Breeding Setup Thoughts/Ideas/Experience

[steph]

Hi All

I have finally got planning approval (from the other half ;) ) for a small breeding setup however on a ridiculously tight budget *ouch* I am looking at about three shelves of about 1m in length each, and most of my stuff will have to be sourced 2nd hand or recycled.

Looking for ideas on power/heating/filtering of the tanks. At this stage Im leaning towards airpowered sponge filters on each tank and would probably have to individually heat them.

Im also considering using 2 ft tanks placed end on, on the shelf but wonder if my arms are long enough. Has anyone done this - was it successful in terms of access, maintenance etc?

Love to hear any ideas or issues that people have had when they have had a setup like this?

Thanks

Steph

PS: Before you all ask yes.. the baenschi will be the first inhabitants of the highrise apartment block, followed very closely by my favourites the 'tefe' coz they would really love some more acidic water than they get now.

[gingerbeer01]

Steph - breed the Banchi and send some North to me. :lol:

2 foot on ends makes sense from the perspective of the fish - they will be more secure. Be away if thinking of one long shlef that it may bend - so you need a gap between the tanks.

I like individual tanks for apistos for disease control.

I find biggest issue with having lots of tanks is figuring out where to get the water from, and how. Gota make water changes easy - as lots of tanks means lots of water to change. I did make myself two end fittings for my hose to clip on and off - one for out and one for in. Hasn't worked well due to the quality of the fixings so got to rethink that. (I have a water tank for water supply)

Hope this helps - but you have kept dwarfs longer than anyone here so you should be telling us......

Steve

[steph]

hehe - thanks gingerbeer :)

Never done anything on this scale tho and I feel quite rusty, havent kept up on the apisto mailing list or anything.

The spot I have for the shelf is actually a old shower cubicle that used to be in the corner of the laundry. The pros are the inbuilt drain in the floor and the old shower head still has the cold connected on one of those long hose things (prefer to use rain water and put the waste water on my garden tho - plants love all that fishy wee) The con is the floor is not level so getting the shelf unit level is going to be painful.

I think I have sourced some recycled industrial shelving so will get out and look at that tomorrow. I might have to bribe the 5 year old a bit when I drag her around to 'boring' shops.

Cheers

Steph

[Hassles]

G'day Steph

Sponge Filters will serve you well and fit your budget as will box / corner / sand filters. These other filters will at least provide more options eg: you can place some filter wool / peat / purigen or carbon etc in them.

Many of we Apistogramma breeders utilise the 'standard' 2-foot tank and even when new the costs vary greatly. Here in Melbourne they vary between $40 and $60+ each. Best to make them complex with "heaps" of stuff as per usual recommendations eg: lots of plants, rocks, wood, leaf litter etc

Unless you can heat the room you're gonna' have to individually heat each tank - that's 1 heater (at least) for each tank. Ok, so heaters are cheap. If you place a piece of foam between each tank and (if possible) behind each tank the insulation will diminish your power usage.

You Wrote:
Im also considering using 2 ft tanks placed end on, on the shelf but wonder if my arms are long enough. Has anyone done this - was it successful in terms of access, maintenance etc?

I curently (in one location only) have 4 standard 2 foot tanks side-by-side. Eg: The tanks length runs from my acccess point away towards the wall so the 4 tanks occupy 4 foot of space when viewed from my access point. I don't find this too much of a drama or inconvenience as these are about waist height and its reasonably easy to view from end to end. The filters (Aqua Genie or Sponge Filters) are loacted at the rear. What I did find however is that the fish from each tank could easily see the fish in the neighbouring tank and spent much of their time scouting their environmental perimeter. I did occassionally place pieces of cardboard between these tanks to remove the distraction and displays of aggression.

With some of my racks I need to stand upon something when planting or cleaning etc and find this is Ok but... a platform larger than a chair would be good.

HTH

PS

I wanna be in the que for baenschi - I just want 1 male for my lonely female and am prepared to swap Apistos or purchase and pay the freight ;-)

me - here in Melbourne

[Noddy65]

Hi Steph
In a previous state I had a big collection of apistos
I had a three high rack using two footers end on as you propose...it worked very well
I had sponge filters in each tank...I tried trios of baenschi, pebas, agassizi, and a few others in that size tank but it just didnt work well...I always went back to pairs
I also found that some pairs needed to be split up after spawning and others got along fine...you just need to watch them carefully
I alos had a couple of three footers for grow out for the young...they do grow pretty slowly
I fed them a good small pellet food but found that survival rate of fry was much much better when using live BBS. I also kept microworms as a bit of a backup. I had three small tanks) the tanks on the extreme left on the top shelf) for hatching eggs and looking after very young fry.
I kept a minimum of three pairs of each species so that I could sell unrelated young and so that I has unrelated replacement stock coming through all the time.

I used RO water (I also had African so used the waste water for them) but I do know that many people breed these soft water acidic loving fish on just tap water +/- oak leaves/indian almond leaves/peat (actually I used peat)

Good luck

Mike

Heres pic of the setup
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/rack.jpg

and some of the fish
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/trifasciatamale.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/dadnijessni.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/tefemale.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/maleinca.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/Noddy65/draggiemale.jpg

[steph]

Hi Mike

Great setup - must of been hard to leave, and super pics of the fish - one thing I am hopeless at doing. Whats the 3rd fish down - with the red tail - he is gorgeous!

What did you use to construct your shelves with - I was hoping to get my hands on some cheap industrial shelving but it all fell through yesterday - so now looking to make my own.

Cheers

Steph

[Robdog]

Somehow I don't think Mike missses his old setup :wink:

My best suggestion for a breeding setup is to move next door to Mike and bore a hole through his garage wall and use his fishroom on the sly :lol: