar, although the top does freeze fairly often. I added some chelated iron after identifying the culture, and the odd drop of aquarium plant fertiliser since). There was a thick layer of duckweed on top, and the jar was heavily shaded from overhead sun, but takes in quite a lot of slanting light through the sides especially in winter. Last summer daphnia and cyclops re-appeared and seemed to eliminate the Volvox, but it re-appeared recently as a fairly pure culture.

 

Not much is known about this Australian(?) species of Volvox. I would urge fish breeders to experiment with pipetting out a pure culture and experimenting to find out the temperature and light intensity in which it can best be cultivated. It has great potential as a trouble free permanent fry food. If cultivated in bulk, it might also be ideal food for young live-bearers. If it can be cultivated along side ordinary "green water", the result might be a onestop fry food for egg-layers. I can supply Volvox cultures to any member interested in them.

 

This is an outdoor culture of Euglena-like organisms that has stayed green for a couple of years in a large 40 litre white plastic container in the full sun on the north side of the house (it often ices over). I feed it with osmacote slow release fertiliser pellets, about a dozen every three months. In summer it is bright green and up to 40% of it can be harvested daily for feeding daphnia or very small egg-layer fry.

 

Incidentally, a tip when using microworms as fry food. Swirl them in a tall glass jar away from heat or light that might create currents. In five minutes they will all fall to the bottom, wash, refill and swirl. This time allow only a minute or two for the adult worms to fall to the bottom. You can then pour ofr the smallest worms for very small fry.

 

And a tip for vinegar eels. When using coffee filter papers to strain them out, fold over the seam at the bottom, since this is where most coffee filters leak, being poorly stitched.

 

Quite recently, a scientific paper from Denmark, published in Microbial Ecology, discussed the results of monitoring of the biofilm function on solid substrate, collected in two Danish streams. Both streams receive large amounts of effluent from a sewage treatment plant and run-off from agricultural areas, rich in nitrate and organic matter. These biofilm layers are similar to those in uncleaned aquariums, but they build up to 1 mm in thickness.

 

I found this information fascinating, for I have been trying to obtain data on the biomechanics of biofilms for years but even our sewage treatment laboratories have kept out of this field. Sewage aeration tanks, where digestion of organic matter occurs, depend on very high levels of solids present, where the bacteria can populate the surfaces of the whirling particles. If these particles are larger than the bacteria, then the process becomes more effective the more the dirt in the sewage (source: University Ph.D. thesis, U.S.A.). Aquarium water of any quality is crystal clear by comparison.

 

The Danish scientists actually measured the microprofiles of oxygenand nitrate by use of a microsensor. The object of the research was tomeasure the depthwise distribution of denitrification and oxygen respiration. Within the 1 mm of film thickness, penetration of oxygen and nitrification occurred to a depth of 0.33 mm; then followed a thin (0.03mm) layer of mixed nitrification-denitrification, and finally, the denitrification took over to a depth of 0.88 mm, where diffused nitrate was zero.

 

Denitrification always appeared when oxygen was depleted and the capacity of the bacterial community to perform rapid shifts from oxygen respiration to denitrification seemed to be the principal adaptation to fluctuations in oxic/anoxic conditions in the biofilm. It was also noted that the bacterium Thiosphaera pantotropha, abundant in some water purification systems, performs oxygen respiration and denitrification at oxygen concentrations near to air saturation levels.

 

The required supply of carbon was shown by these studies to be derived partly from algal cells and new research into biofilms of tricklefilters indicates that layers may switch from nitrification to denitrification, according to the light/dark regime.

 

Practical application of the denitrification process in the aquarium hobby faces the same problem as do the water treatment facilities. Actually, the similar levels of nitrate (100-200 ppm) are relatively low for a rapid treatment but the use of thick layers of bacteria is really a long-term process. French scientists have produced a simple battery of vertical pipes and they thereby achieved almost zero levels of nitrate. I am searching for more details, particularly the materials and grading used in their system, as a clue for similar filter construction.

 

At present, the solution lies in the installation of a separate tank (or chamber), which follows the trickle-filter oxidation (nitrification), since the denitrification stage must not receive free (dissolved) oxygen. In effect, oxygen must be consumed before or at least in the early part of the denitrification tank and this means an airtight lid and siphon inlet type of arrangement. The bacteria established in the denitrification stage also require a source of carbon, but methanol, with its combustible and explosive nature, is not the answer. Carbon dioxide is more convenient but unfortunately, its higher oxygen content reduces the efficacy of the process.

 

Water velocities through the denitrification stage should be slow and a bypass is recommended for regulation of the flow. The infill media should have even more area than in trickle-filters, because there is no airwater mixture to need larger passages. Properly graded sand, spent activated carbon, lava rock or expanded rock are suitable, as offering large surface areas for the growth of bacteria.

 

An example of an aerobic/anaerobic aquarium unit is shown in TFH Nov/88, together with a detailed description of its practical aspects. Certainly, the measured results are impressive.

 

The operation of a complex nitrification/denitrification filter is relatively reliable, except when power failures affect the circulation pump. A circulation stoppage of no more than 20 min is permissible, after which bacterial death will lead to an environmental disaster. A time-control switch, not allowing automatic re-start of the system, is probably the best solution, but unfortunately, cleaning and restart of a unit to re-establish new bacteria, is a slow process.

 

The design of the whole unit also requires provision for stepwise cleaning of the infill media in any part of the filter, to keep areas of established bacterial growth above the minimum working levels.

 

The main operational parts of a nitdfication/denitrification system are:-

 

  Prefilter (strainer. foam or floss mat) to remove large particles. A combination of useful gadgets, such as surface skimmers, etc., certainly improves performance. The prefilter area should be cleaned frequently, the more often the better.

 

  Nenitrification stage (trickle-filter, trickle trays, sprayed layers of foam or filter-wool). Cleaning is required to maintain an unobstructed flow. Excessive growth of bacterial film is culled to 1/3 of the maximal volume at any time.

 

  Denitrification stage (anaerobic chambers). Cleaning is due whenever clogging obstructs flow. Temporary nitrate buildup after cleaning does not threaten life in the system. Bacterial colonisation of the cleaned elements is rapid, from the trickle-filters.

 

  Settling well needed for settlement of shed layers of biofilm and mineralised matter derived from bacterial activity.

 

  Recirculation pump to provide the needed flow through the system.

 

The above-described system provides the ultimate answer to closing the biological cycle. For many hobbyists it may possibly amount to an ‘overkill' but for serious ones and breeders, it is the only way to avoid massive wastage of water. In view of predicted future shortages of water resources, this is likely to become a very important consideration.

 

Rainbowfish in the wild are foragers: they feed on Algae, higher plants, small crustaceans, aquatic insects, terrestrial insects, tadpoles and the occasional small fish. Algae are the one item of food that appears to be consumed the most. When a rainbowfish is taken from its creek, river, billabong or lake, the first thing to he noticed is that it excretes a long, dark green string of fibrous faeces. The fish has usually a streamlined shape and 1 think they get that way from having to work so hard to survive in their hostile environment.

 

Tropical areas have two main seasons a wet and a dry. During the wet season, food is plentiful and this is when most reproduction occurs. The proteinaceous foods (crustaceans, insects, tadpoles, fish) are abundant. However, rainbowfish collected during the wet season still excrete the green fibrous faeces, after capture. When put into a well planted tank, the first thing they do (especially the larger ones) is consume your plants. Thus the inevitable conclusion is:-

 

 

What happens if we feed a rainbowfish on an all-meat diet? I don't know exactly but I have heard from a person who keeps beautiful and well proportioned rainbowfish in Queensland, that experiments are being conducted in relation to their diets. Rainbowfish that have been fed high protein diets are being dissected and they prove to have deposits of fat around their internal organs. Any animal that has too much fat in its system is stressed and the first lesson that we learn as aquarists is that stressed fish are more likely to be affected by disease organisms, which are present in all aquariums.

 

I therefore believe that the answer to poorly proportioned rainbowfish, ulcer disease and most of their other problems is in their diet, as well as in good clean water and uncrowded conditions.

 

If you don't wish to take my word but are having troubles with deformed or diseased rainbowfish, then try the following experiment, which is easy to conduct. Take two equal-sized aquariums, set them up in exactly the same way and breed your favourite rainbowfish, keeping the same number of fry in each tank. Label one tank 'Vegetarian' and the other 'Normal' and keep a notebook to record differences between them. Feed the fish in the vegetarian tank with vegetarian flake food and frozen food mixture containing at least 50% vegetable matter but provide those in the normal tank with whatever foods you would normally use to obtain maximum growth. The growth rates in the two aquariums may well be different: in the vegetarian tank the fish may develop more slowly.

 

A suggestion for a frozen food containing plenty of vegetable matter would be cooked zucchini, boiled spinach or peas, or cooked pumpkin for one half of the mixture, the other half being prawns, cooked or frozen, and fish fillets. Stay away from beef heart and other land-animal products.

 

Insects form another important food for rainbowfish and freeze-dried or frozen mosquito larvae are usually available from the aquarium shop. Fruitflies are easy to culture and form a good alternative live food. Starter cultures of vestigial-wing fruitflies are available from Southern Biological Supplies in Melbourne and a recipe for a suitable culture medium is given in the book 'Australian Native Fishes for Aquariums', which should be in our library.

 

Rainbowfish will eat almost anything put in front of them, so it is up to us to make sure that they get the right foods to keep them in good health.

 

My property in this region forms part of an elevated ridge, for the most part covered in rainforest and attaining a maximum height of 550m, some 100 m above the surrounding (and largely settled) plain. The average yearly rainfall is about 1800 mm (72"), i.e. nearly three times as much as we get in Canberra. Numerous gullies carry temporary creeks during the wet summer season but these peter out as the rains decline and dry out completely during the winter, when the periodic light showers are not enough to provide the needed run-off to sustain them. Not surprisingly, fish are absent from these temporary creeks. However, at the base of the ridge, both on my side and the opposite one, on a friend's property, are spring-fed perennial creeks that I was for a while tempted to regard as permanent, and these present a very different picture.

 

To my delight, some years ago and soon after acquiring a toe-hold in the district, I detected thriving populations of the Northern Trout Gudgeon (Mogurnda mogurnda) in both creeks and of the Eastern Rainbow Fish (Melanotaenia splendida splendida), plentiful on my friend's place but with smaller numbers also on mine. Both species readily responded to a scattering of bread crumbs but the Gudgeon, being a bottom dweller rather than a free swimmer, seemed to prefer to feed on small pieces of cheese that immediately sank beneath the surface.

 

My irregular monitoring showed both species to have been present for several consecutive years until the drought commenced in mid-1992. Little by little, the flows decreased until, in August, they ceased altogether, at least upon the surface, and the creeks were reduced to a few isolated and rather murky-looking pools. By September the pools had also gone and the creek-beds appeared to be completely dry.

 

At this stage domestic water-bores were showing an ever descending water table and the rainforest trees responded with an unusually heavy leaf-fall. What, I wondered, had become of my treasured fishes?

 

The dry spell continued with little relief until December, when more than 500 mm (20") of rain suddenly renewed all systems and my creeks started to flow once more. I approached them with bated breath but the water was so cloudy that it was impossible to tell whether the fish had survived or not and I had to curb my curiosity until the end of the 1993 summer wet.

 

Now (August 1993), the creeks appear to be back to normal and I'm glad to report that thriving populations of the Gudgeon (including some quite large specimens) are still present, although the Rainbowfish have disappeared. The former, being bottom dwellers, presumably managed to survive in the few remaining damp spots under the creek beds but the free swimming Rainbowfish probably perished when the last pools dried out.

 

Although this drought was one of the worst on record, similar ones must have occurred in ages past and my creek has no doubt dried out many times before. Perhaps the Gudgeon has always been present, in active or passive form, but it seems likely that the populations of Rainbows come and go. Presumably they are replenished after such disasters by upstream migration from the safer havens of the larger river systems of the surrounding plain, for which the local creeks are merely feeders. I certainly hope so and I shall be keeping a keen lookout for the return of these beautiful fish.

 

In the club, there seemed to be a definitely negative response to the idea of keeping marines in the home. It was always "it's too hard", “you need a trickle-filter, UV-sterilizer, protein skimmer, etc." or "you'll never be able to keep a small aquarium's water stable" and so on. Most of the books and magazines seemed to agree with this negative attitude, so we did not even attempt to keep a marine aquarium. Why should we when, according to most views, we would need to win Lotto and have a degree in marine biology to have any chance of success. Then, a couple of years later, we were told there was light at the end of the tunnel. The Boyds got brave and set up a 2'x2'xl'marine aquarium. After having read a number of TFH articles, they had decided to take the plunge on a small setup, using the semi-natural system as described by Dr Cliff W. Emmens, plus a few other ideas from elsewhere. Their aquarium had been set up for only a short while, with but just a few pieces of living rock. However, it was still fascinating to watch as more tiny bits of life were noticed on the rocks each time we visited. Right then and there, we decided to begin our own marine aquarium along similar lines. The Boyds were questioned continuously (it didn't even need bright lights) and we read any books we could find on marine and invertebrate aquariums. One of the most informative of these was "Marine Fishes and Invertebrates in your own Home" by Dr Emmens, which gave us a few different ideas about setting up, plus a lot of hope that it could be done in our own home.

 

The semi-natural system uses some mechanical filtration but also relies on living rock to supplement the process in the natural way. We knew it would still be a challenge but this way, at least it would be more affordable and more natural looking.

 

For a start, we had to decide which freshwater aquarium to sacrifice and we settled on a 30"x14"x18" for our first marine tank. It was thoroughly cleaned and given a base of washed medium-grade shellgrit (a 50 kg bag from a produce store cost about $12.50), a depth of about 1" in front and 1.5" at the back. The tank was filled with tap-water (90 L) and allowed to stand with aeration for 3 days, to disperse the chlorine. Then the marine salt (Instant Ocean brand) was added, with stirring, and a further 1-2 days were needed for it to dissolve completely. About 12 cups of the salt were needed to give a specific gravity of about 1.022 ' which was fine, as the acceptable range is 1.020-1.025, the lower side being better for fish but the higher better for invertebrates. So a middle-of-the-range value should suit both groups, as long as it was kept fairly stable. Tap-water in Canberra at present is hard, with a pH of about 7.8, which is just about right for marines.

 

We supplemented the airstone and powerhead in our tank with a boxfilter containing shellgrit seeded with marine bacteria from the Boyd's aquarium and placed some clean filter wool on the top. This was the only, mechanical filtration used. For 'kick-starting' the biological activity in; of the aquarium, we followed an article in TFII July, 1986, but instead the chopped clam advocated there, we used chopped scallop, about one tablespoonful, finely divided. For the next few days we drew straws to decide who should go into the fishroom and open up for the mornings: it was rather hard on the nose, though only for a couple of days, since the scallop broke down quite quickly. The water temperature was 25C and after two days, we began testing for ammonia and nitrites. Whilst we knew what to expect, from reading books, we were interested to keep records (for later use maybe) of the ups and downs in our first marine, aquarium. Over the following days, as predicted, the ammonia level was first to rise, then the nitrite. The nitrate level could not be tested until the nitrites were down far enough. After 11 days we were too impatient to wait any longer and purchased a few small bits of living rock, for testing purposes only. They all did well and so did the life on them. On the 14th day the water was again tested and we had marine quality, ready to go: ammonia nil, nitrite nil and nitrate nil. The tank now had a few bits of living rock, with some interesting forms of life on them, enough to keep us fasciated (it didn't take much). Each day we would notice new life, such as little corals, feather dusters, small anemonies, algae, etc.

 

Just as the first marine aquarium was almost ready to receive its initial bits of life, we started another one for quarantining. This was only 28L but it still took two weeks to be ready. Setting up a marine aquarium is like beginning the fish hobby all over again; there are so many new and different things to learn about, that have to be done carefully. It also teaches patience, as it is a slow process, but it's better to avoid the temptation to speed things up, with the risk of wasting a lot of hard work, not to mention the salt (= money) that may go down the drain.

 

We provided an anemone for future Clownfish (always thinking ahead) in our no.1 marine aquarium, after it had been stable for a week (3 weeks after the scallop was added). We were now completely 'hooked' and scrutinized all of our remaining freshwater tanks, to choose the next to be transformed. A 5'one, which already had a Fluval 303 filter, was selected, as we felt we might as well make a proper job of it. This aquarium was set up in the same way as before and, after allowance for rock, etc., the water capacity was 244L. Once again, it took only 14 days to achieve nil readings.

 

We had ordered a box of living rock and it arrived on the right day, when the tank was ready. We were glad to have kept those records, which made things easier. It is best to obtain living rock by the box-full as it is then supplied direct, rather than in and out of shop aquariums. We were sharing the consignment with the Boyds, a quarter for them, so the 8 pieces were placed out, still wrapped, on a plastic sheet. Andrew chose 2 and the rest were ours. This was the fun part and now we would see some interesting forms of life. We made certain to remove any mantis shrimp we could find, before placing the rocks into the aquariums. There was plenty of other life, including small crabs, brittle stars, growths of small corals, sea squirts, etc. One large rock was half covered with hard coral. It was difficult to decide where to place the various rocks, but there had to be ample spacing between them, to allow good water circulation, until they had recovered from their journey.

 

Yes, you've probably guessed it: we had got the bug badly and sacrificed more space for yet another marine aquarium. This, however, was to be only a small aquarium ((1 8"x 14"x 1 2") for the lounge room, so we had Graham Maloney make us a tank that fitted the alotted space to perfection. We cheated this time and after adding the shellgrit, we 'borrowed' some water from the 5'aquarium (only 36 L were needed). The top from an internal power-filter (that was otherwise useless) was used to circulate the water, a 12" airstone was fitted for aeration and the only filtration was a sponge-filter. The sponge had been soaking in the 5'aquarium for over a week (we must have had a premonition we might need it). A couple of days later, two smallish pieces of living rock were moved to this new aquarium and the no. 1 marine aquarium was given a nice and larger piece to compensate.

 

Our marine aquariums were still missing something: colour and movement. Was it time for fish? No, not yet, but certainly corals. These beauties were not cheap but as some of our holiday pay had already gone on setting up the tanks, we decided to use the rest on a box of coral. This would complete the scene and make it ready for the fishes. As we collected our box of coral, an anemone caught our eye and this was also brought home. Unfortunately, the coral had missed its scheduled flight and had been trucked down overnight. so there were a few losses and some extra problems to cope with. The bad corals were easy to tell by smell alone, so only the good ones were placed in the 5-footer. Because of the delay there were probably other dead things on them, and these caused the levels of ammonia and other toxins in the 5'aquarium to rise. All we could do was wait and hope that everything would be alright and as it happened, it took 6 days for the water conditions to ease back, although most of the corals came through. The anemone and living rock seemed unaffected by the adverse water conditions, so we heaved a sigh of relief. We had some spectacular corals (presumably the more adaptable ones) survive but we might have done better by purchasing them separately and building up the number over time, so as not to unbalance the water conditions. Now, with the losses, the cost was about, the same but, as they say, you live and learn. Anyway, 10 days after the coral had been added, all was well again and our spirits were not dampened.

 

We purchased a pair of Maroon Clownfish (Premnas biaculeatus) for no.1 aquarium, for it was only fair that it should have the first fish. This aquarium had now been running for almost 3 months. The living rock and corals were rearranged and terraced (some on top of river rock) to our satisfaction in all but the quarantine aquarium, which had only had a piece of dead coral, with some algal growth. All except this quarantine tank were lit from above by one Triton tube but the 5’ had an Aquaglo light tube as well. We put a pair of Salmon Skunk Clownrish (Amphiprion periderain) and a small Coral Goby (Gobiodoh citrinus) in the lounge aquarium. A Royal Dottyback (Pseudochromis paccagnella) joined the pair of Maroon Clownfish in no.1 setup and at present in the 5' tank are a pair of Fire Clownfish (Amphiprion melanopus), a Royal Dottyback, a Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dinzidiatus) and a Moorish Idol (Zanclus canescens).

 

After the addition of the living rock and corals, there was the question of what to feed these invertebrates. They contain symbiotic algae and therefore need mainly animal protein as a source of nourishment. Since their way of feeding differs from that of fishes, they need very fine foods and there are propriety brands available, as well as others that may be less obvious. I have used liquid invertebrate foods as well as other things, such as Nutra Fin tablet. This crushes up nice and finely, so I crumble one tablet into the 5' aquarium (and smaller portions for the others), for a change. We were surprised how quickly fish that we had thought would be difficult adapted to aquarium life. At first, they were given special frozen food for marines, green food, marine cocktail and frozen bloodworrns and they ate all of these readily. They were fed once a day, had healthy appetites, and weren't as fussy as we expected.

 

When these fish are hungry and they realise what is dropped in is food, they will try most things and can also become very friendly. So far, they have eaten most of the foods that we give to our freshwater tropicals, such as freeze-dried Tubifex, bloodworms or Pacific plankton, marine flake, brine-shrimp flake and pellets. The Moorish Idol has a fondness for Wardleys cichlid ten floating pellets and Tetra Dorogreen but also eats all of the other foods mentioned. The anemonies are given a piece of fish weekly or fortnightly, according to their size and appetite, but the clownfishes also feed them a little with other foods. When the chopped fish is given, a little is also squashed up for the fish, who take it with relish. Live or frozen daphnia are also given, when available and we give the marine aquariums a little squirt of newly hatched brineshrimp daily, as we do our rounds to feed fry in our freshwater tanks.

 

After one month the aquariums were given weekly doses of trace elements plus marine plant/algae food. Water tests were also carried out weekly for the first few months but as everything was remaining stable, they were then reduced to fortnightly. However, the aquariums are still visually checked daily for any signs of trouble and we try not to overfeed. Periodically (every 2-3 weeks) the tanks need topping up because of evaporation, leading to increased specific gravity readings; this is done with aged tap-water. At the time of writing, the no.1 aquarium (which was set up in early June 1990) has been running for a little over 5 months.

 

Dr Emmens states in his book that in natural-type marine setups water changes are necessary occasionally but that as little as 10% every 2 months may be sufficient. Monitoring the water conditions will indicate when such changes are required. We realise that we are still in the early stages with our marine aquariums but are happy with the progress so far, most but not all of our corals have grown, the living rock appears to be keeping to its reputation and the fish are doing well, although only a few can be kept in a natural system. It is nice to have a few tanks set aside for decoration and viewing only, however one day, a pair of anemone fish may decide to spawn and ruin that idea and wouldn't that be a shame! There have been some losses of coral and fish along the way, and a few mistakes made, but we are glad we gave it a try.

 

There are quite a number of books and magazines dealing with marine aquariums, invertebrates and fishes and I would like to mention a few others that we found useful. These include "The Marine Aquarium" by Dick Mills and the following articles from TFH: "Marine Aquariums made easy"; parts 1,2 and 3 by Raymond Hunziker (July, November and December, 1986) and "The Mysterious World of Anthozoans" (corals, anemonies and their relatives), parts 1 and 2 by Peter Wilkens (July and August, 1990).

 

Points to remember when aquarium.

 

  1) Make sure the water quality is stable and tests are right before adding living rock, corals and other invertebrates or fish.

  2) Do have a quarantine tank, where any new fish should be kept for 2-3 weeks.

  3) Choose only a few fish for the low-tech aquarium, as it will have a low carrying capacity, and make sure the fish are compatible with the corals and other inmates.

  4) Monitor the water quality frequently and top up only with aged water, either fresh or artificial salt mix.

  5) Do not overfeed fish or invertebrates and have patience when trying new foods or feeding new fish. Uneaten food must be removed promptly or it may overload the system.

  6) Clean tank lids frequently as corals, etc. need good light to survive.

  7) Ensure that there is plenty of aeration and water movement.

  8) Do have some reputable dechlorinator available, suitable for salt water.

  9) Keep a stock of marine salt on hand for those water changes.

  10) Research as much as possible the natural habitats of the corals chosen, to determine appropriate lighting needs and water movement levels.

  11) Research the invertebrates contemplated, as some may devour corals or other intended inmates (some cowries eat corals, anemonies eat small fish, some invertebrates can poison tankmates and even humans, and so on)

 

Finally, read all you can about marine aquaristics, enjoy your own collection of interesting creatures and have fun!

 

Electricity is practically the only energy source used in the hobby now. Other types of heating such as gas or kerosene burner, heating the floor of the tanks have been forgotten.

 

Solar heating is the ideal proposition to save energy in the fishroom or the room used for the aquariums in the house. Design and use of solar energy has to be thought of at the beginning of a serious approach to the hobby. Solar heating works strictly on the laws of the sun's movement during the year. Once it has been decided to follow this path there are an infinite number of ways to develop more efficient systems as to energy storage, application of roof panels or even solar cells for direct production of electric current.

 

Some other methods can be applied: Andrew Boyd Is prepared to use the wind to generate electricity.

 

The basic decision of where to place our tanks in the imperative one. The normal location for the aquariums is in the living area, either free standing or in-built in a cabinet. If the room is heated the aquarium needs less energy than in a non-heated room.

 

Another solution is to have more tanks in a hobby room, but the larger number of fish tanks requires careful consideration s to the heating system. Individual heating of tanks brings high water evaporation and moisture condensation on windows and some other parts of the room. The wholly heated room with no individual tank heaters is the other option.

 

The decision to modify the garage or the ultimate design of a specialised fish or plant room, fulfilling the requirements of the hobby in full, is for the real enthusiast with a long term interest.

 

Now to assess our energy needs to ,, the hobby cheaply. The first thing is to refresh a few basic laws of physics from our high school years.

 

The heat transfer law says that energy moves from high energy potential to low energy potential. Popularly expressed, "warm places cool down". Heat energy is transferred by conduction of the heat through the mass (water, steel etc.) or by convection where the moving air, water etc helps to 'hop' the heat from one wall to the other. The third method of heat transfer is radiation. The glowing heater is an example of radiation. The effects of radiation from low temperature objects is negligible.

 

This is as far as we can go into explanations of heat transfer without getting into the theories of movement of electrons and molecules.

 

The laws of movement of air and water (the media we are interested in) are simple too. Air tends to rise when heated. The same applies to water. Remember water is heaviest at 4 C (ice floats). Because of this natural law, we experience layering (stratification) of the water in our aquariums according to temperature. The warmest layer is at surface level.

 

Another part of physics creeps into the hobby. Water vapour (humidity) is produced by evaporation of water from the aquarium surface. We do not need to know about relative or absolute humidity of the air, but we should remember the warmer the air, the more moisture it can carry.

 

We can observe moisture from the air condensing on colder surfaces. Here is the human safety risk. Electricity is a dangerous toy. Household electrical wiring carries 240 Volts at a high enough Amperage to kill. The forgotten 12 Volt systems (low voltage, like

your car) were too costly, and the cost was multiplied by the necessary use of transformers. Manufacturing companies abandoned production of these safe heaters.

 

Any electrical installation must be kept out of heavy condensation areas. Switches have to be mounted outside of these areas to prevent the danger of electrical shock.

