Wanted - to buy, beg, borrow or steal - a Fish Wife

[Hassles]

Surely life wasn't meant to be this un-easy. I am trying to gender my A.huascar which are ready to move on. I discover a new spawn roaming about under mother's dutiful care. Instead of elation I think "oh my God". The tank I had set-aside for the original brood has since become destined for a specie I shall collect at the airport tomorrow. The A.abacaxis fry I think 'ought to moved to a grow-out tank because their mothers appear to be courting the male and not so interested in brood care. The A.gibbiceps have surreptitiously entered a spawn into the equation. These had obviously been hidden for a number of weeks before their existence recently became apparent. The A.trifasciata are spawning again before my very eyes. I don't dare introduce the A.bitaeniata females (I have been conditioning) to the lonely males and the A.panduro look like their up to mischief. At the airport tomorrow I shall collect (among other things) a mate for my lonely A.nijsseni female and a mate for my lonely A.baenschi female. What will the outcome be ? I have come to realise its all too much. I need a fish wife, someone to feed the fish, clean the tanks, prepare & change the water, raise the mozzie larvae and microworms and leave me to deal with the forums - or is this just another case of "self inflicted too busy" ? ? ? Oh, did I mention the explosion in the Calico bristlenose populations ? I think I need to separate the Peppermints and the Orange Spots. sigh, maybe I should keep goldfish instead, some guppies perhaps :wink:

[Robdog]

Easy. Run a course of bleach throught the L number filters and hey presto! More tank space :twisted:

[gingerbeer01]

I was thinking the same thing Rob.....

Found the perfect woman for ya. Now as we all know - without photos it didn't happen.... so......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh-EsQj7eRY

[steph]

i think rob's suggestion is pretty good, otherwise just send some up here ;)

how are the panduro's going ? mine were a dominant pair in the shop which jodi kindly sent me, but moving them seems to have broken the pair bond a bit and they are not playing nicely together.

S

[Hassles]

i think rob's suggestion is pretty good, otherwise just send some up here ;)

how are the panduro's going ? mine were a dominant pair in the shop which jodi kindly sent me, but moving them seems to have broken the pair bond a bit and they are not playing nicely together.

S

The A.panduro (wild caught) are doing fine. They have good colour and an interest in the variety of foods being fed, the female is quite bright but doesn't appear to be overly keen on courting the male at this stage. This pair have produced fry (prior to my acquisition - I'm fish sitting) so I am confident thay will breed again before too long.

Of course I also hope to announce a brood of A.nijsseni and A.baenschi before too much longer also - fingers crossed, I think. I must be a glutton for punishment :wink:

[ILLUSN]

Got a fish wife, it is great, each morning.
I ckeck the pH of the drums and make sure they're good for the day give the fish their moring feed.

each afternoon she starts cleaning the angel and peppermint tanks , wipes down the glass, vacs the base of each tank re fills with water checks the caves for eggs, cuts zeuchini for them and prepares the babybrine shrimp.

each evening i get home from work clean up the geo and L numbers re fill the drums do the evening feed.

nice and easy couldn't be happier. she evens recievs all the orders i get during the day and writes them all out so i know who I'm dropping fish off to and when.

[Hassles]

Got a fish wife, it is great, each morning.
I ckeck the pH of the drums and make sure they're good for the day give the fish their moring feed.

each afternoon she starts cleaning the angel and peppermint tanks , wipes down the glass, vacs the base of each tank re fills with water checks the caves for eggs, cuts zeuchini for them and prepares the babybrine shrimp.

each evening i get home from work clean up the geo and L numbers re fill the drums do the evening feed.

nice and easy couldn't be happier. she evens recievs all the orders i get during the day and writes them all out so i know who I'm dropping fish off to and when.

yeah yeah no need to brag, I never did envy well & green doesn't suit me :lol:

Still - the Apistos keep me pretty busy and no doubt busier is yet to come

[Hassles]

i think rob's suggestion is pretty good, otherwise just send some up here ;)

how are the panduro's going ? mine were a dominant pair in the shop which jodi kindly sent me, but moving them seems to have broken the pair bond a bit and they are not playing nicely together.

