well i didnt update here in a while.
dosing with waterlife bacterlife all my lvls hit 0 on the 29th aug
sept 01 added 2 black lyretail mollys M/F
sept 05 added 2 small juvenile apistograma cacatuoides M/F (bit sooner than i would have liked to have got them but they were small and obtained from the BCA meet water changes were made every 2 days untill the tank handled the bio load ok)
sept 11 moly gives birth to 22 fry (tank is handling bioload all lvls stay at 0 even so keeping up to 2 water changes a wk)
sept 19th added 5 ember tetra, (ammonia increases over a period of 2 days to 0.25 so switch back to water changes every 2 days until the tank starts handling the bioload again and all lvls are a 0)
and that brings us up to present.
Over this last wk end i lost 4 molly fry, the 4 i lost didnt seem to be developing like the others as they remained the same shape as when they were born, the remaining molly fry have grown deeper, longer and appear more fish shaped.
this morning i was making my regular checks and struggling to find the apisto's, male was all the way in the back far corner of the tank hanging out in the heavily planted area but the female was no-where to be seen, i eventually found her in one of the caves looking very pale in the available light. she would come out to the entrance and stay there not moving a lot apart from her pectoral fins slowly. Checked on her later and she was still not moving around a lot and under the arch of one of the pots (kind of a natural cave i guess with plants making up the rear of the cave). I made a water change and as soon as i put the syphon pipe in her colours and lateral line returned and she stayed close to where-ever i was cleaning. After i finished she retained her colour but went back to her spot under the arch. Fed them some frozen bloodworms and she came out and started to eat but as soon as the male came near her colours flushed, within a minute her lateral line had faded to gray leaving one darker spot.... To describe the colour id guess id say its similar to the sand appearing more yellow towards the vent and dorsal fin, when i take a pic of her she appears a lot more yellow than with the naked eye, even after adjusting white balance and colours (i.e. all colours are adjusted to true but hers appears more yellow).
From reading would i be right in presuming she is ready to breed.
My plants certainly grew well, cut them back over the wk end and re-planted all the cuttings
lyretail mollys, female developed red shiny colouration on the tips of scales around the pectoral fins and gold edged scales on her belly 10 hours or so before she gave birth.
young male cac
chameleon colour change the instant she spots the male when feeding
30 seconds later her lateral line is fading leaving a dot
.