 

Now we should start to think about different means of saving energy. Savings can be made on any aquarium particularly on free standing tanks. These lose heat from all surfaces. it located in very cold rooms, heating a larger tank can cost up to $20 a month during the peak of winter.

 

In cold rooms the aquarium water stratifies with cold water at the bottom and warmer water at the top. This hides the problems for the bottom dwellers like catfish. The aquarist feels the warmer water at the surface, or takes the temperature with a floating thermometer, and assumes the whole tank is OK.

 

A simple example shows the basics of the process.

 

The aquarium has a temperature of say 24 C. When room temperature is the same, the water is nicely and uniformly warm from top to bottom. During the night or in winter, the room temperature drops to say 16 C or even lower. The air in contact with the side glass gets warmer and starts to rise. This brings cooler air to the glass. This convection (air movement) starts to cool the glass and draws the warmth from the tank. The heat energy dissipates in the room air. The water gets cooler and starts to stratify, cooler at the bottom, warmer at the surface. Heat is also lost from the bottom and the lid but the heat exchange is more complicated particularly when you want to calculate losses accurately.

 

The reverse process starts when the room is heated (or in summer) to a higher temperature than the aquarium water.

 

Let's look at a daily cycle. During the day the temperature is 24 C and at night 16 C. Assume that these temperatures hold for 12 hours each. The aquarium water doesn't reach these extremes. We would expect average tank temperature would be 20 C. This is still OK for the normal healthy tropical fish. But in this case water stratification in the tank occurs naturally and the temperature at the bottom would be drifting down towards 16 ' C, while the surface is above 20 C. This is a clear indication that the temperature measurement must be taken close to the tank floor level.

 

The other requirement is to provide a forced mixing of the water. The simplest method is by aeration or a power filter moving the water and mixing the different temperature layers.

 

To prevent water temperature drop due to a cold environment around the tank we must supply heat energy. The simplest device is the aquarium heater.

 

What output heater is needed for which tank? It can be calculated. We need to know the volume of the tank, the lowest expected temperature, and can then calculate the energy required to heat the water in this case. Then convert the energy units into Watts.

 

A simpler approach, but not as accurate, is to learn from experience. Logic dictates that all gadgets will eventually fall. If you keep very expensive fish 2 less powerful heaters in each tank are a necessity for the water to not get too cold when one fails. For example, a 150 litre tank (4 foot standard) located in an unheated room (facing north) can manage with 2 heaters (15OW). One heater should be set to the lowest required water temperature, say 21 C. The other should operate at the required normal tomperature of say 24 C. This gives your fish a chance of survival when one heater goes 'bust'. The other will keep things OK until you find it.

 

As a matter of principle it is better to employee less powerful heaters (yet still able to maintain the required temperature level) than the high output ones. Why? The low output heater runs for longer periods, thus is not constantly switching on and off. This frequent switching develops sparks causing the burnout or sticking of the bimetal contacts in the heater thermostat. Lower output heaters don't 'boil' the fishes so easily at least not in a short time.

 

Normal heaters should last at least 5 years or more without problems. But as you know Murphy’s Law is the only one that works perfectly and we get caught very often when we don't expect it.

 

It is a good practice is to put an aeration stone under or near the heater. This helps to move colder water towards the heater (the heater circulates water also by potential water temperature difference). Aeration close to the hotter is essential when keeping Black Mollies who tend to sit on the heater to warm up. When they move into cold water the muscles of the swim bladder tend to cramp up and the fish loses the ability to swim.

 

Until now the article has been devoted to energy input to the aquarium water. Water temperature is one of the most important considerations when keeping tropical fishes. But for the hobbyist the cost of energy used plays an essential role too.

 

We waste most of the energy on heating. The second highest wastage is on lighting the tank. Last comes energy 'spent' on aeration, filters, power pumps etc.

 

How do we handle the heating losses?

 

The first and most important way is to insulate the tank. If we do not utilise the available natural light from all sides and the top of the tank, all sides of the aquarium which are not required for observation should be insulated. One very good insulation is polystyrene sheets attached to aquarium sides. 'Pink Batts' are good but tend to collapse vertically when soaked@;with water.

 

Polystyrene used under the tank should be increased from the commonly used 12mm to 24 or preferably 36mm thickness.

 

Insulation significantly reduces heat loss. Similar insulation should be a permanent feature of aquariums built into cabinets. The polystyrene advantage is it's soak resistance and easily worked sheets. it also reduces the volume of moist air in air-filled voids between glass and cabinet walls thus reducing the condensation of moisture on the cold surface of the cabinet.

 

The other heat energy loss is in the lighting of the aquarium. We do not consider the luxury of halogen lamps (used for example in the Dupla system) as Canberra Tank Tours have not revealed this application. These lamps are usually suspended from the ceiling. In this case we are talking hundreds of dollars in investment cost.

 

We use incandescent (normal) bulbs or fluorescent (neon) tubes of different kinds.

 

Unfortunately we need high light intensity to show the fish and grow the plants. High intensity brings a high cost in energy and therefore dollars.

 

Heat loss reduction from lighting is very difficult. For a single aquarium or cabinet the utilisation of the lighting heat is unwieldy as the heat is kept above the lid in the vicinity of the light source. There is better utilisation of the light - heat energy in vertically arranged aquariums within an enclosure.

 

I prefer to use warmer air for the air pump even when the efficiency dividend is quite small.

 

Saving on lighting is always difficult. Here the use of incandescent bulbs is the worst solution (even though the light spectrum is probably the best for the plants) because 95% of the energy is converted into heat and only 5% forms the light.

 

Neon tubes are more economical but the light spectrum is a nightmare! Working out the balance between GrowLux and daylight tubes, or using the expensive ones such as the Triton tubes, Costs a lot too.

 

Another path of exploration is the use of the compact fluorescent bulbs (costing $20 - $30 each). 1 have found their light spectrum good for plants, the energy saving is great, and if you avoid overheating in closed hoods they last a long time. The cost is comparable with Triton tubes and the installation is simple.

 

The present design of light hoods is an absolute disgrace! The hoods need to reflect light without bouncing it all over the place.

 

Instead of having a parabolic shape (like a car headlight) the squarish shape of the hoods throw light in all directions. The problem results in a hot hood and light source via ray absorption and loss of light intensity emanated towards the water surface.

 

Utilising the heat energy from the lights with a tiny fan and circulation around the tank would be a major boost to reducing the heating input into the aquarium in winter. In summer the energy for the lights would be wasted for the sake of not overheating the tank.

 

Least of all energy wasters are the various gadgets such as the air pump, water pumps (as filters, power heads etc.). Thanks to the developments of high technology energy consumption is minimal.

 

Air pumps or motorised filters represent energy consumption of 4-8 Watts each. This represents, at the current electricity rate, a cost of 1-2 cents a day. The sophistication and simplicity is so high that the task of saving any more energy is far beyond the scope of the normal hobbyist.

 

We can conclude that there is always room to improve efficiency of energy use in the aquarium hobby. The easiest way is to insulate the tanks and put them into an enclosure (cabinet etc.).

 

Modification of aquarium lighting and use of energy efficient sources is the second step.

 

Reducing the heat loss from the filters and associated pipes can be made by the location of these in areas within the aquarium enclosure.

 

There are other sources of thermal energy which could be used for the hobby. Solar energy with heat accumulation storage is one answer. Andrew's suggestion of wind energy is technically interesting but needs to consider the number of windy days . These vary considerably depending on the season even in Canberra’s suburbs. But in Holland, yes, it is the answer.

 

Room for improvement in energy consumption is quite large and brings not only a dollar saving but the satisfaction of the personal achievement of saving a little of the world's environment.

 

When you first consider the hobby, the idea is usually one community tank, which will bring life to a dark corner of the loungeroom, or fill a space in the room divider or sit on top of a bookcase etc. In other words you have a place where a tank would look good. This tank is envisioned as a work of art, beautifully aquascaped, thriving plants, colourful healthy full grown fish swimming around in all their glory.

 

When you get this tank and set it up, you find the plants that you have bought, at great cost, are only cuttings and shoots and the fish only half grown or less, this is not serious as they are all the same. So you sit back and wait for fish and plants to grow into the work art you were originally striving for.

 

But you probably run into 'new tank' problems and lose some fish or even if you don’t you suddenly find the fish you wanted but couldn't find in the first place. When you bring those new and/or replacement fish home you find that even if you hadn't noticed it, all the fish you have, have grown and are capable of either eating or beating up the new comers.

 

No sweat, all the books and experienced aquarists recommend a quarantine tank anyway. So you buy a smaller tank and probably put it on the shelf under the main tank. The new fish go in. grow and move into the main tank. When you notice a gravid (you probably still all it pregnant at this stage) live bearer and decide to have a go at saving the babies, so you pop her into the little tank as its there doing nothing anyway..

 

Now you have more than half a hundred thriving fish growing in a tank big enough for adozen and they are too small for the Community tank, so you need another large tank and somewhere to put it.

 

Now you are a fish breeder, which means you’ve got it bad mate, almost incurable. You’ve got your first breeding points and you must, you’ve just got to have a go with the egg layers: egg droppers, mouth brooders, egg laying tooth carps, bubblenest builders, substrate spawners, brood care breeders, etc., etc. Which means another tank and another and always one more tank (note you always only want one wore tank than you have when you started when you only wanted that one tank).

 

After a couple of years or sooner, it you spouse or parents haven't got it as bad as you, you take stock and find three or tour large tanks in the lounge, two or three in the dining room,. one or two in each bedroom and the kitchen, laundry and bathroom may not have escaped, each tank with smaller tanks under it. tiny tanks and jars floating in it and wires and tubes sticking out in all directions. And you still haven't seen the work of art you originally wanted. This is when the fish room starts to make sense.

 

Your best tank left in the original spot, the only room in the house that needed a tank, all the rest plus the inevitable one more to the fish room, to keep the work of art stocked with your best plants, beautiful mature fish and to receive plant trimmings, fish that are past their best, incomparable or just need maternity leave in the fish room.

 

 

A spare room in the house is a good spot for a fish room and if you have one, you probably would not get to the state mentioned before utilising it. I have seen an en-suite bathroom that had not been finished due to lack of funds turned into a fish room instead of an en-suite when the funds did become available.

 

Some advantages of a fish room in the house;

    1.  It does not get as cold as outbuildings.

    2.  You don't have to go out to it so you can feed the fish in your pajamas.

    3.  You can still hear the phone, door bell, children, cooking, etc.

 

Some disadvantages;

    1.  Dampness is not good for the house.

    2.  Spillage or a broken tank would ruin the floor and carpet.

    3.  Noisy air pumps and tank heaters will keep you awake.

    4.  Difficult to plumb water in and out.

 

So if you don't like the idea or if you haven't a spare room and can't sell the kids or afford an extension, lets look at garden sheds or partitioning the garage;

 

    1.  Both will need lining and insulation.

    2.  Any shed over 3m x 3m will need planning permission.

    3.  Some form of air lock with double door would be advisable.

    4.  Garages are for cars and will probably already be spoken tor.

    5.  Petroleum smells are bad for fish.

 

 

A fish room must house the tanks and protect them from the weather, pets and children. The smaller it is the less heat that will be needed, if you use space heating but it must be large enough for the tanks, space to get around them, storage space and working area. You must have place to put things other than on tanks. A good idea is to design it so that people (tank tours, friends, relations, the kids mates, etc.) can view the tanks and end up back at the door without having to turn around and let each other through. You will need electricity, a way of getting water in and out. It will of course have to be a compromise on what you want, what you have and what you can afford.

 

 

I have, in the past, had a fish room in a spare room in a previous house but there is not enough room in the present house. The garage turned out to be the best answer as it is designed to take two cars nose to tail, which with the schedules the wife and I keep it is absolutely impractical. We spend half our time moving each others car in and out of the way and I had already started parking my car next to the garage. The space available after allowing tor the car (Renault R12 Estate at the time (thats why the Suzuki Swift has more space than it deserves)), four bicycles and sundry items stored in the garage is about 3m x 3m with one corner chopped off so I don't bang my elbows when I use the work bench. It is also restricted in head room.

 

A wood frame was first built and the two walls separating it from the garage sheeted with corrugated iron from a neighbour demolished car port. Then the roof, the two outside walls and the floor covered with a 50mm glass fibre blanket, which came to one full roll. The roof then has R3.5+ pink bats held in place vith corking and sheeted with 25mm styrofoam sheets. The floor has 'wet area’ chipboard sheets and all the walls with and without blankets have R2.5+ pink bats with corking and is sheeted with 6mm Villaboard. The floor is finished with Dectex external deck paint and the walls are finished in gloss enamel over all the appropriate undercoats and primers. The door, which lines up with the garage side door so that tanks can be got in and out, is insulated with R2.5 bats and sheeted on the inside with Villaboard and the outside with masonite. The window is double glazed and lines up with the sliding garage window thus giving three sheets of glass between the fish room and outside.

 

I built a full length work table along the Window wall with a shelf underneath and a stand for two water drums over the centre. A wooden stand to take 6 3’ tanks is built along the opposite wall. A metal stand for 2 3’ tanks stands in the chopped off corner.  Two other metal stands go in the centre, unfortunatly no amount of juggling of these two stands would give me the free flow visitor access, I so strongly recommended.

 

The room is heated by a 2000W fan heater controlled through a relay by an air conditioning thermostat. A Khio 4800 four outlet air Pump supplies air to all the tanks. The lights above the tanks are controlled by a timer giving 11 hours light a day. There are another two lights, one has its own timer over the table that comes on early enough for me to feed the fish at 6am on my. way to work, the other is also a light on the ceiling controlled by one ordinary light switch at the door for of hours illumination. I also have an intercom that can monitor the phone, door bell and call me to dinner.

 

Unfortunately with all the lighting the room gets too hot in the summer months and I am going to have to design a cooling system before the end of winter.

 

The tank in the lounge, 1900x400x400mm, from time to time has looked like a work of art and every now and then a tank in the fish room will suddenly take on the right visual proportions and looks beautiful for a while but as with all living things its an ongoing scene and will over grow or plants will die back as others over shadow them. All in all, a very exiting hobby and if you think it's only for little boys and grannys that can see excitement in an aquarium, let me just say, “I came back to the hobby after a 20 year break during which my hobby was motor racing”.

Most of us aquarists have had to learn our lesson the hard and expensive way. We buy a fish we admire and add it straight away to our display tank that has already taken time and effort to get just right. Did we research what conditions that particular new fish required? Probably not. Did we find out whether that fish was aggressive or could tolerate other aggressive species? Probably not, but these are just the ways where all our good efforts at fish keeping could be wiped out, simply because we liked the looks of a particular specimen. One cannot always blame a new fish for having a disease and introducing it into the aquarium: other points have to be considered.

 

The odds are that you have purchased numerous fish and have just added them to your display tank without thinking too much about it. Well, you can count yourself very lucky if you away with it, but how much longer this luck will last is anyone's guess. A good procedure is to quarantine all new fish and this will then prevent the introduction of any diseases that may be present on them or in the water, into your established tanks. Such new fish should be isolated for at least a week, examined daily for any possible diseases and treated if necessary. The quarantine tank should be from 8-20 gallons, depending on the size of fish that will be purchased. It is best not to include gravel in the tank as this makes for easier cleaning. Simple filters, such as the box or foam varieties, are best, but do not use charcoal in them, for if medication is required, the charcoal will remove most of the drugs from the water. Include a flower-pot as a possible hiding place for the fish, if they need one, but plants are not necessary. Don't forget a heater. If a quarantine tank is needed in a hurry and you have a reasonably large established aquarium, then remove enough water from it (but not more than 25 %) and use this to three-quarters fill the quarantine tank, if possible, and top up with fresh aged water. Adjust the pH if necessary and then you should have a working population of bacteria ready for you.

 

A quarantine tank for Marines however, will have to he an established one - a smaller version of your display tank but without any corals or invertebrates present, and it will need to be kept biologically sound. This can be done either by keeping one small fish in it or by adding occasional small doses of brine shrimp, with regular testing of the water.

 

Be careful not to use nets, etc., in your display aquarium, directly after coming from the quarantine tank, or you risk transferring any disease that may be present. Prevention is best, so also, wash your hands or anything else that could result in transfer. Myazin is good for sterilising nets. If you do have to have to treat the fish, make sure you are using the right medicament, so check with a book and follow the directions that come with the medicines. Also, don't forget to use the correct dose for the amount of water in the tank (not its total capacity).

 

Quarantine tanks may be used not only for newly purchased fishes but also for any occasionals that may fall ill in the display aquarium. This will require less medicine than treating the whole display tank but be sure to check the latter for any further breakouts. Moreover, some medicines can upset the biological harmony if used in an established tank.

 

Quarantine tanks may also be used as refuges for fish that have been injured in some way. Let them recover and regrow any torn finnage before deciding on a permanent home for them and don't forget that treatment with dilute cooking salt solution can be helpful in such cases.

 

The breeding notes revealed a blatantly obvious yet hitherto unthought of (by me) theory: Why big Cichlids tend to have more male offspring than female. This theory rests upon three well-known facts:

 

  (a)  Big Cichlids (especially the Guapotes of subgenus Nandopsis such as dovii and managuense) have large spawns, often numbering 500-1000 fry,

 

  (b)  These fry tend to sibling cannibalism, ie they eattheir brothers and sisters, and

 

  (c)  Male fry tend to grow faster than their sisters.

 

The net result? The bigger male fry eat a lot of the small female fry. What to do about it? suppose that grouping the fry by size would help if not eradicate this problem. Stick all the 5-10mm fry in one tank, all the 11-20mm fry in another, and weed out the one "super-fry" that invariably grows ten times as fast as the others. A divided tank would work just as well, as long as filtration is taken care of on both sides of the barrier (unless it is a permeable one). Does this situation have an analog in the raising of Australian and new Guinean Rainbowfishes? Possibly, but it would not be as severe, as the intra-sibling cannibalism is nowhere near as bad.

 

Another point of note is the division of Cichlids by spawning method (this being an indicator of likely behaviour patterns and therefore having a bearing on how they are kept). I had previously thought that the Cichlidae could be neatly divided into Mouthbrooders and Egglayers, but now I know that this is not the case. Not all Mouthbrooders act alike, a gross over-simplification on my part. Dr Loiselle divides spawning method into Monogamous (single partner) and Polygamous (multiple partner) with Polygamous Cichlids being further divided into Haremically Polygynous (single male with multiple female partners, a state that some Egglayers attain, not just mbuna) and Openly Polygamous. At this stage it gets a bit complex, with further divisions based on behavioural characteristics, and if you are interested then I suggest that you read the book yourself.

 

Rest assured that if you are interested in breeding Cichlids, or even in just successfully keeping them alive, (the two often go hand in hand) then you should look at this book. I have kept a few species of the Nasty Biting Fish over the years and a lot of what Dr Loiselle says makes perfect sense and explains losses of fish and their fry owing to incorrect filtration, feeding, or housing. Members with a keen interest in Cichlid keeping would probably save a lot of money in the long run by buying a copy of this book.

 

Dr Loiselle has a good writing style, easy to understand, although the less technically minded might need to keep a dictionary handy to comprehend the liberal sprinkling of ichthyological and behavioural biology terms.

 

It is just another of the fine books available for nothing from your club library on monthly loan.

 

 

I believe that the new quarantine regime will raise prices of aquarium fish, and lead to fewer being imported. What this will mean is that unless someone breeds more fish in Australia there will be fewer fish available. The short answer is that unless aquarists learn to breed their own fish, they will get quite expensive, although granted this may lead to raised demand and a more efficient Australian commercial fishbreeding industry. But from a purely selfish point of view, Australian aquarists need to start breeding more of their own fish to stock their own tanks, to ensure an adequate supply.

 

What has this to do with conservation? To over-simplify: the fewer fishes taken from the wild to satisfy the needs of aquarists - the better. This applies equally to the one-tank fishkeeper's Cardinal Tetras and the native fish specialist's "sticky" Rainbowfish.

 

One of the traditional arguments used by the scientific community against the "amateurs" is that captive breeding (a) changes the fish; and (b) may introduce disease into the wild with re-release. How are the fish changed? I have been involved in several discussions over the years with members of the native fish fraternity about this question. There is the question as to what colour the tail of the wild Melanotaenia herbertaxelrodi is - it seems to vary with who you talk to, and more importantly what side of the Atlantic they live on. Generally speaking. aquarists tend to keep the more appealing specimens of a particular species to breed with, and over several generations these "improvements" become quite noticeable. Other species tend to lose a lot of colour intensity. Colour is important to some species in recognition of potential mates.

 

Then there are the changes that can occur in a single generation - loss of predator avoidance behaviour and obesity amongst others. To anthropomorphisise, the fish may become "complacent".

 

The disease angle has not yet been fully explored - but there is some evidence to suggest that the virus which has decimated certain Queensland frog populations may have been introduced via imported aquarium fish.

 

Then there's the problem of the fishes themselves - exotic species are a potential threat to native species, if introduced, and even native fishes from one part of Sahul could be a pest in another. On the plus side, aquarists have a much greater keeping capacity than all the "zoos" in the world, if this can be utilised effectively. There are untold millions of litres of tank water available in our homes.

 

 

So what can be done about these concerns, and liaison between "amateur" and "boffin"? I believe that the best bet is with hobbyists being represented by effective organisations.

 

They exist on two levels, local and national. Local organisations would do well to encourage members to breed fish, whatever the species, to build a knowledge base so that when specimens of an endangered species come their way they are able to do something about it.... Too often I have seen lovely fish disappear from the local scene because they ended up in the hands of inexperienced aquarists who killed them, or at least lacked the nous to breed them, which is effectively the same thing in the long run. Local branches of national organisations that are concerned with the keeping of particular brands of fishes such as Cichlids or Australian/New Guinean natives have a particularly important task - that of coordination with similar branches interstate/internationally.

 

Why is this coordination important? I am of the opinion that much effort is wasted because of a lack of a "big picture". Species that may be of concern, such as the Lake Eacham Rainbowfish Melanotaenia eachamensis, are now common enough that their continued care seems to have been given over to the commercial sector, which is never a good idea. The aquarium trade, as a whole, is in the business of making money. They will sell what the market demands. What will happen to M.eachamensis when the current Rainbowfish fad passes? They may be gone forever with a comment of "Oh, well, their DNA is the same as other fishes in the area, so there's no loss". Many species have vanished from Australian fishkeeping for the crime of being "common". That is why a management program needs to be implemented for them and other species of concern. Rob Wager proposed something along these lines at the 1994 ANGFA Conference in Brisbane, and while many thought it was a good idea at the time, nothing has come of it yet, as far as I know.

 

 

My argument - and it is by no means mine by origin or exclusivity - is that a National Register of Endangered Fish Species held in captivity would identify which species are in danger of disappearing from our tanks forever. This is something that hobbyist organisations could do themselves - leaving field studies of the situation in the wild to a coordinated effort with the "pros" - with enough will and a little cooperation. I know the Cichlid folks tried this a few years back, but it failed from what I understand was inter-state rivalry. This Register is especially important in the case of the New Guinea fishes and the Cichlids - they have traditionally been difficult to bring into Australia. Equally important are Australian species that cannot be exported overseas, and I think it a good idea that regional groups give priority to local species.

 

There are several natural human tendencies that need to be overcome before this Register could eventuate. The first being greed. If someone has the last male whatever and someone else the last female (extreme example - by the time it got to the last pair it would be way too late for that species) then one of them is going to have to be willing to part with their precious beast for the good of the species. Then there is the other sort of greed, that of wanting what you don't have, even if you don't have the tankspace or expertise to accommodate it. These two facets explain why many are unwilling to disclose exactly what species they keep for even a local breeding registration scheme. There's pride - the willingness on the part of someone who has been keeping fish for thirty or more years to listen to a national body who may have a request to make of them which conflicts with their own view of themselves as a fish-breeding guru. Personality conflicts between different state branches will get in the way of any national effort, as they have always done. And it's only human nature to keep the fishes that you like, and if they happen to be what everyone else likes, then no-one will be looking out for the grubby little colourless fishes - such as some of the Gobies - which are aa lot rarer in captivity now than they have been in many years, which I think is a shame. If the job of looking after the less popular species was spread in an organised fashion, I am sure it would be a less onerous task!

 

So what is this Register for?
As mentioned above, it is the only way we can gauge a true picture of the captive stocks of Australian aquarists' fishes. What follows is a coordinated series of breeding programs for identified species, and a watching role on all the others. It will be a big job, of that I have little doubt. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that a higher percentage of dedicated native fish keepers are members of organisations such as NFA, ANGFA, SANFA etc. than is the situation with Cichlid or Killifish keepers in their respective bodies, but I stand ready to be corrected. But any sort of breeding or habitat surveying program possibly in conjunction with appropriate boffins would be better than nothing.

 

I would urge all who read this to have a think about what I, and many others before me, have said. Because in the end, it will be ourselves who suffer, because we are denying ourselves and our children the opportunity to keep a wide range of fishes. It is a bit hard on the fishes we are watching disappear as well!

 

It may well be, for the reasons outlined above, that the captive bred fishes can never be returned to the wild, or in some cases there is no "wild" left to return them to, and all we can hope for is to preserve or "archive" the fishes we choose to save. In the long run I fear that it will be a matter of our choice as aquarists which species survive and which do not. We have reached a critical juncture in Australian fishkeeping - habitat is being lost both here and overseas, fewer fishes will be coming in, governments are looking at what species can and cannot be kept - it is up to us what we do about it.

 

The amount of current needed to give a person an electric shock is surprisingly low. With a 240 volt supply, a current of only 10 milliamps through your body to earth can give a painful shock, and a current above 50 milliamps is likely to be fatal. Not very much when a 200 watt beater draws something like 800 milliamps. While the possibility of a dangerous failure in modern commercial aquarium equipment is very, very slight, nevertheless a risk still exists. I've never seen any report of a person being killed by a shock from their aquarium in Australia but I have seen a report in an English newspaper of this happening, and have vague recollections of reading that several people die each year in the U.S.A. by electric shocks from their aquariums.

 

If your aquarium equipment is plugged into a normal household switchboard, with standard circuit breakers, it is highly unlikely that they will cut-out in the event of a fault in the equipment leading to a possible leak to earth of the low magnitude needed to cause a bad shock. Fortunately there is a simple, but unfortunately fairly expensive, safety measure which can be taken. This is to install a CORE BALANCE EARTH LEAKAGE CIRCUIT BREAKER, or ELCB for short, into the wiring system for your aquariums.

 

These devices work by continually monitoring the current in both the active and neutral wires of the circuit, and if a fault develops in the circuits leading to the leakage of current to earth, then the device instantaneously breaks the circuit. They are set to break the circuit only above a certain current loss, since some home appliances such as water heaters and freezers naturally have small current losses. The cut-off level ranges from 10 milliamps to 30 milliamps, with 30 milliamps being suitable tor the aquarium.

 

Three types of ELCB are available. The first is wired into the main switchboard of a house and can give protection to all power points in the house, not just the aquarium power point. I'm not sure of the cost of this in Canberra, but with installation by a qualified electrician, it could be around $200 or more.