S

dunno what you guys have against catfish - a very interesting specie with immense character. I have a few in a number of my Apisto tanks. The Red whiptails keep the A.masken company while Calico (or longfin varient) keep others company. Not such a good idea when the Apisto's are breeding however. The Apistos are usually very good parents and they can easily harm themselves on the catfish barbs when making attempts to keep the catfish at bay.

Personally speaking the Orange Spots are my favouriite. Pleco wise I love the L134s

[steph]

I dont really have anything against catfish. In fact Im in a desperate need of some otto's (and more plants) - its just my taste in L numbers is quite expensive eg: small stripey.. you get the picture Im sure, and I dont really have the tank space seeing as they arent very compatible with apistos when breeding, or when the L's are breeding.

The only useful thing my "fish wife" does is catch the pesky pencilfish when I need it, oh and put the stand together and lift other heavy things. (And complain about how much money Im spending.. sheesh!.. havent shown him how much some L's cost that might shut hm up ;) )

Steph

[kristina]

Hahahaha Hassles. I realise this post was a while ago and I'm a little behind on the times, but you should really think of persuading a special certain someone to help you "clean up" your place so you can spend more time there and *cough* get to the tanks while she's at it :P

I can't see that happening though, so I guess your stuck with it mate. Perhaps I should heed your advice and not get any more tanks. We do a tank a night on average and if we want to go out we do double the day before or after etc. It is very taxing on time - especially on our massive 6fter but I suppose we are addicted. And you know... after all the work we put in, everybody's favourite tank is the bitaeniata tank. Which of course they don't care about the fish, it's because its beautifully planted out! uneducated goldfish keeping losers. Don't get a goldfish Hassles, doesn't suit you.

[Hassles]

[quote="kristina"]Hahahaha Hassles. I realise this post was a while ago and I'm a little behind on the times, but you should really think of persuading a special certain someone to help you "clean up" your place so you can spend more time there and *cough* get to the tanks while she's at it :P


That certain someone makes enough sacrifices and compromises to allow me my distractions. Yep, she does enough as it as and divorce would appear on her radar long before the fish - believe me ;-) When I told her how much I was spending, hmm, well to avoid an scene I bought her a new IMac heh heh heh

This may be contrary to popular belief but... I still ain't havin' fun. The A.baenschi female is tryin' to kill the male since the emergence of the fry a few days ago so I have had to segregate him and her for his wellbeing. The A.agassizi announced their fry a few minutes ago so this is a scanario I must closely watch over the next week or so - a week where I am already going to be significantly stretched. The A.masken & fry are doin' fine thank goodness and I will soon need to re-house A.abacaxis juveniles as the females obviously want them gone. I am hoping, yes hoping, that the A.panduro do not breed soon and I may separate them to ensure this does not happen. I have 3 microworm cultures on the go and start a new once every other week just to keep up. A few days ago I had a small but protracted filter leak so I am now dealing with damp carpet!!! grrr. I am tryin' to off-load my calico bristlenose juveniles and have had another spawn so I "need" to separate the parents so this does npt happen again any time soon. Phew

FS - triple red trios $30 + freight.

FS - A.trifasciata $45 per pair + freight

FS - A.gibbiceps $35 per pair + freight

FS - calico BN - sincere offers seriously considered.

take care

[kristina]

Awwww Hassles. Poor guy... Let's swap yeah?!! Wait no, I like being young. But we can swap everything else! :P

[steph]

aww.. hassles.. stop putting aphrodisiacs in the water !!

bummer about the baenschi girl, my trio are quite civilised to each other when they are breeding, but they have the agasszi tefe male to chase.

my panduro are being a model pair, fry are now about 10 days old and there is no signs of aggression between them, so i hope yours behave the same way?

got any bitaeniata ? I have an empty tank ;)

Steph

[Hassles]

aww.. hassles.. stop putting aphrodisiacs in the water !!

bummer about the baenschi girl, my trio are quite civilised to each other when they are breeding, but they have the agasszi tefe male to chase.

my panduro are being a model pair, fry are now about 10 days old and there is no signs of aggression between them, so i hope yours behave the same way?

got any bitaeniata ? I have an empty tank ;)

Steph

aphrodisiacs ? ? ? well I have always said that we fish keepers here in Melbourne are fortuanate with our water. However I have never had my borelli opals produce a brood!!! The biteaniata males are currently segregated from their prospective partners at this time which are another specie I am yet to breed. The baenschi female is a real physcho-bitch, a really good mum but wow - aggressive - she's already killed a pencilfish!

take care

[Vspec]

wow, all go at all your houses.

whats with all the maintenance routines daily?