 

The second is a wall mounted model, which is a straight replacement for a standard wall socket and looks very similar. Installation is straight forward and most would feel confident about doing the work themselves The only possible complication is if the socket is part of a ring circuit with more than three wires going into the socket. If in doubt, get an electrician to do the installation. The cost of a wall mounted model is about $80 at one of the specialist electrical shops at Fyshwick. They are rarely to be found at the general hardware stores.

 

The third type of ELCB are portable models. These are self-contained units which plug into a standard socket and into which you plug your aquarium equipment, similar to an extension cord. They have the advantage of being able to be used wherever needed around the house, for instance with power sawss hedge trimmers etc. but are quite expensive. The only one I've seen in Canberra was over $100. If you would require a wall mounted model to be installed by an electrician they may be worth considering, but their portability is largely wasted in an aquarium setting because it is virtually never free to use for other applications.

 

The choice of whether to install an ELCB or not is up to the individual. They are expensive; $80 would buy a nice power filter, let you set up that extra breeding tank, or buy some very nice fish, but what's the point if you aren't around to enjoy it. Me, I've put off buying that Eheim filter I've had my eye on for a while!

 

A most likely primary cause would be that the tank is over-stocked with fish, giving rise to unduly eutrophic (nutrient rich) water. To some extent this may be countered by the presence of plenty of actively growing higher plants but there are very definite limits to this strategy alone.

 

Another important factor is lighting and an aquarium should never be located near a window, where it will receive too much sunlight (only a maximum of 2 hours is permissible).

 

By world standards, Canberra tap-water is very soft and this also favours algal growth. In general, a GH of 6 or higher is to be recommended, although certain special fish, such as Discus and some South American Tetras, require softer water.

 

Some snails will eat algae but they are seldom able to control it effectively. The same can be said of certain fish, such as Gyrinochellus and some Malawi cichlids, which cannot be kept together in a tank in sufficient numbers. However, the Bristlenose Catfish, Ancistrus temmincki, is perhaps a notable exception. Such fish (and also, many cyprinidae) actually need algae as part of their diet and the maintenance of suitable levels of growth, without allowing the algae to take over their tank, calls for some nice judgment of stocking levels and water quality management.

 

Other points to be noted are:-

 

  1)  A fast flowing filter will help to control algal growth, which is always diminished in turbulent waters.

 

  2)  An algal bloom nearly always occurs in a new tank but this will normally subside as a state of maturity is reached.

 

  3)  Sometimes a golden film will appear on the water surface but don't worry: this will soon disappear.

 

  4)  Algal growth is seasonal.

 

  5)  Green algae grow if there is too much light; brown algae grow in under-lighted conditions; blue-green algae generally indicate problems of water chemistry.

 

  6)  Never use garden soil for aquarium plants in a tank or ornamental pool as this will provide a starter for algal growth.

 

  7)  Dense algal growth in an aquarium, if not controlled, will eventually kill off most of the other plants.

 

  8)  Most algicides also harm other plants and fish in a tank.

 

  9)  Covering a tank with a dark cloth for a week will kill off algal growths but the other plant and fish life will survive the treatment.

 

  10)  Every tank has its own special conditions and there is thus no standard cure-all treatment; therefore try to solve its problems through a blend of useful tips acquired from others and from personal experience.

 

ACRIFLAVINE: Cures fish while turning aquarists' fingers yellow.

 

AIR PUMP: A clever device that makes unbearable noise when it works and kills fish when it doesn't.

 

ALGAE: The most popular aquarium plant.

 

AMAZON SWORDPLANT: A beautiful plant that everyone else can grow.

 

ANCHOR WORK: Useful for keeping fish still for observation.

 

AQUARIUM CEMENT: A type of putty that holds tanks together firmly while allowing them to leak freely.

 

AQUARIUM SOCIETY: A gang of proven idiots who like nothing better than keeping dozens of smelly old fish tanks, spilling water and talking about Cichlids.

 

AUREOMYCIN: Medicine that you buy with a 25% chance of curing fish that are worth no more than half of the cost of the aureomycin in the first place.

 

BRINE SHRIMP: Darned expensive critters supposedly good for all those darned expensive fish.

 

CHILL: A misfortune that can cause all sorts of ichy problems.

 

CHLORINE: A gas put in tap water to kill bacteria, algae, and tropical fish.

 

CONDITIONING: Feeding for breeding.

 

 

FILTERS: Aquarists persist in dreaming that these will clean the water without having to ever be cleaned themselves.

 

FISH: Slimy creatures of low intelligence commonly found on floors, behind aquariums, in filters, and in dealers’ shops under signs that read "rare $25.00 a pair". Often cause divorces, suicides, murders and riots (particularly at aquarium society meetings).

 

HEATERS: Electrical devices used in aquaria for cooking fish.

 

ICH: Causes many white spots on tropical fish and, eventually, in aquarists, hair. Usually brought on by chilling (what the dealer says you did when you got your fishes home). Many remedies will eradicate ich, along with a few of your favourite fish.

 

INFUSORIA: Tiny forms of life that are supposed to thrive in those smelly old cultures.

 

LEAKS: See the water seeping out of the tank.

 

LEECHES: Bloody little suckers that become quite attached to your fish.

 

METHYLENE BLUE: A remedy for fish diseases that works by turning the water so blue that you can no longer see that your fish are sick.

 

MOUTH FUNGUS: Gives fish bad breath and causes them to lose their sex appeal.

 

NUMBER OF FISH PER AQUARIUM: Determined by taking the number of fish now in your tank and divide by three.

 

OXYGEN: What your fish come up to gasp for.

 

POP-EYES: What aquarists get when they see that new pair of Discus the dealer just got in.

 

QUARANTINE AQUARIUM: What everyone should keep their newly purchased fish in until their diseases have progressed far enough to be contagious when introduced into other tanks.

 

SHOW RULES: Irrational laws used to govern fish shows.

 

SNAILS: The only things in my tanks that never seem to die and always spawn continuously.

 

SPAWNING MOP: A device used to wipe up spilt water.

 

TAPPING ON GLASS: Makes fish more lively.

 

TORN FINS: An injury sustained by fish immediately prior to shows.

 

 

Clear Water: This can be achieved in a tank heavily planted with plants. Best are Vallisneria, Riccia and Hygrophilm. The more plants in the tank, the clearer the tank will be.

 

Elodea: Most species are not suited to the majority of aquariums because they need a DH (water hardness) of 7.5 - 10 with a great deal of calcium. These conditions are hard to duplicate in our tanks.

 

Winter maintainance of your fishpond: If you have a big pond, you should have a sump in the middle measuring 60 cm x 60 cm x 60 cm. The bigger the pond, the bigger the sump. This is the place that your Goldfish can go to hibernate if necessary.

 

You should clean your pond by the end of Autumn. This way your fish and plants are not disturbed in the Spring, when the Goldfish should be starting to spawn. They should commence spawning in September, but they won't spawn at all if the water temperature doesn't fall below 4 C. (Editor's Note: I must disagree with Joe here. A couple of years in a row I spawned the same fish that hadn't been outside in a pond since I bought them as inch-long juveniles. Their minimum water temperature wouldn't have fallen below 10 ' C, at the very least.) When the water is cold the fish won't eat at all. At 8 C they begin to feed, but eat little. You must feed your pond fish very little in the winter. The same thing can happen to so-

called tropicals too. I noticed with my White Clouds that they didn't eat below 10 C, and only recommenced feeding when the water temperature had risen to 13 C.

 

In my experience the Canberra Winters are not so bad as far as frost goes, my pond has only frozen twice in 10 years. It you have ice on the surface, smash it so that oxygen can enter the water. In open spaces you can expect ice sooner than in a sheltered garden.

 

Only top your pond up with water. Goldfish will tolerate acid or alkaline water, but cannot adjust suddenly from one extreme to the other.

 

DH (German degrees of Hardness): 1 degree DH is equal to 10mg of Calcium oxide per litre of water. Calcium and Magnesium produce Carbonate Hardness. Soft Water is in many cases good for your fish, but is no good for water plants.

 

Unwanted Guests: It is a good practice, before adding aquatic plants in your tank, to put the plants in a container of water to which is added one teaspoon of Alum per litre. This ensures that most if not all aquatic life on or between the plants is killed. Simply leave the plants in this solution for about ten minutes and then rinse before putting them in your aquarium.

 

 

The Friday after the Melbourne trip, the entire garden around our house was upset with a shovel to extract as many earthworms as possible and because of recent wet weather, this was no problem. The next day, all necessary camping, fishing and fish transporting equipment was packed in my PAJERO Four Wheel Drive. The best place to catch Catfish near Canberra is Wyangla Dam, which is located about 45 kilometres Northeast of Cowra. My wife, Robyn, and I left Canberra about 2pm and were setting up camp on the waters edge just as the sun disappeared behind a big hill at the rear of our campsite. The trip was a good test of our new Four Wheel Drive vehicle, as the area had a couple of deep gullies and a lot of large granite boulders which made progress slow. Robyn cooked dinner while I attached hooks and sinkers to the four small fishing rods.

 

The rods were all about six feet long and the reels were spooled with a four to six pound monotilament. I used six number four long shank hooks with a minimum amount of lead sinker, just enough to cast the bait about twenty feet from the bank. I walked a few paces from the campsite to the waters edge, then, with the aid of a torch, threaded two or three fat wriggly worms onto each rig and threw them out into the cold, black as ink, night. Each one of the rods was set up along the bank about ten feet apart with them being supported by a small stick stuck in the mud.

 

The waiting was made very easy by a nice big fire, Robyn’s good cooking and a couple of cans of Fosters for desert. After dinner we went to check the rods, all of the lines were pulled tight and were snagged on underwater obstacles. I rerigged all the lines and cast them back into the water, this time I held one of the rods in my hand, in no time at all I had a plump Cyprinus carpio, (European Carp), on the bank. The time spent waiting by the rods was not very pleasant, by 8pm there was already a heavy frost on the ground, so the procedure was to warm up by the fire for ten minutes and spend ten minutes cooling down by the fishing rods. By 10pm I had caught three Catfish, all were 12 to 15 inches long and the chilly night air    got the best of me, so I packed it in for the night.

 

When the three captured specimens were placed in the garbage bin and the aerator turned on, the next problem was to keep them from freezing. The dam water was 11C and the air temperature was definitely below freezing.  I had to decide whether to leave the bin partly submerged in the dam throughout the night risking the wind blowing up which would cause waves that would turn the bin over, or to put them in the vehicle and risk the little fellows getting frostbite. There was a slight breeze blowing, so I chose to put them in the vehicle. When I went to check on them in the morning, all three were lying on their side and I thought the worst, the fish looked dead but were still a little limp. A water change was carried out ' just to see if that would help and in about an hour, all three were swimming about, apparently revived from their semi-frozen state.

 

The Catfish have three poisonous spines, if you are unlucky or careless enough to be spiked by them. They won't make you ill, but it is very painful and sometimes the affected area will remain sore for a couple of days.

 

The three fish are currently residing in Canberra. One is at "The Tackle Box" fishing tackle store in Oatley Court, Belconnen, swimming around in a large display aquarium. One is at the Lakes Ecology Labs in Kingston and the other is awaiting transport to his new home in Melbourne.

 

Tandanus tandanus has a large range on this continent, they are found in the South Australian Gulf area, throughout the Murray Darling River System and east of The Great Dividing Range from South of Sydney to the North of Cairns. They can withstand temperatures as low as 4C and as high as 35C. This Catfish is easy to keep in captivity and transports well. For those of us  that eat our friends, they are also highly regarded as a table fish. Put a tandanus in your tank and he will settle down very quickly, temperature is not important, pH does not matter as long as the water is clean. These Catfish do not have any scales and appear to break out in sores if kept in a polluted environment.

 

They will eat pieces of the tail from the bait prawn, earthworms, small fish and SNAILS (they even dig up burrowing snails). They are peaceful towards fish that wont fit into their mouths but will outgrow all but very large aquariums.

 

The best time of the year to capture small specimens is from November through to March. Anyone in the Society interested in putting a tandanus in a tank, see me and we will arrange to go and catch some in November when the weather and Wyangla Dam have warmed up considerably. Fish collecting is fun and every fish in your aquarium that you have collected has a good story to go with it.

If lucky enough to get to one of the big interstate auctions, you can have a wonderful time. You will certainly see some fishes that are never available in Canberra, and pick up some terrific bargains. Conversely, you may also pay more than the retail price or buy diseased or deformed fish. You may even be lumbered with hybrids.

 

How can this be avoided? First, decide what fish you wish to buy before getting to the auction hall. Make a list but be prepared to be flexible. Do you want juveniles (the most common stock at auction)? Or are you after an adult female, perhaps of a species, such as the Red Devil Cichlid, whose males can be very aggressive towards them? Youngsters will of course be cheaper and if the price is right, buy a dozen or more of them (provided you can house them properly). After bringing them home, keep the best pair for yourself and sell the rest to pay for the original purchase. Be sure to have adequate spare tanks free for each type of fish: hard-water nasty (such as African cichlids), soft-water nasty (such as Cichlasoma dovii, etc.), soft-water peaceful (Tetras etc.) and so on.

 

The two auctions I have attended those of the N.S.W. Aquarium-Society and the N.S.W. Cichlid Society, allow prior viewing of lots, before the auction starts. Each lot is numbered, so bring your pen and notebook and cross-reference your wish-list against the available lots irrespective of quality.

 

So under 'Gold Severum' you might have 'lots 62-65 OK, 66 has one dead fish in bag'. Do not immediately write off lots that include dead or diseased fish but do take this into consideration. If you cannot secure the one healthy fish in a mixed bag at a fraction of the retail price, forget it. Bear in mind that some diseases are easier to treat than others. A bag of baby Frontosas with white spot or ragged fins is still a bargain at $10. Be cautious of 'Adult Breeding Pairs', as I have bought such that were neither adult nor breeding and in one case, paid a lot of money for 2 males. Know your fish and if you are after African cichlids, STUDY KONING'S BOOKS! There are many people who do not realise they have hybrid cichlids, especially African cichlids, and so bring them to auctions in good faith. Ad Koning's "Tanganyikan Cichlids" and "Malawi Cichlids" provide a means for recognising such hybrids and passing them by, and these two excellent books are available through the club library. If a fish doesn't look anything like the from-the-wild pictures in these books, give it the miss.

 

Ask people with experience from similar auctions about any peculiarities that their rules may allow. For instance, the N.S.W. Aquarium Society has a clause whereby a successful bidder for a first bag may take any or all of the other equivalents at the same price. Thus, if you are the highest bidder at $10 for a first bag of 3 Lionhead Cichlids, you have the option to take any others that may be on offer for $10 also.

 

Also at this Society's auctions, there is a tendency among the auctioneers to start the bidding at the price a similar lot achieved earlier in the evening. E.g., one bag of 6 Bronze Catfish fetched $5 earlier on, so we'll start the bidding at $5 for the next, similar, lot and go backwards in price until someone 'bites', then forwards again until a high is reached. This can take, a long time, so be patient.

 

At N.S.W. Cichlid Society auctions, the bidding is much faster, so you must have your act together, in terms of noting numbers of desirable/undesirable lots. Mr Norm Halliwell, who usually performs as auctioneer, whilst being a perfect gentleman, is not above spotting a desirable lot and bidding for it himself. It is also possible to obtain credit at these auctions, though I am not sure exactly how to go about it.

 

There are certain considerations about pricing to bear in mind when going to buy fishes from Sydney. There they have 'blooms' of particular fishes at times, including many that we haven't seen in Canberra. An example was the Green Terror, Aequidens tivulatus. A couple of years ago these fish were relatively rare and priced accordingly. Then people learnt to breed them and the fish were as common as dirt in Sydney, around September 1989. Breeding-sized adults could be had for as little as $15 each but now the local aquarists seem to have killed some off, prices are back to normal.

 

Mention Bristlenose Catfish in Sydney and our New South Welsh cousins seem to lose all their composure. Maybe it's something to do with their water, but they just can't breed the species in numbers to meet demand. I have seen 5 little bristles in a bag fetch as much as $18. Other species that are relatively common in Canberra, such as Texas Cichlids, excite similar interest. On the other hand, such things as Sailfin Plecos, which make us foam at the mouth, are common in Sydney, if not over cheap.

 

If you are at a big auction for the first time, be prepared for a king-size shellshock, as your mind becomes overloaded with information. You will see fishes them that you have only imagined in your wildest dreams, at prices that will make your mouth water. But just remember that you won't be able to afford to buy them all and you wouldn't be able to house them if you could. But you are guaranteed an interesting and enjoyable time, in the company of fellow 'lost souls', or aquarists, at they are known.

 

Society member John Fleuren was saying the other day that ACT tap water, while it is very soft, actually contains high levels of phosphates. These phosphates are a major cause of excess algae in home aquaria, and are harmful to fishes. He puts the water for his tanks through a Reverse Osmosis unit, which removes most of the impurities, Including phosphates and chlorine. RO is all the go in American discus hatcheries at the moment, so there must be something to it.

 

TFH magazine April 1993 has the start of a column by a vet, Erik L. Johnston, titled "Your Fishes' Health" which contains some very good advice for all of us. The part I found most interesting was that most fish deaths are caused by poor or unsuitable water conditions, yet are blamed on parasites or diseases. I am sure that this advice will save many lives. This is a very responsible inclusion by the staff of TFH, and I can recommend that members should read this column.

 

Who do we blame? The media was full of suggestions. Was it 'The Farmers' and their superphosphate? Was it 'The Townies' and their overflowing sewerage works? Or was it just the great rivers themselves, finally laying down to die?

 

The answer was a little of all three, yet actually none of the above. The Murray-Darling River Commission put out a report titled "Investigation of nutrient pollution in the Murray-Darling River System" (Gutteridge, Haskins and Davey, January 1992). one review of the report reads as follows:

 

 

Interestingly enough, those among us who condemn the New Guinean government for allowing cyanide from gold mine tailings to leach Into the Ok Tedi and thence the Fly Rivers are partly responsible for the damage by nutrient pollution of Australia’s biggest river system. Maybe we should clean up our own act first.

Snails have a bad reputation. When I first started keeping fish around 12 years ago, I was told by many ‘reliable’ sources that snails were bad news: “They will eat your plants”, “they will breed like crazy and turn your tank into a creeping mass of snails”, “they will foul your water”. Not suprisingly, for several years I have treated snails with an amount of disgust and contempt. However, over the last few years I have discovered that snails are actually a very useful and decorative creature. I hope the following account will encourage some of you to give snails a go.

 

Along with creatures such as Clams and Oysters, snails belong to the phylum Mollusca. A generalised trait of molluscs is that they are soft-bodied creatures lacking supporting structures such as bones or exoskeletons. The topic of this article, snails, belong to the class Gastropoda. Gastropods are distinguished by their having a single shell. This shell is usually coiled and is part of the snails living body. The soft-bodied section of the snail can be withdrawn into the shell, thus forming a defence against predators.

An important thing to know about snails is that they have been on this planet probably longer than us, the primates, and our pets, the fish, combined. Snails appear in the fossil record around 500 million years ago. They are easy to find around many of the limestone cliffs on the Australian coast.

 

Snails are a very successful species, there are around 80,000 species of snails that have been identified. The majority of snails, approximately 55,000, can be found in the marine environment. The remainders are land snails and freshwater snails. Water snails breathe through gills whereas land snails breathe through a hole in their body near the base of the shell.

 

Land snails are hermaphroditic, that is, each snail has both male and female parts. They still must mate to reproduce, however. A hole near the head is the genital orifice where the snail mates and also from where it lays its eggs. Aquatic snails have both hermaphroditic and heterosexual reproduction. Most snails lay eggs, however, a notable exception to this is the Malaysian Trumpet Snail, which is a live-bearer.

 

The shell of the snail is largely calcium carbonate. This chemical is familiar to aquariasts as the buffering agent that promotes pH stability. As a consequence of this, snails generally tend to prefer harder and more alkaline water. In fact, acidic water tends to dissolve the shell and leave its occupant open to attack from predators - either to the joy or the horror of the fish keeper.

 

Apart from their shells, other features that generally distinguish gastropods from other molluscs is that they have an eye located at the base of each tentacle. The ‘foot’ of the snail is a muscular appendage used to ripple its way across its environment. Under the tentacles is the mouth. Inside the mouth there is a rasp-like tongue that acts like a saw. It shreds the snails' food much like a grater sheds cheese.

 

This leads me to a topic that may be of interest in the context of the home aquarium - snails’ eating habits. The diets of snails vary depending on the species. Indeed, some snails are carnivorous and will actively hunt down other gastropods. Generally though, snails eat algae, plants, and on occasion the decomposing flesh of dead animals.

 

The fact that snails eat algae and decomposing flesh can be of great benefit to the aquarium keeper. I am sure that many of you keep Bristlenoses and other algae eating catfish. While I do not want to criticise these valued fish, for they do make fantastic pets in themselves, their algae eating capacities are often over estimated by their owners. Snails however are very thorough cleaners of glass and rocks and can get into the nooks and crannies that catfish may miss.

 

Some species of snail are renown as decorative plant eaters, however, in my opinion, only the pond snail should be regarded with any real suspicion in this regard. Most healthy aquarium plants produce cyanides and other poisons that prevent animals such as snails from making meals of them. The myth that snails can destroy your plants probably originates from observations of snails eating the leaves of plants that are already highly deteriorated or close to dying. At this point, the plant was probably doomed and at least the snails are preventing the plant from decomposing, a process that can potentially unbalance aquarium water chemistry.

 

Another great advantage of snails is that they are less likely to eat the eggs of fish. While eggs laid by fish in or around the substrate of the aquarium are vulnerable to attack by Bristlenoses and the like, snails are much less likely to embark on such raiding excursions. Consequently, if you are keeping egg-laying fish in a tank with alkaline water specifically for the purpose of breeding then snails are probably the solution. They will keep maintenance down by cleaning your glass but will not scoff the eggs at the first opportunity. For instance, I am currently keeping a breeding pair of Neolamprologus ocellatus (see Tank Talk Vol 26:2) in a two foot tank and rather than keeping Bristlenoses, I have a crew of Red Ramshorns to keep the tank clean. Interestingly enough, in nature these little cichlids, which originate from the hard waters of Lake Tanganyika, adopt used snail shells as their homes. They keep their shells immaculately clean, hide in them when threatened and eventually lay eggs and raise their young in them. Although they are brave little fish, the heavily armoured Bristlenoses that I keep tend to be oblivious to the attacks of the ocellatus, presumably their eggs would be helpless at night.

 

Lastly, snails make interesting and hardy pets in themselves. They can be quite attractive, especially in the case of the Mystery Snail. They also have interesting habits and life cycles.

There is no doubt that snails can get out of control. Unfortunately, given the right conditions of hard alkaline water and without natural predators, snails can multiply very rapidly. I have experienced this first hand in the case of the Malaysian Trumpet Snail. Several years ago, in a four foot Malawi tank that I was keeping at about 250 ppm of total carbonate hardness, the floor of the tank almost seemed alive. The plague of snails was most unsightly and remedial action was called for.

 

There are several ways to keep snails in check:

 

  ·  The “predator” method. Several species of fish just love snails, for breakfast that is. The most common snail eater is the attractive Clown Loach, Botia macracanthus. The Clown Loach will grab the unprotected soft part of the snail and literally suck the poor gastropod out of the shell. If you don’t mind me saying, this can be quite entertaining. In the marine tank, Pufferfish are good snail eaters and will crunch the shell of the snail and eat the soft parts. In fact, some people grow snails specifically to feed to their Clown Loaches and Pufferfishes. I have to admit that my Red Ramshorns live side by side with a healthy Clown Loach. Perhaps I overfeed him.

  ·  The “bait” method. Run some hot water over a lettuce leaf and just before you turn the lights out, tie a piece of cotton around it and drop it in the tank. It will sink to the bottom and in the morning you should find it covered in snails. Remove the lettuce, snails and all. Repeat until the snails are under control. In fact, this was the method that I used to remedy my Malaysian Trumpet Snail problem. Needless to say, persistence may be called for.

 

  ·  The “starvation” method. It is important to note that most snail blooms are caused by overfeeding. In these cases, the only reason that the snails are overpopulating is because they are feeding on the excess food that the fish leave behind. Watch your fish when feeding, if they do not eat all their food after 3-4 minutes or less then you are overfeeding.

 

  ·  The “local fish shop” method. There are some commercial snail killers available that local fish shop owners might try to sell you. If used as instructed these remedies may well kill your snails. However, these chemical based solutions should be avoided because they tend to kill the bacteria that keep ammonia and nitrite levels in check. In turn, this may also kill your fish.

 

Prevention is usually better than the cure. If buying plants from a local fish shop or even at a CDAS meeting and you don’t want to accommodate any hitchhikers then I suggest that you take the following action. Before introducing your plants into the aquarium, make the effort of soaking them in warm salty water. After ten minutes remove the plants and wash thoroughly. This should remove or kill any unwanted gastropod guests. It will also remove potentially harmful parasites such as White Spot (Ich).

I have to admit that despite my first impressions, I am now very happy to see a few snails in my aquarium. When kept in check, they can form an integral part of a well balanced aquatic environment. So, why not give snails a go?

 

Know anyone who wants to set up an aquarium for commercial display? For this plus any other jobs that you can’t handle on your own, try our sponsor, Effortless Aquaria

 

The peculiar word axolotl is an Aztec word, probably one of the few in use in our language. It is a species of salamander known as the tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum. This species has a very broad distribution for a salamander. It occurs in Western North America and extends South into Mexico, hence it's association with the native Aztec people of central Mexico. The axolotl is a peculiarity in the normal life cycle of the tiger salamander as you will read.

 

Normally the tiger salamander follows a conventional pattern in its life history. Adults are terrestrial. A migration of males and females to the breeding ponds occurs in late winter. Certain sites are the scene of courtship activity and mating. The eggs are not fertilised as they leave the females body but males deposit lumps of a gelatinous substance tipped with a whitish ball containing hundreds of spermatozoa on the bottom of the pond. The female crawls over this 'spermatophore’, takes up the fertilising tip, then within her body the eggs are fertilised and they are laid within a few hours.

 

The larvae are small and have bushy gills. They resemble a tadpole with feet. By autumn they are full-sized and ready to leave the water and take up life on land.  The gills shrink and lungs develop, the tail also undergoes a change. The tiger salamander then begins its life on land. This is typical of many salamanders. They are predators and eat insects, snails, slugs and any other small creatures, including salamanders, that they can find.

 

How the axolotl comes about is an interesting part of this story. In the highland lakes of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains the salamander larvae never change into adults. They grow to adult size but remain aquatic retaining gills and a large fin-like tail. This is termed 'neoteny" and it was this form that the Conquistadors of Mexico found and learned the Aztec name axolotl. The sexes breed in water and the larvae develop into adults and remain there (but the chain may be broken).

 

The neoteny described above is triggered by cold water. If the water becomes warm or some other factor occurs (like a nice terrarium) that seems favourable towards a terrestrial existence, the axolotl will emerge from the water and become a land-loving creature. Once this happens, it cannot be reversed.

 

Axolotls like deep, cool water. During a Canberra summer, they should be moved to an air-conditioned room or a few ice cubes should be placed daily in their tank. In captivity axolotls do well on unwanted fish but will also thrive on pieces of meat, fish, prawns and earthworms. An albino form is often available but remember that all albino forms of animals suffer 'discomfort under strong light. And with axolotls, remember to keep the water cold.

 

Firstly I had to nag my dad. This is an essential part of any large undertaking in my household. When he finally caved in, we jumped into the car and headed for Revolve. By pure luck, Revolve was having a $5 TV sale. I found the perfect specimen: a large 26 inch TV, probably one of the earliest models.

 

When we arrived home again, I began the "gutting" process. I had heard from a friend that old tellies were still dangerous because of something called capacitors, which could store electricity for many years. Letting my dad do the dangerous bit of removing everything [dads are good for things like that... editor] but the external dials, he soon discovered the hard way which thingies were the capacitors. Later, when our telly was hollow, I scrummaged around under the house and found a large square of thick chipboard (actually it was a cupboard door from our old kitchen). I screwed this to the base of the telly to stop the tank crashing through it (you may be surprised how much a full fish tank weighs).

 

After sanding back and estapoling the outside of the telly, I was ready to get mathematical. I had to design a hole in the top of the telly that was big enough for the glass lid to be lifted in and out, but small enough for the light to sit around the hole. I designed my access hole to fit my two foot light, but if you don't mind a slightly duller tank, a one foot light can be disguised using the shell from an old VCR to fit the theme.

 

I marked out my cutting lines - then I had to work out how exactly to cut them. I don't own a jigsaw, so I had to use some pretty tricky drilling and hand sawing to cut out the hole. It worked, but after that effort I would not recommend trying it unless you are fairly skilled. Try to borrow or hire a jigsaw from a friend or hire store.

 

When planning my Telly Tank I was intending to have a new tank custom made to fit the TV but to my total surprise, my existing extra tall two foot tank fitted perfectly. I even had enough room to have the power board and airpump behind the speaker section so that all that came out of the TV was one white lead. I reattached the TV stand and began to refill my tank.

 

Important things to remember when building your Telly Tank are that your TV needs to be in fairly good nick, or be finished in plywood. This way you can sand it back, which just isn't an option with a laminated telly. Another point is to either have your TV gutted by a professional or be very careful, you might not be as lucky as my dad (who claimed it only felt like a shock from a spark plug). And lastly, don't try to get tricky, like wiring your light cord through the power button (I really wanted to do this), it's just not safe because moisture and electricity don't mix. [also check with an electrician...... editor]

 

The whole project only cost me the $5 for the TV, but if you don't have the luck at finding useful items like I did, it may cost up to $25 [plus tank costs.. editor]. Still pretty cheap for such a great tank stand.

 

I would probably have joined the club before we purchased our first tropical fish. These didn't last too long, and were the first link in the chain of guilt associated with the early demise of so many of our finny guests through the years.

 

I would have never overcrowded tanks the way I did. This caused filter breakdown, algal blooms, and death of plants and fishes. You can only keep so many fish, so recognise your limits and work within them.

 

I would have always done water changes religeously, 25-30% every single week on every single tank. This would have partially mitigated the overcrowding.

 

I would have bought good heaters, and always had one or two spare for the inevitable breakdowns.

 

I would have studied diseases more, and bought more cures, thus enabling me to save fishy lives once they are under the weather'.

 

I would have fed live foods at least once a week to all our fishes.

 

I would not have joined the Committee until I knew what I was letting myself in for.

 

I would have read more books.

 

I would never have tried to keep marine fishes in 'natural' aquaria.

 

I would have taken the time to adequately explain the hobby to my long-suffering spouse, Julie. Don't laugh, there are several aquarists that are single today because their 'Significant Other' didn't understand and therefore became hostile towards what is otherwise quite an innocent pastime. (Compared to, say, drinking Scotch before lunchtime or Big Game Hunting.)

 

I would not ever ever ever have impulse-bought fish. They invariably died gruesome deaths. Try and confine each tank to one particular type of fishes, such as warm/soft water/small/inoffensive or big/mean/piscivorous, and stick to it while the other inhabitants please you (ie, it is not yet time to replace the lot. Those of you that have put an inch-long Oscar in a heavily planted Tetra tank will know what I am talking about - it's OK, for a ' while, but sooner or later the Occy will eat all the other fish in the tank and destroy all those beutiful plants). If you want to keep Rift Lake Cichlids, fine, by all means do so but buy them their own tank and look after it.

 

It has taken me several years and thousands of dollars to realise that one hundred tanks are worse than nothing if you don't have time to adequately maintain them. I now keep fewer fish than at any time in the last seven years but am satisfied that everything that can be done is being done. If only I had a few more breeding tanks....

 

I would not have tried to spawn every fish that I had at the same time. Patience is indeed a virtue when breeding, and those fry which are today only 2mm slivers of silver on the tank glass will be 2 cm or longer shortly, and they need room to grow properly otherwise they are best left unbred or killed (‘culled’) at hatching time.

 

I would have stuck to a couple of worthy species that needed to be maintained, such as Desert Gobies and Peacock Gudgeons. These little fish have all but vanished from the local fish scene because they were guilty, in their day, of being too common, and we were all a bit guilty of neglecting them accordingly.

 

I would never have kept tanks strewn throughout the whole house on coffee tables and stands made of planks and bricks.

 

I would not have bought a single fish with the motive "I could make some money out of this one", especially where it involved breeding them.

 

I would not have sold a fish that I suspected was sterile or ill, even to a perfect stranger.

 

I would never have encouraged other fishkeepers to do things that I was not prepared to do myself.

 

I would not have ever bought a second-hand tank, or first-hand Chinese Algae Eater.

 

I would have learnt not to put Ammogon into the canister of a Fluval 303, or to entrust relatives with the transport of valuable fishes that I had not yet bred from.

 

And finally, I would then have no regrets. But we live and learn. All that you can do is learn as much as you can so as to combat the ignorance that kills our fish.

 

"What do I want those things for?"

 

Let me state, at the start, that cichlids are not for everyone. If you like really dumb fish that swim backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, then that's your affair and good luck to you. Aggressive? Stick a male Siamese Fighter in with your Tiger Barbs and see what happens. Predatory? No more than any other creature that eats fish in the wild (like the big sooky Malawi Eye-Biter in our kitchen tank - he gets pushed around by Tanganykan Dwarfs almost half his size). But here are a few reasons why I and many other aquarists keep at least one species of Cichlid.

 

Basic Interest: Cichlids are interesting fish to watch. You don't have to be a behavioural science major to appreciate their intelligence, cunning, bluff, feeding patterns etc. They can learn to recognise their owners (Handy Hint: Most Cichlids love flies. Swat the flies, it's good exercise and less toxic to the environment than flyspray. The baby flies that seem to hang in droves about one's ceiling fans are good for small mouthed Dwarf Cichlids. The big fellas, like Oscars and Red Devils really go for the blowies. Soon you'll have them eating out of your hand, which is a good way of keeping a close eye on their health). In fact, cichlids of the Parapetenia complex of Central America are accounted the most intelligent freshwater fishes. Common Parapetenlas are C. dovii and C.manguense (or Heros managuensis in its latest incarnation). Be warned though, they get quite large. I stopped keeping them when I sold my 5 1/2' x 2' x 2' tank. Big fish will, generally speaking, eat smaller fish. This applies to Goldfish, Australian Natives, and of course, Cichlids.

 

But there are smaller Cichlids for the financially less adventurous. It's all a matter of what in appropriate for the individual Cichlid keeper. In the Africans there are many species that are quite content in a twenty gallon tank, notably the Tanganykan Dwarfs (kept as a species tank many of the Neolamprologus sp. will breed quite happily, each generation caring for the younger ones. I have seen this happen with N. Pulcher and N. brichardi). The South American Dwarf species, notably the Apistogramnas, need a little more care as to water quality and feeding. The Central American Dwarfs, some of which aren't that small, include the Firemouth (Cichlisoma meeki) and the "Convict Complex" (Cichlisoma nigrofasciatum, the common Convict Cichlid, can be a nasty little so and so and is best kept in a species tank or in the company of larger fishes. Nicer are the Blue-Eyed Cichlid, C. spilurum, or C. sajica, it you can find them).

 

Breeding:   It is quite thrilling to see your first cloud of Cichlid babies. Usually they number in the hundreds. There are quite a few species available that, generally speaking, if you can keep them alive long enough, and have a true pair, they will spawn. There are, conversely, species that are hard to breed. It is wise to start with the easy ones to avoid disappointment. For a beginner, looking for the next stage of aquaristic development after livebearers, they are hard to go past. 29% of fishes bred in the club last year were Cichlids. There are many species that need to be maintained by breeding to survive in Australia now that they are off the Allowed Imports list, otherwise we may never see live specimens again.

 

There are so many different ways that Cichlids spawn. The general run will deposit eggs on a rock, the female fanning the eggs while the male protects the spawning territory. This spawning method is known as "Cichlid fashion" when applied to non-Cichlids such as Purple Spotted Gudgeons (Mogurnda sp.). There are several variations on the theme. Some spawn in a cave, others in the gravel of the tank floor. Some prefer the rock to be flat, others at an angle. Sometimes mum will chase dad away and do all the work herself, or vice versa. Some will spawn on plant leaves. The major alternative spawning method, usually the province of the African Cichlids, is mouthbrooding. The female takes the eggs into her mouth and looks after them there. The fry, when they emerge, are mostly quite large. Labeotropheus sp. (well, the colour morphs we get around here, anyway) are colour-coded right from the time they come out of mum's mouth, yellow for girls, blue/black/brown for boys, This makes them easier to sell. Which brings me to my next point.

 

Profit: Is it possible to make a profit from breeding fishes in your own back yard? Pretty hard around the A.C.T., where it is too cold to get away with not heating tanks (unless you read Rene Jez's articles and build yourself a solar fishroom). It is possible, however, with experience and forethought, to recoup a fair bit of your ongoing costs by breeding the right Cichlids. Angelfish (Pterophyllum sp.) are one thing that springs to mind. If you are really keen you could try Discus, but be warned, a lot of people have spent thousands trying to get-rich-quick off of the big flat colourful things, and very few have succeeded. Africans were a big craze a few years back, but you need to research the market carefully. Some friends of mine spent a bit of money and quite a bit of effort breeding large numbers of Tanganykan Dwarf Cichlids, only to find that no-one around here wanted to spend money on them (except for me, of course. I knew how hard they are to breed properly and ended up with quite a few for nothing! Most of the rest of you missed out). They hadn't flooded the market, they just had overestimated the demand. Cyphtilapia frontosa will probably always be in demand. Oscars would be a good species to try, but they need a fair bit of room to raise properly. Other large American Cichlids, should they come back into 'fashion', might be worth a try, such as Black Belts and Quetzal Cichlids. For the breeders of small delicate creatures, Apistogrammas and Crenicaran might do well with enough care. It is easy to flood the limited Canberra market with too many fishes of a particular species and thus force prices to crash. Fishes that will probably always be cheap are Kribs and Convicts. At the mome+t there are a lot of Red Devils around, but I suspect that this will change with time. You may have to take a trip to Sydney every couple of months to sell the surplus.  But keep a close eye on the shops. What is common as dirt today may be rare tomorrow. 'Haplochromis' similis is a good example of this. I bred hundreds of them in years past, but now they are getting a bit pricey. Karl Puse spawned heaps of Texas Cichlids (Heros cyanoguttatus, I think they are now), sold a lot around here and several hundreds to Sydney aquarium shops, and where are they now? So you have to judge what the market can take, and either cull the rest (fancy talk for feeding the poor unfortunates to Fred the Red Devil) or find some tank space to hang on to them a bit longer. Even the commonest Convict can be worth good money as a nice adult specimen, or as half a pair. Therein lies another of the great secrets. The general run of aquarists are too impatient to raise juvenile fish to adulthood with a view to breeding them and would much rather have the fait accompli, the breeding pair, even if they have to spend a small fortune obtaining them. You can cash in on this by keeping your fry until they get to a respectable size and selling them off as pairs. Be warned, you will soon get a bad name for flogging two immature females off as a "proven breeding pair", and no-one will intentionally buy your fish. Under no circumstances should you breed hybrids or breed from them. This is "committing a crime against the species" (to quote a famous Zoo curator) which may harm the gene pool of that particular fish in Australia forever. Any CDAS member that deliberately rips off another shouldn't be a member, in my book.

 

Keep a close eye out for hybrids when purchasing fishes. If you are after Rift Lake Africans, come and borrow the appropriate Ad Konigs book from the library. Does the fish look like the one in the book? Some allowance must be made for colour, but body structure should look the same. The Cichlid hobby contains some of the nicest and most helpful people that you would ever meet in fishkeeping circles, but also some of the biggest rogues. Some will sell you hybrids out of genuine ignorance, without malice, but that doesn't really excuse them.

 

To summarise, Cichlids make great pets, are fascinating subjects for study, good fun to breed, may pay for their own food and some of the electricity bill, and are nice colourful things to have around to impress non-fishy friends and relatives who think that fish is cheaper by the kilo. For the would-be boffins they are a great biology learning experience. In the end, though, we tend to keep the fishes that we like. This should be the most important consideration of all. A loved fish gets it's water changed, it's food fed, it's filter changed. And if you get sick of it, there will always be another Cichlidiot around to buy it off you.

 

To borrow from American Cichlidophiles, Semper Cichlidae.

 

The two-word system we use (genus and species) is called the 'Binominal System of Nomenclature'. It was devised by the Dahish scientist, Linnaeus, in a series of ‘Systemae' begun in 1739. It literally means 'two name system'. He published twelve editions, the last of which appeared in 1768. The 'two name system' was first employed consistently in his Tenth Edition of 1758. This is the starting point of the Binominal System we use today.

 

The reasons for the development of an international naming system are quite obvious. Communications among countries was becoming commonplace in the late 1700's and a mammal or bird that might be called by a name in one country might be called by another name in another country or even the same country. For example, the Mallard duck, scientific name Anas platyrhynchos, in America alone is called greenhead, gray duck, English duck, stock duck and by some. thirty other names. It has only one scientific name. A different example using birds is seen with the name Magpie. The Australian species is not closely related to the American and European species for which it was named by early settlers. Using fish examples, how many different and unrelated fish can you think of named 'bass'? The scientific name, however, defines one kind of bass. This provides a basis tor communication.

 

Scientific names are mostly derived from the Latin language. Why Latin? At the time Linnaeus was working, Latin was considered the only international language and the language of scholars. To this day legal documents in some countries are still being written in Latin. So it was natural tor Linnaeus to have chose that language. No matter what language a scientist uses in the text of his books or articles, the scientific name of his animals are always the same.

 

Linnaeus' system is based on the logical hierarchy of organisms. Using the guppy as an example consider the following:

 

 

One can ascend up the hierarchy much further but for our purposes, the above is sufficient. Each family generally consists of a number of genera (Latin plural of genus) and above that level other genera in the family Cyprinodontidae are classified exactly as the guppy.

 

There are a few basic rules that are standard conventions which you may have already detected. In animals, the family name always ends in 'idae'. Each genus begins with a capital letter and the species name always begins with a small letter. This is true even if the species is named after a person such as the Black Neon Tetra, Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, or Hart's Rivulus, Rivulus harti. The genus and species names are always italicised (printed in Italic characters) or underlined (when in English),

 

You May also have noticed that frequently after the Latin name there is the name of a person, often in brackets. This is the author's name, that is, the name of the person who first described and named that species. If the name is enclosed in brackets, this indicates that the species was originally described in a different genus from the one in which it is now placed. To a person who wants to find more about a species, the presence of brackets around the original describer's (author's) name signals that some work has been done on the group after the original description of the species. To cite the examples above, the Guppy Poecilia reticulata (Peters), was originally described by Peters as Lebistes reticulata, but later transferred to the genus Poecilia by another author. You will discover that most fish have been originally described in genera other than the ones they are in now. This is because there is much 'taxonomic' (the study of the classification of organisms) interest in fishes and new discoveries often lead to the other. And, not too infrequently, a taxonomist discovers the original genera was the proper one for the species after all. This is all very confusing to the non-specialist but it is generally not unexplainable. Incidentally, you way have noticed the name of the Carp as Cyprinus carpio (Linne). The author is actually Linnaeus. After he was knighted he became Baron Karl von Linne and the species he described after that event have his name spelled that way but it is, in fact, the same person we have been talking about.

 

You may have seen this combination as the scientific name of the green discus fish A Symphysodon aequifasciata aequifasciata (Pellegrin). This three part name indicates that a taxonomist has divided the species Symphysodon aequifasciata into subspecies. Subspecies (also known as races) are populations that have some characteristics in common with one another but differ slightly from other populations. Subspecies are based solely on geographical separation. The members of one subspecies are able to successfully interbreed with members of another subspecies but being separated geographically (in the case of the discus by different rivers and lakes in brazil) they rarely come together in nature. Of course, in our aquariums anything can happen!! By definition two subspecies of the same species cannot occur at the same locality. It they do, then either the taxonomist has made an error or a catastrophe, such as a flood or river-course change caused by an earthquake, has occurred to get them together. When, and it they do, their distinctive characteristics will be 'blended' in their offspring.

 

To follow up on the subspecies situation, in the discus fish we have the following combinations which were listed in the 1976 version of Axelrod et al. loose-leaf 'Exotic Tropical Fishes'.

 

 

 

All of the above occupy different river or lake systems in Brazil. They have distinctive characteristics but can, and do, interbreed freely with one another producing fertile offspring when they are given the opportunity in an aquarium.

 

Generally, the scientific names have logical meaning. Many Of the names are from Latin origins, others are from Greek. There is no general rule for this but it is usually so. Once you begin to pull apart some of the words and learn their derivatives, you will find the names more interesting and meaningful. In the next part we will look at some familiar names and their origins.

 

End of Part One.

 

White's Tree Frog (also commonly known as the Green Tree Frog, which isn't very helpful, we have several species of Tree Frogs that are green) is one of the largest of the Hylid frogs in Australia, and is certainly amongst the most successful interms of numbers and distribution. They ate extremely hardy (for frogs) in captivity, which has endeared them to frogkeepers all over the world. They are extremely loveable with their bright glossy green skins and eternal smiles.

 

I came across mine in a petshop in Sydney, where the two of them were not very happy at all. They had been kept in a crowded plastic aquaria half full of dirty water for long enough that they were a bit emaciated. I bought them anyway. I figured (probably arrogantly at the time) that any care I gave them would be better than they had already. It turns out I beat lan McGuinness to them by about five seconds, he was standing behind me at the cash register as I paid for them, asking if there were any more. Sorry Ian! You've got first pick of the litter when they spawn. [We'll holdyou to that ... Editor]

 

All I had on them was a couple of paragraphs in a Tetra Terrarium book. It said (in quaint German-structured English) that they should be kept warm on a newspaper substrate. In that funny way things have of working out sometimes, Rodney and Deborah Ralph had a spare tank that they had Graeme Maloney build for them that was big enough to take a full sheet of newspaper folded once. How' s that for luck? I crafted a lid out of an old melamine-covered shelf, covering the large hole in it with plastic gauze to let air but not cats in. An old light-fitting served as a way to stop the frogs jumping onto the coloured 40-watt globe that I used to heat the tank (I feared dreadful burns if the frogs' soft moist skin came into contact with the bulb). Several US correspondents swear that the frogs know not to get too close to the bulb, but I wasn't prepared to take the risk at the time (and I guess I'm still not).

 

In it's final iteration the tank is as described above, flat untorn newspaper substrate (which is quite conevnient come cleaning time), a plastic two litre aquarium for a water/swimming bowl, and a log to hide in. There is a ceramic foodbowl for feeding livefood that might otherwise crawl under the substrate and escape (such as Mealworms).

 

I applied for a permit to keep them, and I am happy to say that it was granted. As far as I know it is a legal requirement to have a permit to keep all amphibians in the ACT, and to maintain accurate records which are submitted annually. The Wildlife Protection Unit of ACT Parks and Conservation have all the details.

 

Food must be alive when given - I have never heard of a White's Tree Frog taking it otherwise. I have personally fed mine pinkies (day-old mice), Bardi (Lawn) Grubs, worms, slugs (not recommended - they stick to the newspaper and dry out!), Christmas Beetles, Crickets, Mealworms, Waxworms, Cockroaches, Moths, and Butterfles. They especially seemed to enjoy the Crickets and Cockroaches, the larger the better. I give them a good feed about once a week and in between they are fed according to opportunity - whenever a big Bush Cockroach turns up in the garden!

 

So how do my frogs live differently than their cousins kept overseas, mainly by Americans? Generally it is in the humidity. Most of the tanks "over there" have a lot more water about the place, usually in the form of half the tank siliconed off to form a pool. 1 have avoided this because of a fear of a bacterial condition called red-leg - it seems to be associated with excessive humidity and dirty conditions. Cleanliness is good, and when you have an animal that can sometimes leave a semi-liquid deposit some three or more centimetres long and a centimetre round, then the cleaning can be quite a chore! Which is where the newspaper substrate comes into it's own - it is just rolled up and thrown away. Most Americans seem to go in for a lot of foliage in their frog-tanks, but the soil in the pots can harbour bacteria as well.

 

So I have an interesting situation, where the frogs are perfectly happy and healthy, but according to most reports, not in enough humidity to breed. I have given this a great deal of thought, and taking into consideration the fact that they could live another twenty years (the record in captivity is twenty-eight) I have decided to leave them the way they are. That way I trust they will be around to delight my grandchildren as they have my young children.

 

White's Tree Frogs, TFH Publishers (details unavailable at present).

Digest for the Successful Terrarium, Richard D. Bartlett Tetra

TerraFauna 1989 ISBN 3-89356-035-1

Keeping and Breeding Amphibians, Chris Mattison, Blandford 1993 ISBN 0-7137-2328-9

Usenet newsgroup rec.pets.herp

 

On their arrival home, we placed an opaque perspex divider into our six foot tank which divided off a two foot section for our new arrivals. The water temperature was 25C, had a pH of about 7.4 and there was quite a bit of shellgrit in the gravel. They were fed garden worms, locally caught live freshwater Shrimp and Daphnia magna (Daphnia), frozen Artemia salina (Brine Shrimp), dried Tubifex rivulorum (Tubificid Worms). and flake food. Their favourite was definitely the earthworms and lumps of dried tubificid worms.

 

The rewards were fast. for only three evenings later the two larger "Moggies" were side by side on the back wall, spawning, one laying eggs and the other (close by at all times fertilising them and when spotted, at least 100 eggs had already been laid. Their sexes were impossible for us to tell apart, only in this case the female was slightly larger. The male must have let his guard down at one time as a third "Moggie" got into the act, the smallest one looked to be laying eggs also in the same place, but as soon as the male noticed this, the littlest member of the spawning activity was ousted. The egg laying ritual went on for a few hours.

 

Days 1 & 2. Next morning the male was lying against the back wall protecting and fanning the eggs like a good Dad to be. In the few days to follow only a few of the eggs went white. They were all supported by a thin thread attached to the wall and when he fanned them you would see the little eggs waving back to him.

 

Day 3. A black spot in the eggs was noticed, they were eyeing up, so this meant they were well on their way. We decided to artificially hatch some of the eggs, as we were not sure if they would be eaten when hatched.

 

We held a net under the eggs and scraped a few off with a razor, cutting only the threads. We left him with three quarters of the eggs. All during this movement of the eggs. Papa moggie just moved aside and when we were done, he returned as it nothing had happened. We took these in the net inside a bucket of water to a waiting tank filled with the same water they came out of. It had a temperature of 26C and a bit of shell grit which had been added earlier. We placed the bet horizontally in the tank and fastened it, so it was one to two inches under the top of the water and set an airstone next to it, so bubbles were moving the surface around the eggs.

 

Day 4. On the morning after the eggs had been moved it was discovered that the little "Moggies" had hatched. It was-a tunny sight seeing them through a magnifying glass, they were just eyes and tummy, two big black eyes on a big egg sac and a thin sliver tor a tail. They were still in groups as we had taken them off the glass and they had not begun to swim freely.

 

Day 5. The morning after there were already free swimming try in both tanks, although, not all were yet. Only 4.5 days after being laid and already we have free swimming fry, not bad.

 

It took from 4.5 to 6.5 days until they were all free swimming. They were spread all over the tank and were fed Euglena, Anguillila aceti (Vinegar Eels) and fine powdered food for the first few days, then newly hatched Brine Shrimp was added to their diet. Also a variety of fine dried foods and live foods as they grew.

 

In the tank with the adults, the eggs were all hatched and fry were free swimming. A number had been caught in the filter but lots of them were still swimming happily around. None of the adults seemed interested in them even after we added Daphnia, amazingly the adults picked out all the Daphnia and left the fry alone which was almost the same size.

 

After having the Mogurnda adspersa for only four weeks we had had four spawnings with four lots of free swimming fry, these were swimming amongst the adults not being bothered at all. The two larger adult "Moggies" were the only ones doing the spawning and each spawning sight was a different one. The third spawning was done on a Saturday evening and by Wednesday evening all the fry were free swimming and the same two were at it again, at a new sight and these eggs were free swimming by Monday morning.

 

The young seem quite hardy and the adults are definitely hardy, and easy to breed when in their breeding season. They are also quite an attractive looking fish, however we would not trust them in the same tank with anything smaller than there own size, as they have a reputation of being fin nippers and probably more so at breeding time.

 

degrees celsius and neutral. Our male Melanotaenia splendida splendida was showing off, dancing around with his fins wide open wide in front of his female. But, there was nowhere for them to spawn. In a flash we grabbed some spare Java Moss we had floating around and broke a small 2" x 2" piece of foam off and hung the moss over it in a corner of the community tank, to form an instant spawning mop of moss.

 

Prom then on we had two programmes to watch. The male kept dancing around the hanging Java Moss and darting back and forth to the female trying to entice her to come up and see him some time, which she did. This went on for ages, he never seemed to tire.

 

Next morning the Java Moss was inspected and unbelievably there were a large number of small clear eggs there, we thought for sure they would have been cleaned up by the rest of the tank's inhabitants by this time. The moss with eggs were transferred into another tank for hatching and another moss mop was set up, which was then removed from the community tank the following day with even more eggs in it. The temperature in the 2' hatching tank was 27 degrees celsius.

 

We did not keep the light away from the tank, (in fact it received about 2 hours of sunlight a day). A small amount of infusoria was put into the hatching tank on the 4th day in readiness and the eggs started hatching on the 5th day and were still hatching up to 9 days after being put in. The try are free swimming upon hatching and from only 2 days worth of Java Moss being hung from the community tank we were no doubt pleased when about 200 fry hatched. A small number of eggs went fungus but most of them hatched. A number also would have been eaten by other fish in the community tank, before being removed, but at the time we did not want to disturb the breeding pair.