Id be lucky to do anything significant weekly, and that was even running marine tanks.

[kristina]

Vspec - some of us are lucky enough to keep multiple tanks, yet not lucky enough to have someone keep up the maintenance involved with having them. My comment on doing a tank a night on average is because we have 6 major tanks and 2 minors that all require weekly work to keep in good condition. I'm also quite pregnant, have 2 toddlers and we run our own business. Doing all the fishtank work on one allocated day simply does not work and so it is spread out to approx a tank a night. Hope that clears some confusion up for you.

[ILLUSN]

LOL @ Vspec. 28 fish tanks 5600+ total Litres theres no way you can do that all in 1 night with 40+hr "real work" weeks and a 9mth old baby LOL.

Seriously if you put in the effort you get the reward theres no way to know exactly whats going on with your tanks unless you check them daily, also if you want to max out the groth rate of fry you want DAILY water changes and as many feeds per day as you can give them, theres a MASSIVE diffrence between "keeping" fish, BREEDING fish and RAISING fish the workload increases with each step.

[steph]

Kids ALWAYS make water changes more interesting, :D

Illusn wait until your baby "helps" with feeding the fish, and you have to do an unscheduled, emergency water change _before_ you go to work as the fry growout tank looks like its snowing inside :( , and another one that night to get the rest of the fry food that finally settled.


I think its the price of having seperately filtered systems, each has to have the water chagned individually, hence that requiers time and effort, not always something that can be done in one sitting.

Years ago one of the sydney cichlid soc members built a wall of racks for africans, centrally filtered and they set up a extra tank in the 'wall' which enabled them to empty and refill with new water so effectively doing a water change on the entire system. Nice setup, quick.. no good for the avg hobbyist or for apisto's.

steph

[Vspec]

ok so you got me one that one, im not pregga's (last time i checked), i dont have screaming young ones running about anymore, plus im definitely not one with 28 tanks.. :)

If your talking small environments with a half adequate biological systems, then yeah, daily water changes i can understand, especially when fragile fry are concerned. however strategy & quality in, quality out in my book.
Im def no where near breeder....yet, however It will certainly be interesting to see if i notice a potential change.

[kristina]

Yeah 28 tanks is some serious work to keep them healthy! Haha Vspec, your kinda right about the biological filtration helping, but with apistos especially you will find that smaller water changes more frequently really do them justice. Even more so when dealing with fry understandably. Your not dealing with full sized Africans anymore!! Admittedly I tend to give my apistos bigger spaces per pair so their environment stays cleaner longer and should I have the need water changes can be put off without the fish being stressed and living in filth.

[Vspec]

Africans you can pee in the water & they'll be fine.:) I understand this branch is a great deal more difficult to manage, however it still boils down to logical discussions. I dont mean to keep harping on about marine, however thats one branch that opens your eyes to the principles of cause & effect. There's some lessons to be learnt there!! Managing the environment differently will bring different outcomes

[Rod]

I've never kept marines.....but I do have a mate who knows his stuff

A lot of marine systems have been developed because ammonia/nitrate etc are much much more toxic in marine tanks and they need to be removed.....some systems such as protein skimming just don't work in freshwater tanks....particularly soft acid water ones
and salt water is a lot more expensive to replace than fresh water

It is much easier and a lot better to do a water change.....when growing fish there is nothing better than a simple water change.....the larger and more often the better.....you will get better growth keeping fry in a 20 litre tank and do a 50 % water change/day than having them in a 150 litre tank and doing a 50% water change each week...

Most people who have dwarfs breed them....you don't have to do daily water changes....but 10 litre/day/fry tank is no big deal... :wink:

[Vspec]

:)