 

Intusoria, liquid fry food and other micron dried foods were given 4-6 times daily and increased as more hatched. The fry mainly swim in the top 3" of the tank and we always left some Java Moss in the tank because they seemed to be feeding from it. From 3-4 weeks old they grow quite rapidly and are able to eat live Daphnia and Cyclops. Their rainbow shape and fins become more noticeable at 6 weeks old.

 

I call them "an intermediate -sized cichlid", as both sexes grow to three inches. About the only way to find the sex difference of the curviceps is, with mature fish, the dorsal and the anal fins of the male are more elongated in typical cichlid fashion. With conditioning the female will be a little plumper, and if they are of the same age a little shorter maybe.

 

They are a quiet peaceful fish and non-destructive of plants which merits a place in any representative collection. It is not well to place them with lively fishes, and it is important to provide them with sufficient retreats if you want to view their normal habits. I personally find that if you keep them in a smaller tank (two foot) they can't get "lost from your sight" as far as picking out the sex or dominant fish difference, and what is going on in the tank. Of course a two foot tank like this would have to be a species tank. If you want a community tank it would have to be much larger, to permit individual territories to be established.

 

My attempts at breeding the curviceps:

 

First, I found out, that you need a male and a female. (Editor's note: this is not as silly as it sounds. Many's the time that two fish have been thrown into a breeding tank together with never a single fry resulting: quite often It is caused by not having a true pair.) Healthy onesat that. (Well conditioned).

 

Just previous to the Society’s 1983 Sydney fish buying spree, I bought a female curviceps at a club auction and I managed to buy a well-dorsalled male (as compared to the female). On returning home I set my two curviceps up in a two foot six inch tank in my bedroom, and let them grow to maturity. And do what all good cichlids do, or so I thought. But alas, the male, for reasons of his own, perished.

 

It was some time (back in those days, and still is today) before I was able to locate more curviceps, locally. I was unable to sex these specimens as they were only half grown (I can't remember which shop 1 bought them from) and much time passed before they grew to maturity. Counting the original female, I now had one male and four females. The male paired up with one of the females so 1 removed the other three fishes.

 

The curviceps is a bottom spawner, preferring a flat rock and my first three to four spawnings saw the eggs being eaten by the male, about one day after the eggs were laid. I submersed a net breeder at the top of the tanks and on the next spawning (approximately three weeks) I moved the egg covered rock to the net breeder so that the eggs could not be eaten by the parents. Water circulation over the eggs was maintained by an airstone in a corner of the net breeder and the eggs hatched in three to four days. However, as the eggs hatched, and the fry wriggled to the bottom of the net, their parents tried to rescue them by sucking them through the fine mesh, which killed the fry (probably by bruising).

 

On the next spawning I did the same but removed the parents to join the other three females in a twenty inch tank. When the eggs hatched I turned the airstone bubble velocity down to reduce the water movement within the net breeder so as not to risk bruising the fry. They became free-swimming after another four days so I started to feed with Liquid Fry (emulsion fry food). Seven days later their number had dwindled to zero, due either to over-feeding and polluting the tank or just plain starvation. (I did not do any water changes in the tank during this spawning.)

 

The male had again paired up in the twenty inch tank (I don't know if it was the same female). I removed the others and let the pair spawn freely in the twenty inch tank as the twenty-six inch tank was now being used for Angelfish. I did not remove the eggs and after two spawnings the fry reached the wriggler stage before being eaten. With the next spawnings I alternatively tried removing the male or the female but the fry still perished. Then from one spawning, the fry were free swimming for a whole week before being eaten or vanishing.

 

At the next spawning I took no chances, and removed both parents and placed an airstone near the eggs. At this stage, all my tanks were filtered with undergravel filters and the filter-plates in this tank were covered by approximately two inches of crushed gravel, about 3/16ths of an inch in diameter. crushed gravel makes for larger spaced cavities between the individual pebbles than if 'rounded' river gravel was used.

 

A few days after free-swimming I noticed that the fry were going 'caving' between the gravel and the glass sides of the tank. Either by natural instinct to 'go to ground', or chasing minute food on the pebbles, they appeared to get lost or stuck in the gravel about three quarters of an inch below the substrate surface. With my attempts to dig or syphon the fry out of the gravel I found that I was only hurting them so I let them be and after a couple of days had lost the lot.

 

Whilst visiting David Barnard, an aquarist who had raised curviceps fry with their parents, I found that he mixed his Liquid Fry in a cup of aquarium aquarium water before pouring it into the tank, whereas I had always just dribbled a few drops into the tank and swirled it around with my finger to mix it in. Sometimes I would miss a drop or two and this would settle in a globule on the bottom of the tank, and shortly turn to fungus.

 

So it was about this time in my hobby that I started to take everything into perspective and was eventually successful in raising curviceps fry (away from their parents) with the knowledge perceived by personal experience and seeing other aquarist's versions of 'doing the same thing'.

 

My useful information about dwarf cichlids:

 

  - They require regular water changes, as they are apt to become diseased in old water

 

  - For maintainance, they require a temperature of seventy-four to seventy-six degrees F and a ten gallon tank minimum. For breeding, a temperature of eighty-two to eighty-six degrees F.

 

  - You can use a peat filter in the fry raising tank, keeps the water crystal clear and bacteria down to a minimum. (Editor's note: Don't try this one with Tanganyikan dwarfs such as Julidochromis or Lamprologus, it makes the water go acid.). This is better than using dyes such as Methylene Blue or Acriflavine, but I have used both in combination with Malachite Green in the form of Aquarium Pharmaceuticals' 'Multi Cure' with success.

 

  - If the adults have not been properly conditioned, the finest dyes will not keep the eggs alive.

 

  - Kribs (Pelvicachromis pulcher and relatives) and Nanochromis nudiceps have large fry which accept baby brine shrimp for first foods, can use under-gravel filters.

 

  - Apistogramma sp. and Aeauidens curviceps have small fry, capable of being lost in filters. They need small first fry foods but once they are big enough to accept baby brine shrimp the hobbyist has then achieved a major advancement in his or her 'Aquaristic Knowledge'.

 

Editor's Note: Thanks to Doug for sharing his long struggle with curviceps with us. No wonder he now concentrates on Rainbowfishes, something he does very well.

 

The 4 Emperor Tetras are in a 2 foot x 1 foot x 1 foot community tank. Their tank mates consist of a small Bristlenose Catfish, 2 adult Neon Tetras and a small Silver Shark. For the time being they get along together just fine, but things may change as the Shark and Catfish get bigger.

 

Filtration is by undergravel. Lighting is provided by a home-made wooden box containing a 25W clear incandescent light bulb. Tank furnishings consist of a few rocks and numerous plants both planted and floating. Conditions in this tank must be good as the plants grow at an amazing rate, something I cannot achieve in my other tanks. pH is 6.5 and steady and temperature 19 maintained at approximately 26 C. I still have to purchase hardness, nitrite and nitrate test kits, so 1 can't tell you any other readings.

 

My son Matthew first noticed a couple of fry approximately 12 mm in length, and after sitting beside the tank for over an hour his mum spotted 6 fry in all. I stated before that the tank is heavily planted so there may be more fry. I feel very lucky to have had 6 fry survive as feeding on eggs and fry by other tank mates must have been almost a frenzy. Constant observation shows 1 male guards the fry closely and woe betide any of his tank mates crossing over any of his invisible (to me) territorial lines. I don't know if this is normal behaviour for Tetras (Editor's Note: very few Tetras have this paternal streak in them, but we are lucky that one so freely available as the Emperor has it) but it is enjoyable to watch. For the fry to be this large I feel that they have been in the tank a long time, and I may have siphoned any number of them out in the 20% water change that this tank is subjected to only once a month, as against weekly in the other tanks. As the fry weren't noticed until recently, they were not fed any special fry food, but I presume that they thought it was Christmas when I occasionally fed the baby Brine Shrimp to the community and it's my guess the fry found come form of live food growing amongst the vegetation and made the most of whatever flake ete they could find. Fearing more predation I had fellow members and friends the Keenans verify the spawning (I normally wait for Doug or Andrew) and I feel guilty claiming spawning points but a spawn is a spawn is a spawn! One day soon I will separate the pair and have a serious attempt at spawning them. I'm not sure if it's only wishful thinking but Matthew believes the female Emperor is ripe with eggs again - only time will tell. In the meantime the tank sits in Matthew's bedroom and gives him many hours of pure enjoyment, as any fishoholic will testify.

 

On their arrival home they were placed into a tank (temporary) of their own with an addition of 1 teaspoonful of salt per 4 litres of water. A short time later we acquired a 20" tank at an irresistible price at Jim Atkinsons' Auction, so we set this up for the Bumblebees. We placed gravel, an assortment of plants, 2 empty Mystery snail shells, 1 ceramic ornament and 1 clay pot in the tank. The shells, pot and ornament were covered with Java moss, cascading down and around giving privacy without obstruction to the entrances of the items placed in. The water mixture was the same 1 teaspoonful of salt per 4 litres. The pH was about 7.6, the temperature 25C and the only filtration and aeration was supplied by a corner box filter. There was duckweed and some watersprite floating on the surface.

 

We had 8 Bumblebees in the tank and only one of them appeared to us to be a definite male, so he had his own harem. The females seemed to have their own little spots in the tank, but the male went anywhere he wanted. They were fed exclusively on live foods, such as Daphnia magna (Daphnia), Cyclops, Mosquito Larvae, Tubifex rivulorum (Tubificid worms) and the occasional live Artemia salina (Brine Shrimp). The tank was the easiest to maintain out of all our tanks and as it was the only one by itself, we sometimes forgot to do its water change.

 

One weekend while we were doing water changes we realised that the bumblebee tank had somehow missed out for a month, so we promptly rectified this by giving it the usual 20% water change. It had entered our minds of course to one day try and breed these eye catching little fish but it was going to be sooner than we had thought.

 

The next evening one of us just happend to be sitting in the right place at the right time looking into the right tank. The only male Bumblebee kept disappearing into one of the empty Mystery snail shells. He would then turn around inside and with his head sticking slightly out would then begin to flap his pectoral fins. This looked very interesting to us, so we looked even closer. We could not see inside the shell as we had done too good a job at giving them privacy but could see a few things on the edge of the shell that looked like eggs. We watched him for quite some time and he never went far from the shell, frequently he went inside, turned around, and whilst stationary in an upright position, would fan.

 

We quickly re-read all the articles we could find on Bumblebees and discovered that it we left them there they would probably be eaten when free swimming. Also, we couldn't leave it too long if we were going to do something about it as they would hatch in a couple of days.

 

We figured the eggs to be 1 day old (as we found out a while later we were wrong). We decided to artificially hatch them in a separate tank.

 

Day 2 - The next afternoon we could wait no longer to see what was actually in the shell. We had prepared a separate 8x14 inch tank with water that was mainly from the breeding tank and placed clean, snail free, Java moss on the bottom and it had a temperature of 25C.

 

Next we moved the shell in water into the tank sitting it on a plastic vial with sinkers and an airstone in. We got a fine stream of bubbles going in front of the shell and we then set about having a good look at all the eggs we had happily seen in there on their trip down. Another empty snail shell was placed where we stole this one from and the male made a bee-line for it, went in and continued to fan non-existent eggs until the next day when he must have realised there was something funny going on.

 

Now back to the eggs. We moved them just at the right time as they were all eyed up, approximately 85 of them on the inside of the shell, all stuck in their own place individually. The eggs were now approximately two days old, we thought. Later that same night we looked in at our surprise catch and notice that several had hatched and were moving around in the water with their full egg sacs, this made our night.

 

Day 3 - The next morning, we were surprised even more, as about 80% of the eggs had hatched, some swimming around, others just laying around and the rest still in the shell not yet hatched. A small amount of Euglena was added to the tank, as an article we had read said "they need to have food within 36 hours of hatching".

 

Day 4 - Was similar to day 3 only now there were a few swimming around without egg sacs. There were still quite a few lying around, still some moving, others not, we had already lost some. There were still some in the shell not yet hatched. A number seemed to have hatched and died, we couldn't work out what we had done wrong. While watching them swimming jerkily around it was noticed that the heater was on, as there was a heat haze rising up. Helplessly we watched 2 fry in a moment of rest land on the heater or near it and in a second they were dead, this seemed to be the reason for so many dead fry. As soon as this happened the heater was moved off the side of the tank to the back with the heating element end in the back corner that was the darkest. Hopefully now as most things are attracted towards the light none of our fry would be fried. We had never seen this happen before nor had we even thought of it happening, but hope it will help others to prevent anything like this.

 

Day 5 - There seemed to be about only 20 little Bumblebees left, they were being fed Euglena. The fry did have particularly small mouths but they should have been able to handle Euglena. We could not understand why we had lost so many. A couple of snails were added to keep the tank clean.

 

Day 6 - Nothing new in our Bumblebee fry tank but where the adults were we noticed the male acting strangely again. This time in and out of the clay pot. We placed a mirror and torch behind at an angle so we could see in and were vary pleased to see him guarding and fanning another clutch of eggs. A second chance for us.

 

We moved the clay pot with eggs to a nine inch tank immersed in another tank so there was no exposed heater. The temerature here was 26C and the water was all out of the tank the eggs came from as a 9" tank doesn't hold much water. We placed an airstone down the centre of the pot that was placed on its end, with wide opening up. A fine mist of bubbles would fan the eggs. Looking in over the top with a torch we could see the eggs for a daily check at least (more like four to five times a day). We waited and waited for them to eye up, it took about four days until we could see them eyeing up, so the first lot we had were laid before we thought and the books we had read did not seem to match what was happening for us. It took six days for the eggs to start hatching and a further three days for all to hatch. It only took about 24 hours after they had hatched for their egg sacs to be absorbed. As soon as they hatched they were trying to swim around with jerky movements.

 

We placed the other previous spawn of Bumblebees in with these- as they had not grown much and their numbers had dwindled to only 12. They seemed to be lazy eaters and although there was plenty of food tor them they were fussy. We fed them Euglean, green water, vinegar eels, liquifry and a small amount of Brine shrimp which the first batch could now handle. We added liquifry this time as the fry are very small. They were clear little slivers with little black eyes and a small black mark in their tummies. This time we did not lose anywhere as many fry, probably because there was no heater to fry the fry.

 

We had about 60 swimming around slowly but happily. A lot of their time was spent pretty much motionless then all of a sudden they would dart forward then stop again. They are very slow growing and didn't seem to eat much no matter how much food we gave them. Once they were able to handle Brine shrimp then they would fill themselves up on this and it was easy to pick the ones who did as they had full red-brown tummies. Don't think we found their perfect first food for them, maybe they need something different as they do come from slightly brackish waters. They did seem to go better in the warmer water of 27C and once able to handle Brine Shrimp which was at about one and a half weeks old then they ate their fill each day. When the Bumblebees were large enough fine cyclops and daphnia were added to their diet. By the way the male is happily guarding another clutch of eggs in a different place this time, think we will leave him to this lot as we have that usual problem of not enough tanks and no room for anymore.

 

I have used the method described by Frank, i.e. lowering the temperature and then raising it again, and with the Bronze Catfish (Corydoras aenus) this worked fairly well. I might add that watching these fish spawn is absolutely fascinating – much more interesting than any other fish I have spawned. All the fish (I used 2 pairs at a time) go berserk and dash around the tank for ages, only pausing to produce another egg or batch of eggs. This may go on for hours at a time.

 

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. The first cats I decided to spawn were aenus - the bronze. I had 2 large females (about 3 years old and about 6 cm long) and two smaller and younger males. The fish are easy to sex - the females are much stockier than the males and when full of eggs look like they have swallowed a marble. The males are sleek and very much slimmer. The males often have a taller dorsal fin as well (particularly in the Peppered Catfish Corydoras paleatus).

 

All the fish had been kept in a community tank and the only real concession I made to them was avoiding a lot of salt (I still add 1 teaspoonful per gallon in their water), feeding tablets or pellets that would sink to the bottom or slightly overfeeding the other fish in the tank, as the Catfish were really bought as scavengers. When I decided to move the tank to another location I took the opportunity to catch the Bronze Catfish and put them in a different tank. Anyone who has tried to catch a big Catfish in a well planted community tank will realise why I hadn't really tried to catch them before.

 

So they were put into a bare tank until I could set up a breeding tank. However the new water and the slight change of temperature combined to induce the fish to spawn within a couple of days (and before I had got around to setting up the planned breeding tank). I set up another tank with gravel, undergravel filter, and aged water and transferred the fish to the new tank. They spawned again a week later. I counted about 300 eggs all together (in both tanks). The Bronze Catfish lay large clutches of eggs at a time - 20 or 30 is quite common. These are stuck in clumps all over the place. A lot of eggs are not fertile and cloud over and fungus within a couple of days. I assume this is why they are so well scattered, as one bad egg in a bunch can infect those nearby. In the first tank I left the eggs as they were and lost most of them (the tank was not filtered so I lost a lot of the fry). In the second tank I removed all the cloudy eggs as soon as I spotted them and the success rate was much higher. I raised about 100 to saleable size. They were fed on the usual mix of live foods as often as possible. Water conditions don't seem to be that important - I used half old (from the community tank) and half new (aged) water. Hardness was about 6-10 degrees DH, pH 6.8-7, and temperature 72-76 degrees F. I put a handful of shell grit into the growing tank - supposed to help in the bone formation in the growing fry.

 

To spawn other species (C. paleatus, C. metae, C. hastatus) I use a slightly different method. A tank was set up with gravel, undergravel filter, a heater, and water partly from a community tank and partly new. The fish to be spawned (all I had - 2 to 8 of a species) were introduced and fed the best food that I had - mainly worms such as white worms and Tubifex (live). If the fish are mature they will start to spawn within a week. I don't bother to lower the temperature or change any water (the tanks are fairly large and only contain a few fish). The Peppered Catfish produce a cluster of from 2 to 5 eggs while the metae and hastatus produce single or pairs of eggs. Again they are stuck all over the tank (which also contains several large rocks and an Indonesian Fern). The tanks don't have lights on them so the plant selected has to be a low light preference type. The fish often deposit eggs on the plant. Eggs are produced once a week - 20 to 30 at a time. To prevent the parents from eating them I transfer all good eggs to a small net-type fry trap within the breeding tank. The eggs, which are quite sticky, can be carefully removed from the glass etc. and dropped into the net trap where they take 4 to 5 days to hatch at 72 to 74 degrees F. Feeding on Microworms and newly hatched brine shrimp can begin after another 3 to 4 days. I leave a piece of the plant in the trap as the fry are very timid and need a bit of security. As long as the parents get really good food they seem to go on spawning weekly for as long as I want.

 

Corydoras hastatus don't eat the eggs or fry so they are left in the same tank all the time.

 

Editor's Note: Corydoras pygmaeus (another dwarf species) can also be trusted with their fry. Ours lived in a 30 cm cube full of Java Moss and there always seemed to be fry in the tank. For any of our newer members looking for a deeper involvement in the hobby, they could do worse than specialize in the Corydoradinae (Corydoras and relatives). For more Information ace "A Complete Introduction to Corydoras and Related Catfish" by Dr Warren E. Burgess (TFH 1987), which is in the club library. We used to have a few specialist Catfish breeders in the Society, but now it is a rare night that two species are up for auction in a single night.

 

The next problem was that our tank broke at a joint. Mum and I were madly grabbing whatever we could and putting water and fry into them - although a majority both ended up on/in the carpet. Later on I checked the breeding trap and found a small fry (I did not know if it was a Danio or a Black Tetra) I don't know how he survived - so I called him lucky. When it was about 3 or 4 weeks old I found out that it was a Danio. During our mad rush to save as many fish as possible, we had also saved some Danios.

 

Since then I have bred them twice more - we now have lots. There are three types; spotted, striped and gold with stripes (perhaps Renee can explain this). I've got them in my tank with neons and Black Tetras, all are doing fine.

 

 

Preparation for breeding: If you are not keeping the adults on live food, it might not be a bad idea to hunt up some mealworms, earthworms, water boatmen, or feeder Goldfish or Guppies to plump up the females (watch feeder fish to ensure they don't snack on the Axies feathery external gills). Do this in July/August in preparation for the breeding season, which runs roughly August to February in our cold corner of Australia, although we have had them spawn In July in years past. When they are ready to spawn the females will fill up with eggs, while the males (the ones with the longer, narrower heads) seem to swell around the vent.

 

The Spawning: When the pair are properly conditioned spawning should follow as a matter of course. Sometimes, however, they will need a nudge along. A good water change will often do the trick, but if a change of more than 30 % is contemplated then please use aged water. We have never had any trouble getting ours to spawn, even when on a sole diet of trout pellets (they must have been really keen!).

 

After waltzing or dancing around the female, the male deposits spermatophores (sperm packets) on rocks or driftwood. The female then picks these up, and soon begins to look for a place to lay her eggs. Bushy plants such as Foxtail or Java Moss are preferred (the latter for a preference, it seems to do better in lower water temperatures and light), but any available surface can be used. Tank walls, gravel, filter risers, rocks, all are strewn with the eggs. The eggs swell up overnight, roughly doubling in size. Usually the first indication you will have that they have even thought of spawning will be to come out in the morning and find the whole tank littered with lines of eggs! When they have finished swelling (to about 8-10 mm) they can be removed to the hatching tank. Don't worry if you have to wait a couple of days to set up your spare tank, the parents may eat an egg or two accidentally but won't actively hunt the youngsters until after they are hatched. Hatching takes as little as a week, or as long as a month, depending on water temperature.

 

Adding Methylene Blue to the hatching tank seems to accomplish nothing. Simply place the eggs in their own tank with gentle filtration and pick out the rotten ones as they appear. Dead in shell/infertile spawn seem to go opaque fairly quickly, and should be removed as soon as possible. Axolotyl eggs are clear, so It is possible to observe the embryos developing. It is interesting to see the single cell divide by meiosis into many cells over the course of days, and finally become recognisable as a growing larva. When they get close to hatching they start to thrash about, eventually tearing the outer membrane of the egg.

 

The Youngsters: Axolotyl larvae seem to need food within a day of hatching. We have tried all sorts of first foods over the years and have yet to come up with a better one than Cyclops, courtesy of our local farm dam.

 

We have tried shredded beef heart (turns the water foul), powdered trout pellet (ditto the foul water), brine shrimp nauplii (die in the cooler water too fast, and always seem to be hunting the light at the top of the tank, which places them out of reach of the lazier, younger larvae) and frozen foods of different sorts that never seemed to work that well. We have never killed off a spawning with disease brought in 'from the wild', but suppose that there is some risk of this. It is probably likely that we never will bring a disease home that will affect the Axies, owing to a decrease in wild amphibians, but the risk remains. Maybe if they were cultured in a backyard pond...

 

For older larvae Blackworms are good, provided your tank is free from any substrate (gravel), and will take them right through to three months of age, when they can go onto Mealworms. Blackworms are a close relative of the Tubificid (Tubifex) worms, but are much cleaner in their habits and correspondingly easier to store. At three to four months, if you have done your job well, they are ready to go off to their new homes. We cannot recommend placing a juvenile with an adult of more than a third greater body length, because all you have then is an expensive breakfast for the older Axolotyls.

 

The other requirement when raising Axolotyl larvae is space. They go through a highly cannibalistic phase, between six weeks and three months. They need to be sorted according to size. It is not too ridiculous to allow a square foot of tank bottom (i.e. surface area) each. otherwise you will end up with a whole lot of legless Axies (which opens them to fungal infection) because they will snap at anything that moves, including their siblings. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, (although hard on the larvae concerned), but it can be a real job convincing a prospective buyer that the missing limbs will grow back.

 

If you can't get hold of Blackworms, the youngsters can be raised entirely on Daphnia to the three-month stage, but you must be prepared to take a couple of trips a week to the dam or sewerage works. The same goes for Water Boatmen, or Backswimmers as they are also known, which are relished by all ages, right up to and including adult Axies. Bloodworms are good, but hard to find in sufficient numbers to feed a hundred hungry mouths. Mosquito larvae tend to move too fast, thus filling the fishroom (or family home) with buzzing Mozzies. If you were really keen you could put Earthworms through the kitchen blender, but like the aforementioned beefheart this would go off quickly. We did raise eighty odd youngsters a couple of years ago entirely on trout pellets, but it meant an hour a day, every day, siphoning off the half rotten uneaten stuff, and believe me, the novelty soon wore off.

 

It may sometimes happen that some of your youngsters will lose their frilly external gills, their tails will become narrower, their eyes looking like bugging right out of their heads. These are metamorphosing into the 'adult' salamander form, in fact are properly called Mexican Salamanders. This happened to us for the first time this year, and was quite a surprise. We were raising this year's larvae in fiberglass vats outside in our back yard. A lot of leaves fell from a neighbour's trees into one particular vat, turning it very acid. When this was noticed the larvae were already on their way to adulthood. They need to breath atmospheric oxygen to survive, so are in different accommodations with shallower water and rocks to crawl on to. I am building them a palludarium (another article) so that they can enjoy the best of both worlds, wet and dry. There are not a lot of references to the metamorphosed form in the literature so we are experimenting to find the best possible housing for them. They continue to feed in the water so larger aquatic insects and Mealworms are sustaining them at the moment.

 

The raising of Axolotyls is not an easy task. They need about the same level of care as large tropical fish fry. But don't let that discourage you. If you have access to live food, have sufficient tank space, and apply yourself, you can breed and raise Axolotyls.

 

I decided not to and they were dumped into a tank with all my other Dwarf Cichlids - these fish which I knew nothing about and could find very little on.

 

A bit of research revealed that they were from the Nile region of Africa and had been kept in aquaria since the late 19th Century. The water should, I was told, be between 7.4 to 7.8 pH and temperature 23C for keeping and 7.6 to 7.8 pH and temperature 25C for breeding. Oh well, I thought, pH of 6.8 is too low. So much for breeding....

 

One month later the male was circling the female over the substrate, spitting bits of gravel out and digging a sizeable hole. Closer inspection revealed that her throat pouch was bulging slightly and more eggs were on the gravel below her. About 30 minutes later the female retreated and spawning finished. The pH was 6.6 to 6.8 and temperature 26C. Their diet was simply flake food.

 

I removed the female to her own 18 inch tank where fifteen days later sixteen fry were released. There are now nine left, growing well on a diet of Brine Shrimp and finely crushed flake. Two weeks after the spawn was released the female had another mouthful. So much for high pH and live food!

 

Oh, and the 'Multicolour' shows in more than name when the male settles down - he is beautiful.

 

The fact is, this fish is a very attractive tetra with an elongated dorsal fin, reminding you of a much smaller version of the popular but expensive Bleeding Heart Tetra. It comes from Guyana and lower Amazon tributaries and looks great when placed in a tank with a dark background and natural plants. When males start to perform their fighting 'dance' with stretched dorsal fins, the admiration of a visitor is fully captured.

 

The colour of the fish is a sort of pale grey body in combination with a black flag like dorsal fin and red fins and tail. The behaviour is similar to other tetras as with the body shape of this fish. Phantom, callistus or bleeding heart tetras even neon tetras all move, hide or eat in a similar pattern. They withstand hard handling and fast changes in temperature or pH range. Simply they are one of those ideal fish for anyone.

 

But, there are troubles encountered when breeding this fish. When I saw these fish tor the first time in some years, during the Society's trip to Melbourne, the shop was the very first stop and considering the risk of two days cold storing (winter) and quite high prices, I decided to shop around. It was a mistake and I have not seen any in any other shop.

 

After nearly a year, Bates Aquarium and Pet Centre of Fyshwick introduced this fish to Canberra. The fish was better priced than in Melbourne and the well stocked tank offered better choice of young healthy specimens.

 

Before my first tries to spawn the fish, even before you buy any fish, it is recommended to read as much as possible about that particular fish. As it is known, this fish presents a problem having a high percentage of males without the egg fertilising capacity. This was a reason to buy seven males and five females, to increase the chance to have at least one performer. The selection of a male is easy, as they have a much longer dorsal tin than the female.

 

The real nightmare started when spawning after spawning produced fungused eggs. None of the males performed and my heavy investment went sour.

 

Finally, by shear luck, I had found a single fry in a spawning and isolated the male for further trials. That tiny fry was the reason to forget the other males and concentrate on this particular one.

 

The next spawning, which was given all care and cleaness of the bare tank with nylon fibres as the spawning medium, the pair produced around fifty unfungused eggs, this was an excellent success, the eggs were a brownish colour, the usuall tetra size, hatched in 24-36 hours and the young were swimming in five to six days after hatching. All great and easy in that time.

 

But problems were to come, the little try tend to hide, and are very shy, spend most of their time in corners or parallel to glass walls. They do not move freely around the tank or close to the tank bottom to search tor food. This makes feeding of fry difficult and even when very good natural food, nauplia of cyclops, was available the growth was disappointing. Some of the cyclops matured and were attacking the fry, daily I had lost a few until I removed all the growing cyclops.

 

The shyness of the fry disappears after five to six weeks when the colour and body shape starts to imitate the adults.

 

Finally I have finished with twelve young fish only, a pretty miserable result. But on the bright side, I have always experienced the first generation of imported fish give a lot of problems, which is similar for many other species. The second and following generations brought up locally was much easier to breed.

 

The following spawinings were much better after good care in removing any fungous eggs, I managed around 80 fry. But after 14 days, I had to leave tor three days and expecting the same problems which are encountered as with many other fish, they would survive for this short time on the introduction of some green algae and infusoria as the emergency rations for those few days. The result was another disaster as these fish need much more pampering and care when very young. The whole lot disappeared even when everything looked well.

 

It is not very easy fish to breed indeed.

 

I placed these fish in a tank by themselves and fed them heavily on chopped earthworms and minced beet heart for about six months until the males were six inches long and the females about four inches long.

 

One of the males grew much faster than the others and very quickly killed two of the females and one of the other males. The remaining pair were definitely compatible, they showed spectacular breeding colours, I kept them in a tank by themselves out nothing happened for months until I moved them into a 6'x2'x2’ tank stocked with other cichlids.

 

They soon took possession of a corner behind a rock and spawned on a piece of slate within days. Most of the eggs went fungi. The female was a very bad mother, she didn't mouth or fan the eggs at all. After a couple of water changes and several weeks later the pair spawned once again and this time, I took no chances and placed a piece of slate for them to lay their eggs on.

 

After spawning, I took the slate out and placed it in a small tank suspended in the community tank with an airstone, a little salt and lots of acriflavine, and watched the eggs hatch.

 

They took about four days to hatch and another 3 days to get to the free swimming stage. I fed them on hard boiled egg yolk for two days and then on newly hatched brine shrimp.

 

The fry are fairly slow growing up to a certain size and then grow quickly when they are large enough to take tubifex and minced beet heart. The water was always slightly alkaline and around 25C.

 

The parents spawn regularly, about ever three or four weeks, with adequate water changing and a temperature at 25C.

 

Convinced that they were brothers and sister, I had no intention of spawning them until I could obtain some ‘new blood’. This came in the form of a magnificent 3.5' male from Karl Puse. The one female and Karl's male were put together in a 20 gallon tank of their own, with a cave (made from rocks), which Richter in his "Dwarf Cichlids" (T.F.H. - and in the club's library), assures readers would make the Lionheads more comfortable. Also provided was a flowerpot, ceramic, with the hole at the bottom enlarged to about the size of a 20-cent piece.

 

The female was most taken with the flowerpot and immediately took possession of it. The male was seen shortly after, displaying to her and the two entered the flowerpot. As the latter was lying on its rim, hole upwards, the actual spawning was not witnessed. By the next morning, the female was still in the flowerpot and the male had moved back to his cave. Three days after this, I lifted the edge of the flowerpot up enough to shine a torch inside and was greeted by the sight of the female fanning a clutch of eggs, attached to the internal wall. As the male was making no move to assist his mate in any way, he was removed a couple of days later. A week after the spawning, the young hatched, wriggling on the glass floor of the tank.

 

We used no live foods in the rearing of the young, just bottomfeeder tablets, sinking cichlid food and flake food that had been rubbed between the fingers so as to sink.

 

The Lionhead is a nice little fish that is ideal for the beginning cichlidist, but it likes its water kept clean and as with most fish, it breeds more readily when fully mature.

 

I have kept the Electric Blue Cichlid (Sciaenochromisahli) on previous occasions and marvelled at the brilliant colours and fascinating spawning practices. However, as anyone who has kept a spawning Electric Blue male realises, this is a particularly aggressive fish apt to kill females of its own species and any other fish that gets in the way. Unless you have a large tank, preferably 4ft x 2ft x 2ft, and/or large and pugnacious tankmates, it is probably best to concentrate on other more docile types of Cichlid.

 

Early in 2002, I prepared a standard 4ft tank (190 litre) and placed an Electric Yellow (Labidachromis caerelus), some Bronze Catfish (Coryadoras aenus), a pair of Bristlenoses (Ancistrus temminicki) and an Upside-Down Catfish (Synodontis nigriventris). I was looking for a species of medium size African Cichlid that was colourful, had interesting habits and would not be too hard on the other fish in the tank. With the possible exception of the last of these traits, finding such a fish is not a hard task, the problem is always deciding which. While at Jem Aquatics, I noticed that some nice Sulphur-Crested Lithobates had arrived. None had coloured up and so, trying to pick a male fish, I asked our old friend Evan Needham to net the largest one (around 4-5cm). This fish appeared to have a few egg spots, a good sign. As luck (bad) would have it, the fish was female but I was not to be sure of this for a month or two - Lithobates are difficult to sex at a young age.

 

When dealing with a wild form species, I always prefer to source fish that I wish to breed from separate shops, preferably different sides of town or even different cities. By breeding fish with different genetic backgrounds, the chance of breeding deformed or substandard fish is minimised. Although, I should note that breeders of fancy fish such as Guppies and Mollies often “line-breed” their fish so as to reinforce particular traits that they are they are attempting to select. For club members, CDAS trips to Sydney and Melbourne offer the breeder an excellent opportunity to access different genetic lines.

 

Thanks to Eejay, a trip was organised to Sydney in April. Among other things, I managed to buy several fish including a Black Ghost Knife that has grown from five to about 18cm in around six months and two more Upside-Down Catfish for the four foot tank. Importantly, I also purchased three Sulphur-Crested Lithobates from three separate shops. Subsequently, I discovered that these were two males and one female.

 

Some of the websites that I have accessed on Lithobates claim that they are slow growers and that patience is needed. I quickly discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. They are voracious eaters and mine grew from 4cm to around 12cm in a matter of months. Sulphur-Crested Lithobates will grow to over 15cm when fully mature. The males are slightly larger but the size difference is not as pronounced as what it is in most other Malawi Cichlids. The fish have three dark spots on their flanks, one just below the shoulder, one at the base of the tail and one roughly midway in between. These spots are prominent on the females and immature fish. The male also has these spots but, similar to the Venustus, they virtually disappear in mature fish unless they feel threatened. The male displays a blue colour similar to the Electric blue but more subdued and generally darker. The most remarkable feature of the male is a bright yellow blaze which runs from the tip of the nose right through to the tip of the tail. The bottom tip of the tail is also yellow and the anal fin tends to an orange colour with non-distinctive egg spots.

 

With two male Cichlids in a tank it is often quite normal for one of the males to become dominant and the other sub-dominant. The dominant male will display bright colours, elongated trailing dorsal and anal fins, and will monopolise the females for the purposes of breeding. The sub-dominant male will display a subdued brown colour very similar to the female. This is what occurred with my Lithobates. With my sub-dominant male, even the general body shape remained somewhat similar to the females.

 

Although not a large cichlid, I would still recommend a minimum four foot tank to keep this fish. They do not appear to be diggers and so it is possible to run an undergravel filter with them. My tank has an undergravel filter and a internal Fluval filter to remove any suspension from the water. I have some Anubias plants on mangrove roots, and these get left alone by the fish. I keep the water hard (Carbonate hardness of around 250ppm) and alkaline (pH around 8) simply by adding a teaspoon of Rift Lake water conditioner (various mineral salts) for every 10 litres of water put into to the tank. I do a 30% water change and vacuum the gravel every three weeks.

 

The breeding ritual for Lithobates was a little surprising. Instead of building a concave gravel pit for the eggs to roll to the bottom as most Malawi mouthbrooders tend to do, the male selected a flat rock and used colour and body shaking to attract the female. Then they quickly circle each other, the female laying eggs on the rock and the male fertilising them as the female picks them up in her mouth. The incubation occurs in the females mouth for around three weeks. I have found that one of my females tends to hold the eggs quite well whereas the other one spits them out after a few days when she decides that eating is more important than raising young.

 

Around 18 days after breeding, I captured the female in a net and placed her in a bucket of water from the tank she just came from. While gently grasping her in the net, I use my index finger to delicately open her mouth. Some people advocate using a cotton-bud stick stripped of the cotton or a sharpened pencil to open the mouth but I think that by using the index finger, there is probably less chance of exerting undue pressure on the fish. After opening the mouth, most of the young fish will be spat out but it is worth persevering to ensure that they are all gone. Around 40 to 50 fry are then placed in a separate tank away from the adults that would otherwise surely eat them. Although, I have now successfully raised two lots of young using the separation technique, not one fry has survived when I have left the female in the original tank.

 

When separated from the parents, the fry are quite well developed, at around 4mm in length, even displaying the three spots so distinctive in adult Lithobates. They are fully independent and will accept crushed flake food but daphnia small enough to go through the mesh of an ordinary green fish net are perfect for growing healthy fish. Three to Four small meals a day seems ideal but they will survive with just one or two.

 

I have recently purchased, through the trading post, another four foot tank as a “growing out” tank for young fish. I find that having this amount of space means that the fry are able to grow very quickly. Also, there is nothing quite like watching a large school of young fish moving as a single entity in a spacious tank. Young Lithobates are fast growing fish that always demand to be fed. Again, I find live and frozen daphnia a fantastic and cheap way to quickly grow young fish. An added bonus has been that local aquariums have been quite happy to purchase Lithobates and so my growing out tank has already paid for itself.

 

I was quite surprised to find out that Sulphur-Crested Lithobates had not been recorded as being bred by anyone in the CDAS as they are easily found in most of the local aquariums in the ACT and surrounding districts and seem quite easy to breed. I can recommend this fish to anyone who keeps or is thinking of keeping African Cichlids. This spectacular but relatively peaceful fish has many of the endearing qualities that makes it perfect for the medium sized aquarium.

 

Further information on Otopharynx lithobates can be found at the following informative site: http://www.cichlidae.com/tanks/t044.html

 

Only a few eggs were salvaged, every other day, and the mops were placed into a clean tank with aged brackish water. One week's yield of eggs were collected but this was not very many. After that it was thought that further eggs would be too disparate in age, so back to the books. One told us that eggs would hatch in 2 days; another said 11-13 days. So all we could do was to wait and watch. The temperature was 27C and we had a sponge filter, plus a bubbling airstone in their tank. On the 8th day after the first egg-laden spawning mop was introduced, the first fry were seen. They were free-swimming and ready to accept food, which was given in the smallest size as they were very tiny. In a few days they could accept vinegar eels. In a few days further, they were filling up with microworms and at about 8 days they accepted newly hatched brine shrimp. Although we had only a small number of swimming fry, the hatching rate relative to eggs was about 50% and we were pretty happy with it. The fry grew fairly slowly over the first month.

 

We have learned that as these fish come from fast flowing waters, they need plenty of aeration, plus clean water, with regular partial changes. They do not like prolonged exposure to a temperature of 27C but do respond in spawning better at this temperature. 24C to 25C is adequate for the most part. The fish are happy in alkaline and fairly hard water, containing approximately one teaspoon of salt per gallon. To maintain both alkalinity and hardness, we added shellgrit to the filter. As yet we have not moved the adults to test how sensitive they are and without any good reason, we probably won't.

 

As to why these fish are called Rainbowfish, well that is still a mystery.

 

Desert Gobies grow to about 60mm long and are usually mottled brown, grey and olive green in colour. They are bottom dwelling fish which prefer shallow water because they are forced to. The little fellows evolved without a swim bladder, and to remain in midwater they swim constantly in a headup fashion. As soon as they stop swimming they sink back to the bottom.

 

When the male Desert Goby decides it is time to find a mate, settle down and raise a family, the colour change is dramatic. They change from their normal colouring to an overall olive green which lightens to yellow on the head. The head grows larger in proportion to that of the rest of the body when compared to the female. The pectoral, second dorsal, anal and caudal fins become black fringed with a narrow border of stark white. The first dorsal fin becomes royal blue and yellow fringed with a narrow border of black. Picasso couldn't have done better if he had designed the colour scheme, which is truly a magnificent sight.

 

Water conditions are not important, according to Merrick and Schmidals book "Australian Freshwater Fishes" they will live in distilled water through to marine conditions. Temperature tolerances are from 5 to 41 degrees C and they are often found in artesian springs and bores where the water is so hard you can almost walk, on it. Any creature that makes its home in Central Australia has to be this tough.

 

The specimens I had were put into an aquarium of 160 litres with aged tap water, about four desert spoons of marine salt and one of epsom salts. The water was kept at 22 degrees C and they were fed chopped earthworms, frozen Artemia salina (Brine Shrimp), pea and prawn puree, (see Tank Talk Vol. 9 No. 2 page 21), live Daphnia magna, and flake food. They have huge appetites for their size and grow very quickly.

 

Rocks with spaces underneath to form caves were placed in the aquarium and soon some of the fishes, the males, began to change colour. The females' bellies began to swell and the males' heads grew larger. Early one morning one of the male's colours had intensified and he was darting in and out of his cave chasing the other males away. When a female came near his cave entrance, he would try to entice them into his cave by erecting his fins, wagging his whole body then swimming back into his cave hoping that she will follow.

 

After a couple of days of this behaviour, one females would follow him into the cave then swim straight of the back out again. Unfortunately, time didn't allow me to stay and watch. After eight hours (normal period spent at place of employment) the rock was lifted up and there was a patch of about 150 oval shaped eggs hanging from the ceiling of the cave and attached by little short threads. This first spawning went fungoid and I think it must have been infertile.

 

The second spawning was taken away from the male after about six days when the eyes were clearly visible and placed in a small 15 litre aquarium. After about eight days they started to hatch. It took about another five days before every egg case was fee of its occupant. The fry were very large and easy to feed. They took Turbatrix aceti (Vinegar Eels) and Anquillula glutinus (Microworms) as a first food and were eating Brine Shrimp within a week. They grew quickly and always seem to be looking for something else to eat.

 

The male guarding the eggs allows other females to enter his cave and up until the last time I looked, under his rock, there were about 1000 eggs, all in various stages of development.

 

Anyone with a community aquarium which has some space for a bottom dwelling species should include some Desert Gobies. Their antics and some of the positions they get themselves into will keep you amused. They are peaceful towards other fish, and the males that have a cave to protect only chase fishes that come within a few Inches of their home and even then only chase them a very short distance before returning to their cave.

 

Editor's Note: Desert Gobies will always hold a special place in my fishy memories. They were the first of nearly a thousand points worth of fish that Julie and I bred, yet I will never forget them. They deserve better than to have been totally forgotten by Canberra’s aquarist community. For those interested, TFH magazine of August 1988 has an excellent article by Deborah and Rodney Ralph, former Society Treasurer and President respectively, which has some photos of Deborah’s of Desert Gobies in various stages of their lives.

 

They were not placed into the traps until they were very ripe and as luck would have it, both lots had not been in the trap any longer than 24 hours before spawning took place. To get a good quantity of fertilised eggs we left them in tor two to three days then the parents and trap were removed. The eggs hatched in 2 days and in another 2-3 days were free swimming.

 

Infusoria, liquifry and Sera micron food were given until they were big enough to accept newly hatched brine-shrimp, small daphnia, cyclops and dried food. With this type of food their growth is quick and relatively troublefree.

 

Our first few batches were a disaster. They would hatch, then die. At the time we were feeding them a commercial fry mixture. A few attempts led to the death of both male and female from the oily scum that develops, and it happened quite fast overnight. Finally we had some young fry. We didn't even know that they were there until I decided once more to strip the tank and try again. There were seven. They must have been at least three weeks old as all had developed their labyrinth organs.

 

A few more failures and we were close to giving up. Then we bought a beautiful turquoise male. We decided to have another go, but my breeding tank was full of molly fry. My l0 year old's silver molly regularly produced many fry, but on this occasion had produced 107. We decided to use the 'sick' tank. It has an undergravel filter and was planted with lace plant and floating jenny. I told my daughter that I couldn't be bothered taking out the filter as the tank had been completely stripped the previous day, and I wasn't about to do it again. We sloped the gravel quite steeply from front to the back, so we could put the female in a coffee jar at the back of the tank. I didn't bother with the pH level, as this wasn't a serious 'go', just an attempt to keep one daughter happy. The temperature was 30C. I purchased a long, wide riser tube to cover the riser and tubing of the filter so that the bubblenest wouldn't break up.

 

The male made the biggest bubblenest I have seen, being several inches in diameter, and at least an inch high. The mating was successful. I mated him to one of our 'undiscovered' bunch. We left the male in until he was a nervous wreck in one corner. Success! We had 18 viable fry, 17 of whom are now 2 1/2 months old.

 

Spurred on by this success we tried again, this time with a male from our original seven. We had two ripe females, so I gave him both. He obliged by stripping them both. It seems we now have approx 30-50 viable fry.

 

They are in their third week and labyrinth organs are developing well. They are just over a centimetre long. Their food for the first week was frequent feedings of home-made liquid fry food. It makes the tank mucky, but cleanable. Now they have 4 feeds a day, 2 of liquid fry, 2 of Brine Shrimp nauplii. I also think that the success is due to the fact that whenever I put fighters and floating jenny together, the latter rots. Instant infusoria culture.

 

As a footnote to this, we cleaned the tank when the fighter fry were 4 weeks old, and we have 75 fry! OK, any suggestions from anyone as to how we separate them all, 'cause I don't have 75 small jars'? We also have a tank full of 2 week old fry. HELP'

 

Editors Note: An excellent article which should inspire the others of us that haven't stuck with Fighters over the years to give them another go. One of our more experienced members who has bred a lot of fiddly fish has been quoted as saying "if you can breed the Siamese Fighter in reasonable quantities, you can breed anything!" Like Father Thorofare used to say, "I think there's something in that for all of us, don't you.

 

In the past I have bought, tried to breed and wasted probably well over 300 dollars on Cardinals. The visit to the shop tempted me once more. With Bob's (the owner’s) permission I was able to select 2 pairs by myself because my 'spending spree' would stop a shop assistant from doing business for a long time. At home I conditioned the Cardinals with live food only and they quickly grew to the spawning size of the Neon Tetra. Mature Cardinals are larger when well fed.

 

The rule for breeding Tetras is to try to spawn young fish as soon as possible to avoid egg-bound females.

 

The Cardinal Tetra was discovered in 1952 in the upper reaches of the Rio Negro in Brazil. After being given the initial name of Hyphressobrycon cardinali, there was a genus revision in 1983 and they are now known as Paracheirodon axelrodi.

 

Cardinals live in coloured water and shaded areas with slow water movement. These quiet parts of the river are known as remansos. The local collectors know well "no remansos - no Cardinals". The richest spots can yield 5-8 fish per metre square. The remansos are typically 1.5 - 6.0 metres long and 0.8 to 2.5 metres wide. Depth of water 0.2 to 0.4 metres with a maximum of 0.7 metres, water temperature 26.5 C.

 

The water is extremely poor in food. The Cardinals live in schools of mature specimens (23 - 28 mm long ~ ready to spawn) and juveniles around 13 mm long. The largest Cardinals in the wild are 30 to 33 mm. Aquarium fish grow to 50 to 65 mm and live 6-7 years while the Cardinals in nature only manage 12 to 16 months.

 

Young Cardinals should be grown in soft water (Canberra water is perfect) to stop degeneration of their kidney. Spawning conditions require (according to European breeders) pH 4.6 to 6.2 (optimum 5.8), hardness of 40-60 mS.

 

Cardinals lay their eggs in darkness, thus darkening of the spawning tank is required. Eggs are laid in 8-14 day intervals with up to 150 even 350 eggs. They are ready to spawn at 6-7 months of age.

 

With all the knowledge available from the hobby literature and my European friends I have set up spawning tanks for this species probably a hundred times, without much hope. It was extremely demoralising when someone in our Society claimed a spawning of Cardinals and raising them in a community tank. It puzzled me as I have bred hundreds of Neon Tetras, and fry up to 3 weeks of age are sensitive and require properly sized food.

 

The spawning tanks were little 200 x 200 mm by 150 mm high (hold 4 litres of water) similar to those used in Europe. On the bottom I placed a stainless steel gridmesh to protect the eggs from their hungry parents. The water used was from the Snowy Mountains, melted snow creek, pH 6.8 and extremely soft. I didn't bother to lower the pH or add peat moss. If the fish spawned, then 1 would adopt a more scientific approach.

 

I added the fish and spawning medium, a bunch of nylon fishing line. I darkened the tanks, each containing a pair of fish. I prefer spawning Tetras in pairs. This gives perfect control of productive pairs and limits interference from other fish. The tanks can be very small. This is not applicable for spawning Congo or African Flag Tetras where the spawning 'run' is fact and long or some aggressive Tetras where larger tanks are better.

 

My friends in Europe tell me they keep each pair in the spawning tank for 3 days (remember no food) and then they try a new pair. With my two pairs it was easy, 3 days in, 7 days out. After a few cycles, checking daily revealed eggs under the gridmesh. It was great. A few eggs were fungussed but most were glassy. The pair was removed. Water temperature was 26 C.

 

After 1 1/2 days around 60 fry developed. I kept them darkened by the fourth day started to observe when they needed food. The problem was they kept standing vertically against the glass when the light penetrated. Determining when to start feeding was a nightmare. A magnifying glass and careful observation of the egg yolk tummy size helped.

 

I was expecting very small fry as the eggs are smaller than Neon Tetras'. They were 3-4 mm, similar to Neons. Growth is described in the literature as slow. I found it disgustingly slow and to provide tiny live food I had to collect nauplii of Cyclops (freshly born small Cyclops: crustaceans that live in the paddock ponds) on a daily basis, strain them to the required size and not overfeed. Future followers please note: Brine Shrimp are monster food and are taken only after 4 to 6 weeks, so big are they!

 

In that time I quashed the claim of breeding Cardinals in a community tank. The fry would be wiped out in no time by the other fish.

 

After 3 weeks I introduced by mistake some larger food, some still very small Cyclops. The fry were attacked by a few adult Cyclops and I quickly lost 30 fry.

 

In 4 weeks the Neon Tetra fry shine like their parents and their length is 10-12 mm. The little Cardinals were 8-9 mm and at that time the red colouration started to appear dully, but the neon strip wasn't shining at all. They took another 5-6 weeks to start looking like miniature adults. Still, feeding was a problem. Microworms were not taken terribly enthusiastically. Introduction of larger Cyclops was always a disaster with the loss of a few more fry. Neon Tetras, once they have their full colours although still small, are pretty tough and are willing to eat relatively large food (the same size as their eyes) but Cardinals are finicky.

 

With all the problems of getting two Cardinals willing to spawn, fulfilling the requirements of water chemistry, extremely slow growth of the fry, and the feeding difficulties I have very little patience left to breed them in larger numbers. This is a pleasure that I leave to others.

 

Andy did not even remember the name of the fish, although he said that the fish were peaceful. At first I intended to decline the 'gift, - not having a free tank.  Then I realised I could do a little reorganisation, ending up with a spare 15 litre tank. In an hour I had the "last fish in Australia". They did not look much like killies, but were quite pretty. The males are approximately 75mm long, metalic blue body with fins rather square in shape. Red spots are on the fins and the tail. Females are less blueish, more silver, plain, and approx 50 mm long. One was badly deformed. This was to my thinking the sign of an old fish, therefore useless for breeding. I was thinking that I could put her out of her misery but fortunately, I postponed the act for sometime later.

 

Receiving the fish with very little information, I consulted the CDAS library copy of Axerod's atlas of fishes. There are pictures and descriptions of this genus and species but the description is very sketchy. The following is written there:

 

"The larger type (of killies) as Proatopus and Lamprichtys are colurful and will spawn in the aquarium but they tend to be short lived and not very hardy.  Many or most Lampeyes place their eggs in crevices such as floating pieces of natural cork or behind airline tubing in the darkest corner of the tank. Identification is almost impossible for specimens and they are poorly covered in available aquarium literature."

 

That was all. There were some good pictures showing the difference within Proatopus genus. It consisted of ProatopusUgracilis, P. similis, P. abberans and P. nototaemia species. Both Proatopus and Lamprichtys are called lampeyes in the aquarium hobby. Lamprichtys live only in Lake Tanganyika. My limited knowledge was enriched by Andy's information that this fish sprays eggs into rock cravities. He also brought a nice looking slotted PVC pipe which he said was used successfully by the original owner.

 

Adding to the description of this fish (recently learnt), the Procatopus family is distributed through West Africa to Southern, Central and East Africa. Procatopus abberraus is from Cameroon and Nigeria, where they live in streams of the rainforests and savannahs, in water 40 to 150 dH hardness, ph 6-7 and a temperature 20-24C. My guess was that water with less hardness and a temperature up to 28-30C, considering the proximity of the equator, would also be ok.

 

I placed the six fish in a tank (300 x 200 x 400 high) where just an airstone was the only luxury (no filter). The fish settled down quite well and were fed live food. They adore daphnia and white worms. The cyclops are not hunted and are the last food eaten. I am sure that tubifix, mosquito larvae and bloodworms would also be taken very keenly.

 

As I have mentioned, I have received the special spawning slotted plastic pipe. It has a removable core wrapped in filter wool mattress. I love these gadets where the inventor shows a flair of imagination. It A very creative toy.the was a real "beauty" but (I found out later) was totaly useless. Equipped with a total lack of knowledge and without any lead how to spawn the fish, it was disheartening. I started to see the whole exercise as a waste of time. Stuck with the fish occupying a tank, I started to check the slotted pipe for eggs of unknown size and numbers. With no discoveries, my enthusiasm plummeted down.

 

Then I found a male fish dead. It did not appear that the males were fighting, but there was a clear dominant male that was occassionally chasing the others. Now with only two males, the dominant fish started to be more aggressive I had to take one male out. To complicate things, one female, the better one, showed development of ulcers and died. It is known that killies stay more healthy in harder water (say 80-160 ppm,) but spawning and development of eggs is better in softer water. This is the pattern of the dry and wet seasons in the tropic where killies live.

 

To prevent the crank male chasing the remaining two females, I placed a few larger bunches of Indonesian fem to provide hiding places for the fish. The fern was old bunches with massive stalk and a lot of black roots. After the loss of a female I decided to maintain a higher hardness in the tank. I prepared a 200mm long part of a ladies stocking filled with shell crit. To keep the grit inside, I tied a knot at each end and then hanged this piece of art on the side wall of the tank.

 

Passing weeks were increasing my frustration, despite checking the slotted pipe reguarly - no eggs. Then the sunny summer changed into storms and rainy days. I felt that this could be chance because this type of weather increases the mating activity of all fish. The killies were not any exception and the male started 'hanky-panky' with a female. I tried to look for released eggs. The fish behaved similar to corydoras cats with some control of the egg deposition. The myth of 'spraying' eggs was gone. But I could not find any eggs. There were so many simulated laying of eggs by the pair interrupted by wrong approach or wrong place or something else - still the pipe had no eggs.

 

But sheer chance, while looking for attached eggs to the leaves of the fem, I spotted some transparent debris within the twisted fem stalk deep in between the hairy roots. I pushed a small stick into that area and the first egg came out. It was round, pale yellow approximately 1.5 mm in diamenter, and not particularly sticky - which was the key discovery. Using the magnifying lens, I examined many other possible locations and found two more eggs. I reduced the fern bunches to the best three. In a few days I had collected more than 10 eggs. Under normal conditions the female deposits 1 to 3 eggs each day, but this will continue for many weeks.

 

The collected eggs (by fingers) were placed into a plastic container (150 x 150 x 100 high) with water 50 mm deep (this depth of water is not what I started with - explained later on). The water specs were pH 7.5, hardness 16ppm and temperature fluctuating between 22'C to 28'C. The container was in a shaded (not dark) area. The methylene blue was used as an anti-bacteria and fungus protection - the colour of the water in the container was light blue.

 

After a week the eggs showed the development of eyes as two black spots and later the dark body of the fry was clearly visible. The eggs were about 60-70% fertile with the development to hatching of the fry 35 to 40 days. The fry are dark, 4-5mm long. From the first day they swim horizontally - the yolk reserve is minimal - and on the second day after hatching theyy must be fed. Some fry did have difficulties swimming horizontally, probably due to a slow development of the air bladder function. The hatching is continuous, daily 2-5 fry (from two females). This required a number of small tanks to keep similar size fry - born within a week to 10 days of each other. Each tank only had a slow airstone.

 

To my great surprise, the fry are not keen to eat small live cyclops - they prefered microworms (I do not cultivate brine shrimps or other food). The microworms were sinking relatively fast to the bottom of the fry tanks and presenting a bit of a problem as the young fry swim at the water surface and would not descend. It required frequent swirling of the water to get the mircoworm to the fry - very irritating. After some time I had the idea to lower the water level - this would bring the fry closer to microworms. I reduced the depth to 50mm and won. The young fry would pick up food without any assistance. The feeding should be careful - do not overfeed.

 

With a depth of only 50mm, the fry only had 1-2 litres of water. This required careful changes of the same source water - very important. The fry grow relatively slowly. I tried to increase the water hardness from 16ppm to 80ppm. However I could not observe any difference with the fry, therefore I returned back to my tap water (16ppm).

 

As the parent fish did not eat the eggs, I reduced the egg collection to once every 2-3 days. I was puzzled how the female got the eggs into the very obstructed hiding spots. I tried some experiments with slotted mangrove wood, but these offerings were not successful I was now finding less and less eggs - I thought that is was a resting period in the egg production.

 

By chance, during a regular cleaning of the tank, I handled the stocking with the shell grit. 1 felt a typical rolling movments of a fish egg on my fingers. I realised that the fish had often been making "false" spawning around the suspended stocking bag. I examined the stocking's knots and to my surprise 1 found tens of eggs placed in gaps and overhangs of the knots - at both ends of a vertically hanging bag. The eggs matched the stocking colour (light beige) and were nearly invisible. The puzzle was solved. It all now became routine work - the number of fry were increasing, ten, twenty, fifty... it was easy.

 

Some may consider this article to be a bit long winded, [I don't ... editor] with too many minute details and descriptions of fish not easily obtained. I have done this to show the fascinating difficulties facing a hobbyist trying to achieve a goal without already having the applicable knowledge. It is very satisfying to crack problems of any magnitude. Some may say "A fish - so what". But life is full of challenges and any of them being successfully accomplished brings the ultimate satisfaction. [Others may also say "A job well done"]

 

The Turquoise Rainbow is aptly named, as its colour suggests a bluish/turquoise which varies in intensity according to lighting conditions. The top half of the fish is blue and the lower a silvery white. These colours are then divided mid laterally by a dark blue lateral band.

 

The fish attains a 'standard length' (tip of nose to base of tail) of 100 mm (approx. 4 inches), although they are capable of reproduction at the much smaller size of 40 mm. The male, as in most Rainbowfishes, is a little larger than the female. The largest have seen, very old specimens, Were approx 125 mm or 5 inches in length. A dominant or spawning male in a sight to behold and a true wonder of nature. His forehead turns a really bright orange in colour and then flashes various shades of blue, green, purple and violet. These colour changes may last up to about 1 second for each shade but continually change whilst the male is spawning which in turn can last for 30 minutes or more. These colours are almost as bright and attractive as a series of neon lights. Spawning may take place at any time of the day but mine spawn mostly during the evening.

 

Sexing these fish by finnage can be rather difficult and I find it easier to sort by body shape with the female's body being more torpedo styled, and the male's head is of slightly different appearance. Once they are spawning the difference becomes very obvious.

 

These particular Rainbows are placid by nature and are suitable for community tanks. However, they should not be spawned in a tank with other Rainbows present as cross spawning is highly possible and totally undesirable.

 

Once I have conditioned my breeding fish (5 in all) with extra titbits of live food etc. I introduce a synthetic wool mop which is suspended in the water at the top of the tank. Rainbows will deposit their eggs in this mop in preference to an assortment of living plants! After much chasing of the females by the males the females will inspect the mop and then quiver over and around the mop whilst expelling their eggs. This will usually happen within 24 hours of introducing the mop and will be immediately followed by the male quivering and shaking his head over the mop, expelling sperm to fertilise the trapped eggs. He will be wearing his brightest and best colours at this time. As soon as they have finished spawning I remove the mop (New Guinean Rainbows are avid eggbeaters) to a separate small tank 250 mm x 200 mm x 200 mm to which I have added aged water, 1/2 a teaspoon of rock salt and about 1 teaspoon of shellgrit and a small airstone, bubbling gently. Filtration is not necessary at this stage, nor is gravel, but a small amount of Duckweed is optional.

 

Once you have removed the mop replace it with a clean one if desired. I repeat this process for about 5 days, always placing the egg-laden mop in with the previous one. Hatching takes about 5 days at 27 C and up to 15 days at around 20 C.

 

Once the fry have hatched and are free-swimming, feeding begins. Green water and the tiniest amount of egg yolk (hard boiled) are very suitable for the first couple of days. I then add Vinegar Eels to this diet and maintain this feeding for a good week. After the first week Microworms and Brine Shrimp are substituted and I feed this for another week or so. If you have no cultures of live food and do not wish to keep them very fine commercial food ouch as Sera Micronä and

TetraMinä may be substituted but be careful as the water may become polluted if these preparations are overfed. At 2 to 3 weeks of age Daphnia may be fed but only a small amount at least 3 times daily. Do not overfeed live food as it can easily lead to a high mortality rate as I discovered when I overfed my Glossolepis incisus fry.

 

Finally you can progress to other foods such to finely ground flake etc. Water changes should be carried out regularly and when necessary. The pH is not critical, somewhere around 7 is OK, and it is now time to introduce a small filter ouch as a Corner box type containing filter carbon, shellgrit and filter wool. Be patient as their growth rate is rather slow especially when Compared to guppies. A word of warning here: do not put them in with their parents too soon as they will consider them live food and scoff down the lot. Maintain your fish at around 24 C and feed flake, Daphnia, Brine Shrimp, chopped earthworms, small ants, Cyclops, plenty of vegetables (crushed green peas are good), and vacuum away what is not eaten. They even enjoy Micro Vit pellets intended for the catfish that help clean their tank. I also keep Duckweed in the tank as a food source!

 

The future of this fine fish is somewhat debatable as heavy metal pollution from the Ok Tedi mining project has reached Lake Kutubu, and also many other river systems in New Guinea. The Government of New Guinea denies that this is happening, but with the dollar today seeming more important than ever, who knows? Oil has been discovered nearby and roads now seem imminent (previous access was by helicopter only) and to top it all off the government wants to establish a settlement of 2000 people on the lake's foreshores. This will also be disastrous in the long run.

 

While we have this fine fish let's try and maintain it. Remember 20% water changes carried out weekly is not overdoing it. Use aged Canberra water for the changes, don't overfeed, and do supply a heavily planted environment. Lighting is at your discretion and give them plenty of growing room.

 

For further reading on New Guinean fishes see Dr Gerald R Allen's book Freshwater fishes of New Guinea. Additional information on keeping Rainbowfish may be gleaned from Australian Native Fishes for Aquariums by Ray Leggett and John R Merrick. Both are available from our Society's well stocked library. Better still, join the Native Fish Study Group (see me, Doug Williams or Andrew Boyd for details).

 

I was given a superb trio of this type of tetra, all mature and the male was definitely he best Diamond Tetra I had ever seen.

 

Some months ago, I had tried to spawn a few acquired Diamond Tetras but the females weren't filled with eggs and then I lost the only two males I had and that was the end of that. There were some mysterious reasons in he loss of the older fish.

 

These beautiful fish originally come from Lake Valencia in Venezuela and grow to 60mm in length. They are extremely lively and eat all sorts of food offered to them. The metalic silvery grey colour is dotted with irregular mirror like spots and the male has an elongated dorsal fin. As to the water conditions, they are not demanding except for spawning, as a harder water with pH of 6.5 is preferred.

 

After the Melbourne trip and a short acclimatisation to their new environment, I placed a pair into a 450x250x250min tank. I learned a few lessons from previous trials. The fish are very shy and run wildly in a very small tank.  For this reason I used a large bunch of Java Moss as the shelter and spawning medium. Being quite suspicious about this natural plants, during a check of the cleanliness of the bunch, I discovered a lot of planaria worms. These creatures can eat a whole lot of eggs and non swimming fry in a few days.

 

The difficulty was to clean out a living plant of the worms and not kill the plant, which was solved by placing the plant in a container and the submersion of a copper plate into the container for a days. To see a positive result, I left a few snails in the same tank, until they were killed by the copper which was dissolved in water. Then the Java moss was rinsed in fresh water and freed of anything that was living or dead.

 

As mentioned before, the fish were panicking very easily. I used a towel to cover the front of the tank to prevent any disturbances.

 

On the second day they spawned, the only indication of the spawning were some fungused eggs scattered close to the Java Moss. The parents were removed, tank completely covered to keep eggs in the darkness. During an occasional check on the second day I saw a few wriggling fry. After 5 days the fry started to swim and eat.

 

Daily visits to a farm pond to collect small nauplia of cyclops solved those 10 critical days before the fry started to take microworms and grindal worms. The small fry are not fussy about their type of food. They grow reasonably quickly and after 4 weeks they were around 5mm long, at this stage I transferred them to a larger tank.  It seems amazing to me how young fish can fill their tummies nearly to bursting point without actually bursting. At this age, the young fish are looking rather a drab silvery colour.

 

There was a very low loss of fry (hardly any) and finally around 200 young fish are still swimming, with hopes of bringing them up into maturity to form a few good spawning pairs.

 

I would like to give thanks, once more, to the Melbourne hobbyists and the beautiful fish provided by Mr. Ron Bowman.

 

I had always a sort of an affection for this fish and occasionally bought a few fish with the intention to breed them. Some Sydney shops had rather poor stock and the results, considering the investment, would be very poor. A year ago, I had discovered a tank full of these fish in a Canberra shop, which were extremely small but promised more in the long term because the fish can be conditioned and brought into maturity with some care. The cost was a fraction of the Sydney price.

 

My first purchase was 15 fish and as a matter of disease prevention have I accommodated them in a small tank, to save an additional heater. Feeling they should be fed well from the beginning, I have added a good number of Cyclops. As usual, Murphy’s Law proved correct, little fish get irritated by the number of cyclops in the tank and during the night I had lost half of them. Only the few who jumped out of the small tank into the big tank were saved. The next day I went, for the second time, to buy some replacements and the immediate investment didn't look so attractive.

 

This or similar problems happens to me frequently,I know all about it, but never learnt the lesson. After that, all fish survived and developed into very nice specimens. At least the start was made.

 

The fish originate from the basin of the middle reaches of the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers. In nature it keeps close to the banks near water plants and decaying wood. It grows to about 60mm long. In captivity it prospers best when kept by itself but I have found no problems when kept it with other tetras.'

 

They always swim at an angle of about 45 degrees, the water should be low in hardness and the pH kept between 6.5 and 7.5. The male is slimmer than the female when mature and its pelvic fins have white margins and white tips. The body is mostly black with a silvery underside.

 

For breeding, a small tank of 7-10 litres, clear soft water and a pH reading of 6.0-6.5. Place in the tank a broad leaf plant like Cryptocoryne or an Amazon Sword, wash it and place it with the bare roots held by glass strip on the tank floor. The fish spawn on the underside of the leaves and during the spawning act the female ejects 1-2 eggs and sticks them to this surface. Spawning yields usually 30-40 fry but higher numbers under ideal conditions are possible.

 

The water temperature range for spawning should be between 24-28 degrees celsius, fry hatch within 24-36 hours and in 5-6 days start to swim. They are very unusual by swimming nearly vertical and being black they are very visible. The advantage of the try feeding is they collect micro-worms from the tanks bottom which solves the problem of lost food once fallen down. They require very small food for at least a week to ten days then micro-worms can start to supplement the diet with small Cyclops or Daphnia.

 

In a month, they reach 7-10mm in length and appear quite hardy as to the quality of water and to pH fluctuations. It takes 3-4 months to bring them up to the size not to be swallowed by other tetras. This exotic looking, peaceful fish is worth keeping in our tanks and gives a lot of satisfaction when one can maintain a school of this bizarre fish.

 

Many people are put off keeping the large range of Neo-tropical Dwarf Cichlids for two reasons. The first of these is availability, many of these fish are difficult to locate and fairly expensive when available. The second is the reputation they have gained as difficult and sensitive fish which are problematic in their keeping. For a determined enthusiast neither of these should present a problem. Many species are available sporadically through local outlets and are reasonably common in the larger specialist stores in Sydney and Melbourne. If these fish are provided with the basic level of aquarium care, most will do well in their captive environment. With a slightly more concerted effort, most can, be spawned and raised in captivity with little difficulty.

 

The first step in successfully keeping these fish is selection of the keeping tank, which should also serve as the spawning tank for at least the initial few attempts. The best tanks for these fish are of large surface area, square based tanks of 45 x 45 cm or 60 x 60 cm. While these are good choices, the best tanks I have found are 90 x 60 cm. In tanks of these dimensions, individual fish are able to stake out a reasonable territory and feel secure. A tank of 45cm² will enable one male and several females to establish a reasonably peaceful spawning community whereas the 60 cm² tank will allow 2 males and half a dozen females to establish neighbouring, and in places overlapping, territories. A larger tank allows more of each sex to be kept and interesting territorial rituals and displays can be observed. Often a female will establish a territory between rival males and spawn with either whilst the other is not looking her way. In Apistogramma I have observed this behaviour, in borellii, cacatuoides and macmastefi and have experienced it also with Nannacara anomala.

 

Regardless of the size of tank selected, there should be plenty of cover provided in the form of driftwood, river rocks (NON-CALCIFEROUS), slate walls and caves. Any tank containing dwarf cichlids should have the rockwork placed directly on the base of the tank and pre-soaked driftwood placed following this. The substrate is added fast, along with any small stones or driftwood pieces you may wish to sit upon it. All dwarf cichlids are great excavators and any object placed upon the substrate is an invitation to them to dig beneath it. By placing large rocks directly upon the base the danger of a collapse is much reduced. If you are not sure of the security of a rock, try another in its place or in place of the base rock. Never allow unsecured rock piles to remain in place. It can not be overemphasised how important having cover in the tank is. Not just low down but to about 2/3 the height of the tank through the rear 1/2 of the tank and about 1/3 the height through most of the front 1/2 of the tank. The irony of dwarf cichlids is; the more places there are to hide, the more often the fish will be out in the open. The feeling of security is gained through simply knowing there is a bolt hole nearby. Far from substrate hugging, shy fish, dwarf cichlids in the correct environment will swim at all depths confidently and without fear.

 

Because many dwarf cichlids prefer a dim tank, and because of the lack of easily accessible substrate due to all the structure, plants which will grow on the driftwood and rockwork in dim light are required. Java fern, Java moss and a number of Anubias sp. suit these requirements and should be planted as thickly as space or budget permit. Where possible, crypts should be planted in what substrate is visible in the front of the tank. None of these plants are native to South America and as such this is not recommended planting where a bio-typical aquarium is desired. For a tank where the primary interest is the well being of the fish, better plants can not be selected.

 

The best way to encourage spawning is to keep the fish in good condition at all times. The temperature of the tank should be around 25-26 degrees Celsius for general keeping, pH 6.5-7 and as soft as possible, no more than 5 DH of General hardness or 3 DH of Carbonate hardness. (90ppm Gh, 55ppm Kh). There must be no trace of ammonia or nitrite and nitrate must be kept as low as possible though regular water changes. Because dwarf cichlids are not tolerant of fluctuations in water properties, small regular changes are more beneficial than larger changes on a fortnightly or monthly basis. 5% changed every two or three days is perfect. Feed the fish three or four times a day with a mixture of frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms and a mix of three or more quality flake foods, at least one of which should be weighted in the vegetable department. I feed boiled, skinned peas twice a week and the fish seem to enjoy this food and benefit from it.

 

Because of the large amount of organic material being passed into the water and the cichlids’ intolerance of waste products, a good quality filter unit must be employed and maintained. This filter should not be of too high a flow if the fish are to maintain their health for any period of time so select two small internal powerfilters for the smaller tanks (rated to ½ the tank capacity per hour) or a small canister filter operating in conjunction with an internal filter on larger tanks. Any filter used will require regular cleaning and will be heavily reliant on mechanical filtration as there is limited bacterial activity at the low pH often required for spawning these fish so biological filtration cannot be relied upon.

 

In an aquarium that is in an area that has heavy traffic or regularly has people nearby, it may be necessary to include dither fish to encourage the cichlids to come out of cover. This can also be done to liven the tank up a little. Remember that if the time comes for spawning the cichlids, it is best done in their own tank so whatever fish are included must be either timid enough not to brave the defences of spawning cichlids yet tough enough to withstand constant harassment or easily removed from the tank, keeping in mind all that cover. Tetras such as glowlights and flame tetras are good for the purpose as are Neon Rainbows (Metanatonia praecox) and, surprisingly, other dwarf cichlid species. A community of several species of dwarf cichlids works very well in a large enough tank, I use the 90 x 60 cm tanks for this. In the past I have had up to nine species of South American and West African riverine cichlids, a total of approximately twenty five adult cichlids in pairs or trios, in a tank of this size. All species but one (Microgeophagus ramerizi) spawned and reared their fry successfully on numerous occasions in this tank and aggression was at an all time low for cichlid tanks, not one fish was lost as a result of fighting. Do not attempt to keep less than three species that are dissimilar in appearance and habits. My tank had:

 

  Microgeophagus altispinosa

  Microgeophagus ramerizi

  Apistogramma borelli

  Apistogramma cacatuoides

  Apistogramma macmasteri

  Apistogramma nijsseni

  Nannacara anomala

  Nannochromis transvestitus

  Pelvicachromis subocellatus

 

Provided the fish are maintained in good condition, they can usually be triggered to spawn by simply increasing the temperature by a few degrees. This should be done in conjunction with a water change, although this is not generally required to trigger the spawning, it can help with stubborn spawners and means the water is as clean as possible prior to the act. I find that it is often best to cease all tank maintenance for a couple of months before a serious spawning attempt. Food is offered once every two days during the first month and a half of this time and then 3 times a day for the final 2 weeks. At the end of this period, a 50% water change is performed and the heater readjusted up a few degrees. For the next week 10% of the water is changed daily and heavy feeding continues. At the end of the week, change 25% of the water. Most species will spawn with this treatment and then the real difficulties begin.

 

The first thing to do after eggs have been acquired is to decide if they are going to remain with the parents or be removed for artificial incubation. The only real reason they need removal is to prevent predation from tank mates that are too large for the parents to dissuade or from one or the other of the parents themselves. It is common for the first few spawns to be devoured by the young female but, if given the opportunity, they usually figure things out and prove to be excellent parents. If the eggs are not being devoured but are infertile and fungusing there may be several causes. The most common problem is that the pH and carbonate hardness are too high. Most dwarf cichlids require a pH of 5.5-6.5 and a hardness of less than 2 KH to have a reasonable viability level. If these parameters are met and the fertility is still very low, use a new male as there may be a problem with infertility or low sperm count. The last reason commonly encountered is inadequate care given by the parent responsible. The developing eggs require a supply of fresh water to be fanned over them by one or the other parents. Eggs that die fungus and are removed, along with other dirt particles, by the mouthing the parents subject the eggs to. Some parents never do very well at these tasks, others require a little practice. In this circumstance, or with parents that continuously devour their spawn, there is no option other than to incubate the eggs artificially.

 

In order to incubate the eggs it is necessary to have a small tank or breeding net into which the surface containing the spawn is placed. An airstone is placed just in front of this so that there is a constant stream- of bubbles rising past, not over, the eggs. The eggs must be inspected regularly and any infertile or dead eggs, these are generally white and opaque, must be removed before they develop fungus which will spread quickly to viable eggs and destroy the spawn. After the eggs have hatched, remove the spawning surface to remove the egg remains before they rot.

 

The majority of species are large enough to take microworms and brineshrimp naupiii when they become free swimming and these foods should be offered in abundance. It is crucial the water quality is maintained during the early period of these fishes lives as all young dwarf cichlids are susceptible to pollutants, and fluctuations in pH and temperature. After the first couple of weeks, white worm, small mosquito larvae and finely crushed flake are added to the menu and the fry should grow rapidly. Regular water changes and adequate filtration will ensure good health.

 

Provided with good conditions and adequate quality feeding these delightful little fish will live and spawn happily for several years. If space is at a premium and cichlids are on the wishlist then try keeping some of the dwarves. They will repay their cost and the difficulty in locating them many times over with their beauty, interesting behaviour and character.

 

We were lucky enough to see two of our five Angels pair off in our community tank. The pair were identified, the gold Angel was easy, as it was the only one we had and it turned out to be the female. She mated with one of our marble angels and as we had two the same size, we had to make sure we had kept the right one. The selected pair were given a two foot tank with a gravel bottom, tall plants and one tall wide leaved plant tor the eggs, all of their own. The water temperature was a constant 27 degrees celsius and of a neutral pH. They were conditioned on live and dried foods and had laid eggs a number of times before we were successful.

 

This time things would be different, as usual they chose the tall wide leaved plant and she laid the eggs and he followed closely behind fertilising them. This started at about 3pm one afternoon and went to about 7pm, before we said we had had enough. This time instead of removing the eggs, we removed the parents. We added a dose of promythesal and an airstone, which would keep the water circulating around the eggs to help stop them from going fungui. We waited and hoped that they had been well fertilised. They were. In two days 74 eggs had hatched and the rest were going white. The next few days were the hardest for us, watching them jiggling and wobbling on the leaf, but our main worry was the white eggs, whether or not they would harm the already hatched eggs.

 

Eventually, we could not stand by and do nothing, so most of the hatched Angles were siphoned off the original leaf, a few were carefully placed on a nearby clean leaf, a few on the front glass and we left a few on the old leaf just to see where the best position was. it turned out that all places were alright and five days after hatching they were free swimming. We fed them infusoria, strained egg yolk and newly hatched brine-shrimp. In the two foot tank it was very difficult to see whether or not they were getting enough tucker. The numbers seemed to be decreasing rapidly, so at eight days old we moved them by siphon to a 14 inch tank with only one loss in the move. here we fed them brine-shrimp, small daphnia, cyclops and dried foods that they eagerly ate, especially the live foods. They grew very fast and at 3 weeks old, looked like miniature replicas of their parents. Although we only had about 20 left, we had almost half gold and half marble or a mixture of both, it was really an unusual sight for us. They out grew the tank and were moved to a larger tank at a month old, still preferring small live foods. They seem to be quite sensitive to pH changes and prefer the temperature to be at 27 degrees celsius.

 

Therefore, without much ado, I shall get down to the fundamentals and suggest that beginners would do well to refer to my Book No. 1, under the heading "Introduction", which provides a general background to the keeping and care of Killifish. In it I have indicated the spawning habits, the level in the water at which the eggs are laid and the country of origin for each species and, wherever possible, the common name.

 

For those wishing to break into this field seriously, I would strongly suggest starting with the genus Aphyosemion, with the two relatively easier species A. gardneri and A. marmoratum, together with the comparatively difficult Epiplatys annulatus. A. gardneri (either the yellow or the blue form) is the easiest to breed. The common name is "Rocket Fish" because there is a red streak stretching from the caudal peduncle right through to the end of the caudal, fin. Keep the male and female separately and feed them live organisms, such as Tubifex worms, Daphnia and White Worms. The breeding tank should be a small one, say 12" x 8" x 8", and I generally cut a piece of polystyrene about 2" square, to serve as a float. Wash some Java Moss and then drape it over the polystyrene float until it touches the floor of the tank. The water should be slightly on the acidic side, say pH 6.6-6.8 and the temperature should be maintained at 24C.

 

When the pair of Killies are ready, introduce them into the small tank and if they are in breeding condition, they will start to spawn straight away. Aphyosemion gardneri is a "switch spawner' and the above arrangement of Java Moss will allow the pair to start at any level they happen to choose. The floor of the tank should be clean and kept as free as possible of fish wastes and other debris and as soon as the parent fish have finished spawning, they should be removed and put back where they came from. The eggs are generally difficult to locate but with experience of the particular species, one gets to know whereabouts to look for them.

 

The eggs start to hatch in about 16-20 days but hatching is rather uneven because the incubation period is quite variable and the fry do not emerge at any particular time of day. Frequent partial water changes are then very important and should be undertaken at least twice a day.

 

Replacement water should be adequately aged before use. I use 2 large plastic garbage bins, fill them with hot water from the tap and leave them uncovered for several hours. Before use, I treat the water with "water agec', obtainable in bottles from any pet store. I also use non-iodised common salt for the prevention of velvet disease (Oodinium sp.), to which Killifish are susceptible, the dosage being 1 teaspoon for salt to every 2.5 gallons of aged water.

 

Epiplatys annulatus is a very beautiful species but it is a difficult one to maintain. The fish are susceptible to bacterial infection and this can affect the eggs dramatically. Velvet disease can also be a problem but can be checked with the above mentioned salt treatment. Eggs that have obviously been damaged by infection should be removed promptly with a pipette and disposed of by burying and if the problem is a major one, treatment with methylene blue or acriflavine may be necessary.

 

Microworms may be a little too large for fry,at first, so the altemative of 'green water', which contains an abundance of infusoria, should be used as a starter. Set up a simple drip system to deliver 2 or 3 drops every half hour and use it for a week or so, before switching to Microworms and graded Daphnia.

 

As many of you would know, Lake Tanganyika is the home to some of the most spectacular and interesting aquarium fish available. This is Cichlid territory. Tanganyika is the sixth largest lake on Earth. It is 676 kilometres long and 64 kilometres across at its widest point. At 1,463 meters deep, Tanganyika is the second deepest lake in the world, behind only Lake Baykul in Russia. The water conditions encountered in the lake are somewhat unusual. While the temperature of a constant 26-27°C is reasonably typical of tropical climes, the water is very hard and alkaline. The pH ranges from 8.7 to 9.4 and the carbonate hardness is 200 to 240 parts per million. Fortunately, replicating this environment is a very easy task for the modern aquarist - but more on this later.

 

I first became acquainted with the Shell Dwellers by reading the Sydney Cichlid Society webpage (www.sydneycichlid.com). The owners of these fish wrote about them with such unmistakable passion and affection that I felt drawn towards keeping some. There are several species of Shell Dweller but one of the most readily available is Neolamprologus ocellatus (normally referred to as “ocellatus” or just “occi”).

 

Ocellatus grow to five centimetres, although females rarely exceed 4 centimetres. Colouration is basically fawn with a blue-purple blaze through the body, which is more or less apparent depending on the mood of the fish and the quality of lighting. Ocellatus are quite stocky and have a largish head. Further, there are two main subspecies. The “gold form” has a general golden hue whereas the “blue form” has distinct blue colouration around the head. The male of both subspecies has a dorsal fin with a slight gold rim. Females have a slightly more prominent white rim on the dorsal. Although, you may hear of the existence of the “black ocellatus”, this is actually another species, namely Neolamprologus meleagris.

 

I was determined to buy a pair of ocellatus on the 2002 CDAS trip to Sydney. Finally, I tracked some down at a reasonable price in Liverpool Aquarium. Upon arriving back at Eejay’s place in Canberra, I inspected my fish and while my other fish appeared very healthy, the ocellatus had that distinctive “if you want me to live then you’d better get me in a tank real soon” look. The fact I did not get a speeding ticket on the way home, I put down to good luck. While I did not have a specific tank set up, my 3ft community tank was slightly alkaline and hard enough that I thought that it would suffice as a temporary home.

 

For a month or so my Occis thrived. These little guys are real characters. I placed a few shells that I had gathered from beaches over the years into the tanks. The Occis would find the shell they wanted and basically bury it so that just the tip was sticking out of the gravel, with just enough room to afford ingress and egress for a small Tanganyikan Cichlid. They will take a variety of foods, including flake, but just love Daphnia.

 

While I have never actually seen them harm another fish, they defend their territory with much vigour. Any fish, fingers, cleaning magnets or whatever that stray within a few inches of their shell get the same treatment, a firm nip. Believe it or not, this grumpy behaviour is very endearing. The male and the female were quite interested in each other and would even tolerate the odd visit to each other’s shells. It seemed just a matter of time before I would have a brood of young ocellatus. However, fish keepers being what they are and Canberra winters being what they are, disaster struck. Yes, I left the heater off after doing a water change. Ok, I admit that this is a crime against fishkind but I bet that most of you have done the same at some time or another. Anyway, while the Tetras, Coryadoras, Glass Catfish and Rainbowfish were not happy about it, the 18° water temperature was quite fatal for my male Ocellatus. Big lesson, these guys do not like cold water.

 

For another nine months, I kept a very lonely female. It got to the point where I really felt sorry for her and so I set up a 2ft species tank. The substratum is white sand and I have placed several shells and some rocks for cover. The only special water treatment required is the addition of a teaspoon or two of “water conditioner” for every 10 litres of water. This is basically a mixture of various salts and carbonates that buffer the water. This increases the water hardness and stabilises the pH at around 8.5.

 

Now, while my occi liked her new accommodation, there was something she was missing. Despite the $35 price tag, I ordered some Neolamprologus ocellatus (gold form) from Jem Aquatics. The first lot that Bob ordered died in his quarantine room - this confirms for me that they do not travel well. He kindly ordered some more in for me and so I bought two Romeos for poor Juliet. Again, despite being a relatively short trip, they did not look at all healthy when I got home.

 

The romance was a torrid but quick affair. After about five minutes of jaw locking, tumbling around in the sand and generally antagonist behaviour, the territories were established. One of the males hid behind the filter and basically stayed there until I rescued him a month or so later. The other male claimed a shell and the female managed to hold on to her original shell. While I did not observe the spawning, two weeks later, I had just done a water change when I noticed a few tiny fish wriggling out of the shell. You little ripper!!! When mother gave the signal, the little fry of about three to four millimetres would swim out and sit on their bellies on the sand waiting for food but at the soonest sign of danger she would herd them back into the safety of the shell. No doubt a great defence against predators.

 

As is typical for me when faced with a situation where I need further information, I consulted the great electronic oracle, the Internet. The advice from the Sydney Cichlid Society discussion forum varied. Some said leave them in there and take them out when the parents spawn again (to avoid sibling predation) and others said take them out straight away. The latter view seemed to attract the majority of support and so I set up an 18 inch tank with a small air powered corner filter. Naturally, the water was sourced from the original tank. Apparently, the parent fish have a habit of diving in the shell after the fry when really threatened. The key is to distract the parents with a twitching finger. The parents shoo the fry into the shell and proceed to try to remove the offending finger (from their territory). While this is going on and using the other hand, grab the shell and place your finger over the opening, lift up and place in the other tank. As I found out, while this sounds difficult, it is in fact quite easy.

 

My first spawning turned out to be a large one, with 20 young fish (subsequently, 10 to a dozen seems to be the average). The fry are quite independent from a young age and will take small Daphnia, newly hatched brine shrimp and crushed flake. The easiest way to sort the big Daphnia from the small is to place a very fine fish net on top an ice cream container with a less fine fish net on top of that. Simply pour the Daphnia through and you will catch the big ones in the top net while the small ones will be caught in the smaller net below. The fry grow relatively fast when this food is supplied.

 

After three months, the fry have been moved into my four ft growing-out tank and are more than two centimetres long - they are starting to develop their very own grumpy personalities. Several have even taken up residence in their own shells. They are growing fast and there is another brood in the 18 inch tank. I have decided to leave the most recent brood with the parents in order to observe their behaviour when the fry get older.

 

Anyway, as you may have gathered, I can not recommend these fish highly enough. They are comical, tenacious and compatible with most community fish (I even kept them with Cardinal Tetras). They are fairly tolerant to a variety of conditions but I would not put them in soft acidic water. While they are not a flamboyant or overly colourful fish, their shell dwelling lifestyle makes them a fascinating pet. In a nutshell, occis simply rate 10 out of 10 on the personality scale.

 

This fish is amongst the easiest of all egg-layers to breed. They spawn in pairs on bunches of fine leaved plants after a prolonged courtship. Unusually, there is no need to remove the parent fish after spawning as they generally ignore both eggs and young. I have had them breeding in my fish pond and was surprised by the end of the season to see about 700 fish -starting from seven fish. The fish need a temperature between 16-22C. Unfortunately I lost about half due to an error in temperature and providing insufficient food.

 

It grows to about 7cm in length with the male being the larger. The basic coloration is brownish to salmon which under bright light becomes iridescent green or bluish purple. A black line runs from the eye to the central part of the three-lined tail fin. The male has longer central tail fin rays. Another important difference between the sexes is the colour of the eyes which are blue for the male and green for the female. This feature can be used to distinguish the sexes when in their juvenile stage. Besides it's attractive colouring, the species has a peaceful nature and is therefore suitable for a community aquarium.

 

I have kept Emperor Tetras since establishing my first tropical freshwater aquarium in Australia in the late 1960's. I started with two pairs who shared the tank with other Tetra species (Cardinals, Glow-Lights, Black Neons, Serpae and Lemon Tetras). The tank was always densely planted mainly with Cryptocorynes, Sword Plants, Ambulia and Ludwigia species. Soon after being placed in the tank the two males commenced mirror fights to determine dominance. After a week or so I discovered that one of the males defended a very densely planted corner of the aquarium against any intruders. After a further two weeks I noticed fry swimming amongst the plants near the water surface. Today, I still have Emperor Tetras. They have maintained themselves in the community aquarium. Sometimes only 3 to 5 juveniles survive, at other times 10 to 12.

 

As I was somewhat concerned about inbreeding, I purchased another two males in the late 1970's. I have not observed any phenomena associated with inbreeding to date. It should be recognised however that breeding in a community aquarium results in many eggs and fry being taken by other fishes and only the fittest survive. It is also not very productive.

 

The water conditions are not critical for Emperor Tetras. Ideally, my Tetra tank is kept slightly acid with water being fitered over peat (the new blackpeat granules are recommended). On occasions the pH has been as low as 5.4. Shellgrit put into the filter system or a small handful put into the tank ensures that the pH increases, sometimes up to 7.8. Because of these fluctuations, I now follow the strict rule to change 1/4 of the water weekly, which has resulted in a much more stable pH at the level required by the Tetras.

 

When fry are observed in the tank, the only extra food given are any of the micron foods and freshly hatched Brine Shrimp for a period of 5 to 6 weeks after which the normal variety of flake foods and freeze dried and frozen foods are given with some live foods when available.

 

There are two related species available also originating from Columbia, but each from a different river system. One species is much lighter in colour and the other darker with a fuller body than the Emperor Tetra. It is likely that the three species have evolved from the same forebears.

 

It would be interesting to obtain some comments from members regarding aspects of inbreeding of fish.

 

Editor's Note: This is the second Emperor Tetra article in as many issues, but I feel that it is important to get as many different angles on our commonly-kept species as possible. I can vouch for the fact that Emperors (and Kerri Tetras) will successfully spawn in a community tank, unlike some of their more ‘delicate’ cousins, albeit nowhere near as well as a good spawning setup in a seperate tank.

 

On inbreeding, this affects the two main groups of fishes that Julie and I have always kept, Cichlids and Rainbowfish. Both contain species not native to Australia that are not allowable imports (Australian Rainbowfish 'blood' can be freshened by Safari using several hundred dollars worth of petrol and a Land Cruiser, but this is not a journey to be undertaken lightly. You can't do this for the New Guinean species.) and basically, what we have is all we will ever get.

 

Inbred Cichlids have deformed mouths, kinky fins, washy colour, and basically aren't worth feeding. Inbred Rainbowfish seem prone to ulcers, as well as suffering from the aforementioned deformities. What do you do? Only breed from deformity free adults, try and get the parents from different sources (even if you are working with a species that is descended from only four specimens brought into Australia, there will still be local variations in keeping/feeding/temperature methods to ensure a little more genetic diversity than breeding brother/sister from your own tanks), and cull deformed youngsters mercilessly. If you can only obtain deformed stock to begin with, try spawning them anyway if they are extremely rare, because they are descended from deformity-free stock (in the wild) and may produce a couple of fry better than themselves. This means the harsh process of culling most of the youngsters, which shouldn't really be the point of any spawning.

Reprinted from Tank Talk Volume 11 Number 1

 

In July of 1985 we purchased a lovely pair of Peacock Gudgeons (Tateurndina ocellicauda) at the club's auction. Being new members then, our first intention was just to put them in our community tanks just another pretty fish. However we became more involved in the hobby and had seen two articles in the Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine, Volume 31 Book 8 (# 326) April 1983 pages 56 to 60 inclusive, involving the Peacock Gudgeon. We decided then that we would definitely try to breed these lovely looking fish. We placed them in a 27 litre (6 gallon) tank with a 20 cm (8 inch) depth of water. Inside the tank we had put one and a half to two inches of gravel, a ceramic bridge and a corner filter. It was also well planted. The water was well aged tap water with a neutral pH and a constant temperature of 26 degrees C.

 

We conditioned the pair on a mixture of freeze dried foods and live Daphnia, fed alternately twice daily. About four months after purchasing, the pair were ready and willing to breed. The male was approximately one and a half inches long and the female slightly smaller. The female's tummy started swelling and turned a deep yellow Colour and the male proceeded to chase her and display around her at any opportunity. The male's colours became brighter as well as showing the contrasting red and blue colour at it's best.

 

The male at this time was searching for a spawning site and after choosing it under the ceramic bridge, he cleaned it out and spent his time either under the bridge or chasing the female. Eventually, he enticed the female to join him under the bridge. Over the next two days the eggs were laid suspended from the underside of the bridge. The female was then in no uncertain terms kicked out. There were approximately 50 eggs laid but it was difficult to see them while hidden under the bridge. They were yellow in colour and suspended individually by a fine thread. The male stayed under the bridge guarding and fanning the eggs, only coming out occasionally for food but mainly waiting until the live Daphnia swam to him. The eggs seemed quite small to us but it was our first introduction to the breeding of egg-layers. We had recently bred Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) 2-4 weeks before and these were in the same tank, thinking they were too small to eat the newly hatched Peacocks. Thinking to ourselves that the Peacocks, when hatched, would be about the size of a new-born Guppy. Boy were we mistaken! The Peacocks' eggs hatched in about six days, unfortunately we never saw any fry from that spawning.

 

When the male had nothing left to guard, he began chasing the female, once again, which had grown large with roe. We had another spawning a couple of weeks later and still had not learned to remove the young Guppies. Also to make it even more interesting the male decided the safest place in the tank was at the back and inside of our cartridge filter. The fry of this did not survive either.

 

By now the Guppies were large enough to be put into our larger community tank. Meanwhile, in the breeding tank, we had changed filters, removed the ceramic bridge and in it's place put in a rock to form a cave. Soon the mating ritual began again and they were in the rock cave side by side in no time at all. The female was ousted the next day and the male was guarding and fanning the newest batch of eggs. At this time we removed the female.

 

Seven days after the eggs were laid we noticed free-swimming fry (about one third to one half of the size of a new born Guppy) being herded by the male. Afraid that he may turn and cat them, we promptly removed him to the community tank.

 

The fry were fed at frequent intervals on Sera Micron food. At a couple of weeks old we also added some fine freeze-dried Brine Shrimp to their menu. A week later we tested them on small Daphnia just to see if they could handle it. They did, so we introduced very small live Daphnia and Cyclops to their menu, plus small bits of freezedried. The Peacocks seem to prefer eating in the lower half of the tank, so we tried a Tetra Tabi Min tablet, which soon breaks up into fine pieces and they got stuck into that in no time.

 

The only other fish present in the breeding tank at all times was a bronze catfish (Corydoras aeneus), to help with any uneaten food. We had read in Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine that this catfish would not harm eggs or fry and this proved right for us. When the fry were spotted, we turned the filter to the lowest position to prevent the young from going in.

 

Editor's Note: Rodney and Deborah went on to breed quite a few of these great little fish, and for a time they wore quite common. I suppose that is why no one wanted to breed and maintain them. Now there are very few left. It is hoped that the next time they become available to the general run of Canberra aquarists more attention is paid to them.

 

Blue-eyes (the fish, not the singer) were once grouped amongst the Australian and New Guinea rainbow fishes (Melanotaeniidae), but recently have been re-classified to their own family (Pseudomogilidae) that contains some 10 species. This reclassification I understand is due to the fact that they are more closely related tot he ancestral Melanoteaemiid stock. Spotted blue-eyes are fairly common and according to Fresh Water Fishes of Australia (by Dr G.R.Allen) are found in those small creeks swampy marches, lily lagoons etc located at the 'top end' of QLD and the NT.

 

Digressing just a little from the main topic, my main fresh water fishy interest has been and still is with various tetras and South American dwarf cichlids. Sure, I have heard of, and seen, various types of rainbows during my many years in this hobby, but never believed they could measure up to the brilliance of tetras like the cardinal tetra or the diamond tetra. That was until I saw some slides of the neon rainbow at a CDAS general meeting; this fish truly is a sparkling beauty that I can highly recommend as a tetra alternative.  It wasn't long before I obtained some of these fish and became hooked on small rainbows. I asked around if anybody kept any other smallish rainbows and as a consequence was very generously offered a few different kinds including these spotted blue-eyes (an offer too good to refuse). SO thus I ended up with 5 of these cute little critters.

 

Back to blue-eyes. Being a small fish they do not need a big aquarium, mine went in an 18 inch tank holding approximately 18 litres of water. Aged water from my tetra tank was used (pH 7.2; TDS 120 ppm; total hardness 5DH). Furnishings are sparse with a clump of Java moss, a few bits of Java fern, and the all important spawning mop. Also, a small air powered sponge filter maintains water hygiene and a 25 watt heater-thermostat keeps the temperature at about 26 degrees Celsius.

 

After only one day in their new home I found a couple of eggs in the spawning mop, and this scenario of a few eggs a day has in fact become more or less the norm. Work commitments so far have prevented me catching them in the act of spawning, but one day I will (maybe). The eggs are fairly large, transparent and quite tough. I collect them every day or so by picking them off the spawning mop. The mop gets a good squeeze first to remove most water, making the eggs stand out by looking like little water drops. They are incubated in small drinking glasses that are floated in another small tank (this one only holds about nine litres of water). The glasses are filled with about 20mm of water from the parent's fish tank.

 

Waiting for eggs to hatch is a lesson in patience, in fact after two sveeks and no sign of any fry I thought the whole thing had become a miserable failure. But I was told to hang in there as it could take three weeks or more for the eggs to hatch. A long 22 days later, the first fry appeared. They seem to be free swimming as soon as they hatch, and hence require immediate feeding (no sign of any post hatching yolk sack as far as I could tell). Since the eggs are transparent it would be quite easy to observe the development of the fry with the aid of a good magnifying glass.

 

As soon as the fry hatch, I spoon them out of their drinking glass and transfer them into a feeding tank (also about nine litres). The fry are fairly small and initially are fed with dust foods like micro encapsulated 'artificial rotifers' and sera micron fry food. After a week or so this first food is supplemented with vinegar eels, and several weeks later, the initial fry foods are replaced by micro wortms and occasionally some baby white worms.

 

The fry grow very slowly (once again patience is a virtue), after 15 weeks the biggest measured about 12 mm and at this growth rate it would take at least seven months before they reach a decent size.

 

All in all, the breeding effort over some four months has resulted in about 50 tiny spotted blue eyes. I don't know if that's a good effort or not, but personally I am delighted with the results and that's what this hobby is all about.

 

Next I hope to try my luck with some honey blue-eyes as these are currently in danger of becoming extinct in the wild. If they are anything like the spotted blue-eyes the rewards in propagating this species will be even more rewarding.

 

As a summary, the spotted blue-eyes is a small and very interesting Australian native fish that needs only a small tank, requires no more care that the average tetra, and can be bred very easily provided you can spare a few drinking glasses, a couple of bookshelf tanks and a bit of patience. Ergo the spotted blue-eye is an ideal aquarium fish that deserves to be hugely popular.

 

There is a perfectly legitimate scientific reason for hybridising fishes (or birds, for that matter) of different species or genera. One of the old tests of whether or not two animals would fit into the same genus was to cross breed them and see if the offspring were fertile. But when trying to preserve dwindling stocks of rare cichlids, hybridisation is of no good whatsoever, and can even be quite harmful.

 

An aquarist may have a nice male Melanotaenia goldii, a rare New Guinean Rainbowfish. But perhaps he cannot find a female of this species and so is tempted to use a very similar looking female of M. herbertaxelrodi. So he cross breeds the-two species and obtains a batch of fry that are goldii x herbertarelrodi hybrids. Some of these he then sells to friends as goldii and the rest he grows up and disposes to the aquarium trade. What has he done wrong? Well for a start, his friends will be in possession of viable hybrids that they will be tempted to rear up and breed, goldii being as rare as it is. Other aquarists will purchase them from the shops in good faith and taking them to be pure stock, will also breed them. But these fish are not goldii at all and at some stage (maybe in the next generation, when the fry will not look like their parents) someone will work this out. The ultimate result will be a lot of wasted work in raising fishes of no real value.

 

Hybridisation is not always deliberate: with the Aulonocaras (Malawi Peacock Cichlids), most of the females are quite similar and in a community tank, the father of a particular brood of fry may not belong to the same species as the mother. Care must also be taken in this regard (similar females) with Killifish.

 

In the Australian cichlid scene at the moment, there is a great deal of concern about hybridisation because of the low available gene pool, that many dedicated breeders are devoting their lives to preserving. In the case of many of the Lake Victoria cichlids, which are now extinct in the wild, this work is quite literally of vital importance.

 

When buying cichlids, aquarists should make a point of getting to know what wild specimens look like, to guard against obtaining hybrids, or even 'pure' fish that may not be compatible with others in their breeding tanks. In the case of the African Rift Lake Cichlids, the club library has two excellent books by Ad Konigs, on the Malawi and Tanganyika species, respectively. These works give a good idea of what the fishes look like in the wild. It is a shame that no such book exists, showing all of the different populations of Australian Rainbowfishes. All the same, it is a good rule not to cross breed populations of such variable species as Melanotaenia tilfasciata, but rather to recognise and work within populations, such as those from the Goyder and Giddy Rivers.

 

Be wary of so-called 'new' species of fishes just on the market for the first time in many years. There have been cases of unscrupulous breeders deliberately crossing different species (particularly in the New Guinean Rainbowfishes and African Cichlids) in order to produce something more colourful. They then raise the hybrids and search, meantime, in the handbooks for something approximating their appearance. The hybrids are then released under this appealing name, to an unsuspecting public always on the lookout for something new and prepared to pay exorbitant prices. To be sure, some new fishes are smuggled into the country occasionally, but many people have been 'caught' by flashy hybrids that appeared to be prohibited species at the time.

 

However, the major trouble with hybrids is that they divert those serious souls who are trying to preserve what is left of cichlids that were formerly allowed into Australia. For once these populations are gone, we shall never see them again, except as pictures in old books! A while ago, I was privileged to hear a talk by Graeme Phipps (Curator-in-Chief, Taronga Park Zoo), who expressed the opinion that hybridisers of rare and provenanced (place of origin known) stocks were committing a "crime against the species" and should be prosecuted accordingly. So please do not hybridise fishes deliberately and ensure that you take every precaution to prevent its happening accidentally, thereby helping our hobby to survive.

 

The male and female were removed at this time as neither seemed interested in the eggs. The eggs hatched in about 36 hours and were tree swimming 48 hours later. This is when we started feeding them liquifry and Sera micron food, this was before we had an infusoria culture. There were a number of losses, probably due to our inexperience. The ones that were left grew quickly and they were not fussy eaters.

 

Several months later we tried our hand at the beautiful Dwarf Gourami - Colisa lalia. We had learned a lot since our first breeding of the Pearls. Their breeding conditions were a bare bottomed 45 litre 30 cm high tank, with a water temperature of 29 decrees celcius, pH of 6.9 and a number of small water sprites, duckweed and riccia all tloating on top, with a bundle ot java moss for hiding, sitting on the bottom. The sponge filter was at its lowest bubbling rate. Previous to this, the male and female were kept in separate tanks until the female looked ready, then the male was placed into the breeding tank two days ahead of the female. We ere given a real show by the male as his colours intensified and he did his duty. He would grab the roots of the water sprite in his mouth and tow them around to where he wanted them and blow a huge number of bubbles underneath, place bits of riccia and duckweed in the bubbles wherever he thought they were needed. He even gathered small pieces of Java moss to push up into the bubblenest. This kept going on even after the female was introduced. For about a week he kept at his nest and every now and then gave chase to the female.

 

Then late one afternoon things were different, he vigorously chased the female, then went up under his nest trying to get her to see his handywork. After a few minutes she did, and he wrapped himself around her. Nothing came of the embraces for the first number of times but then the eggs started to appear. They were very, very tiny and only a few at a time. If the. eggs were disturbed they would look as if they were going to sink

but when almost at the bottom they would slowly change direction and eventually get back to the top by themselves but mostly with the help of daddy dwarf. The pair were left for the night and next morning she was hiding, so she was removed. The eggs were very difficult to see being well hidden in his well made nest.

 

Later that, day we decided as the eggs floated we would remove the male also, just in case. The eggs hatched in 24 hours ard were free swimming 48 hours later, the air was then slowly increased. They were fed infusoria, Sera micron food and strained egg yolk. They had a fairy high mortality rate even though we were doing as much as we knew how. At about 10 days old they were eating newly hatched brine-shrimp and small dried foods.  At 3 weeks old the use of their labyrinth organ was witnessed. They enjoy brine-shrimp, small daphnia and cyclops, these also grew quickly on this type of food.

In my article in the last edition of Tank Talk (Vol.26 no.1), I wrote that I had purchased and subsequently bred Neolamprologus brichardi “daffodil”. After the article was published, one of the members said that I may have the wrong species name. Being curious about what he said, I started to do some homework – a task that I had thought I had left behind me 45 years ago.

 

Not having a computer and access to the Internet, I did my research the old fashioned way, searching though books. Not so easy. Whoever named this fish must have been a mate of Ed Konnings because it seems to me that the experts give a different name to fish when they have only slight variations in colour and markings. We are lucky they (the namers) were not let loose to name us. Anyway, back to the core topic of this article.

 

The two main species that seem to be the most common are the Neolamprologus brichardi (Fairy Cichlid). There are also others within the “brichardi Complex” such as Albino, Kasegera, Kigoma and Kiku. Several species within the brichardi Complex such as those named above are commonly referred to as “Fairy Cichlid”. It is worth noting that some of the above species were imported into the USA in 1995 but are not common or unknown in the Australian market place.

 

The brichardi Complex is made up of the following species: L. brichardi, L. pulcher, L. facicula, L. gracilis and L. crasus. As the picture to the left illustrates, the mark that seems to separate the above species from the L. species (Daffodil) is a black sideways “T” marking on the cheek/gill area. While this “T” marking appears on the other species in the complex, L. species (Daffodil) has two black parallel markings on or near the cheek/gill. Also, as the name “Daffodil” implies, these fish have a yellow colouring.

 

After all this homework, I have concluded that the fish that I have bred are indeed Daffodils. Regardless of their name, they are a great, beautiful strong-willed fish. They are also fantastic parents for their fry.