While it's a shame they aren't clowns, Dennison barbs are a nice box to tick.
Holy Moley- is it possible???????
- Thread starter TwoTankAmin
- Start date
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
This gets stranger every day. The biggest offspring are now over an inch.
I just got back from taking a look at the tank to check out the kids. And to my absolute amazement I saw a new fry maybe 1/2 inch. I take this to mean two things. First, spawning is likely ongoing. Second, the adults are eating most of the eggs or new fry.
The information I have read on denisonii spawning are that they lay a lot more eggs than I am seeing fry and that they are voracious about eating them. One of natures favorite species survival strategies is for there to be many eggs produced most of which will become food pretty fast. However, some number will not be consumed and will result in fry.
The reason I settled on plecos as the species with which I would work was that the Hypancistrus are cave spawners and the dad tends the eggs. When the fry become free swimming of soon after they leave the cave or are booted by dad. Basically, this meant there was not much I had to do in the process. I rarely had to do a dry/rainy season, I never pulled eggs or fry but let the dad do all the work.
My job was to insure conditions were favorable for spawning and to feed good foods and to do the needed tank maint. I always used species tanks so there was almost no predation of eggs and none of free swimming young. This sure made my job a lot easier.
I just got back from taking a look at the tank to check out the kids. And to my absolute amazement I saw a new fry maybe 1/2 inch. I take this to mean two things. First, spawning is likely ongoing. Second, the adults are eating most of the eggs or new fry.
The information I have read on denisonii spawning are that they lay a lot more eggs than I am seeing fry and that they are voracious about eating them. One of natures favorite species survival strategies is for there to be many eggs produced most of which will become food pretty fast. However, some number will not be consumed and will result in fry.
The reason I settled on plecos as the species with which I would work was that the Hypancistrus are cave spawners and the dad tends the eggs. When the fry become free swimming of soon after they leave the cave or are booted by dad. Basically, this meant there was not much I had to do in the process. I rarely had to do a dry/rainy season, I never pulled eggs or fry but let the dad do all the work.
My job was to insure conditions were favorable for spawning and to feed good foods and to do the needed tank maint. I always used species tanks so there was almost no predation of eggs and none of free swimming young. This sure made my job a lot easier.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
OK- I finally got some OK pics. I had to use my old editor on them which is on my ancient WIndows 7 Box. I have it set up offline but can turn off my Win 10 box and oot the 7 and it is on the same screen and I have separate keyboard and mouse for it. Also, since i have been forced to use a small card reader to they the imabes off the coamer on onto my pc, I can also plug the reader into the old 7 box and use the old editor which came with the camera I use.
So, I shot pics today. The mainf body of initial fry were all schooling in the center of the tank. So I got pics one of which included all 12 of the initial survivors. Getting them all into one shot was not so easy but I took a bunch of shots.
And here is a pic with all 12 fish or so I thought at the time until I blew it up and noticee the 13th tiny one.. If you look at the sponge closely you will see one of the new fry I mentioned in an earlier post. I had spotted a 1/2 inch fry.
The little guy is actually in all 3 pics. I had seen two smaller ones in the original hiding place earlier, but I could only spot the one in the pics above when I was shooting.
So, I shot pics today. The mainf body of initial fry were all schooling in the center of the tank. So I got pics one of which included all 12 of the initial survivors. Getting them all into one shot was not so easy but I took a bunch of shots.
And here is a pic with all 12 fish or so I thought at the time until I blew it up and noticee the 13th tiny one.. If you look at the sponge closely you will see one of the new fry I mentioned in an earlier post. I had spotted a 1/2 inch fry.
The little guy is actually in all 3 pics. I had seen two smaller ones in the original hiding place earlier, but I could only spot the one in the pics above when I was shooting.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
I figure I should explain why I have not published parameter information for the tank here. It is simple. O never set out to spawn anything in this tank. It was originally a 150 which leaked after many years and I just moved the entire contents into the empty 125. This included about 50% of the water.
In most of my tanks I do not test almost ever once they are set up. The one exception was my Altum tanks on which I had a continuous digital monitor. I do test for ammonia and TDS when setting up and running the bio-farm for cycling filters.
I have a private well and my water parameters are pretty steady. They do change based on local rainfall is at an extreme- either to much or ti little. But I can tell when these situations happen. My water is stead in the range pf 6.8 to 7.3 pH and in the TDS range of about 83 to 114 ppm. In extreme rain situations it can drop to TDS 53 or rise to 130. But this is not common.
Over the past 25 years I have had to replace my test kits a few times. Often they have never been used but have expired.
So, I have no clue why I have the denisonii babies, I have kept this species for almost 20 years and never seen a spawn until this one. I have no idea why it happened nor what the parameters of the water was at the time.
In most of my tanks I do not test almost ever once they are set up. The one exception was my Altum tanks on which I had a continuous digital monitor. I do test for ammonia and TDS when setting up and running the bio-farm for cycling filters.
I have a private well and my water parameters are pretty steady. They do change based on local rainfall is at an extreme- either to much or ti little. But I can tell when these situations happen. My water is stead in the range pf 6.8 to 7.3 pH and in the TDS range of about 83 to 114 ppm. In extreme rain situations it can drop to TDS 53 or rise to 130. But this is not common.
Over the past 25 years I have had to replace my test kits a few times. Often they have never been used but have expired.
So, I have no clue why I have the denisonii babies, I have kept this species for almost 20 years and never seen a spawn until this one. I have no idea why it happened nor what the parameters of the water was at the time.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
Just a quick update. One a couple of the largest offspring I am seeing a horizontal stripe beginning to appear. it is a dark color and the fish do not yet show any coloration. All of the kids seem to doing just fine and they are active and growing, They tend to hang out in a group for the most part but there are always 2 or three that will be elsewhere.
When there is a clear change in their appearance and it is happening in enough of them that I can be sure to capture it easily in a picture, I will post this.
When there is a clear change in their appearance and it is happening in enough of them that I can be sure to capture it easily in a picture, I will post this.
I saw a FB post yesterday from the CARES species conservation group in which they had relisted denisons because very rare breeding reports were trickling in. They had thought the fish would only be bred via the use of hormones. They were looking for breeders to share info with them.
That underlines the rarity of what you've accomplished here. Keep accomplishing it!
I don't give a lot of weight to comments about accidental breeding. You're being modest.
With difficult species, those accidents are the result of sound, smart fishkeeping creating the conditions that allow fish to flourish. Breeding is what they want to do, and many species won't do that if the fishkeeper doesn't create a chance for them in our unnatural little tanks.
That underlines the rarity of what you've accomplished here. Keep accomplishing it!
I don't give a lot of weight to comments about accidental breeding. You're being modest.
With difficult species, those accidents are the result of sound, smart fishkeeping creating the conditions that allow fish to flourish. Breeding is what they want to do, and many species won't do that if the fishkeeper doesn't create a chance for them in our unnatural little tanks.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
@GaryE
Thankyou for you kinds words. However, I am almost certain that the reason some of the eggs survived being eaten and resulting in the pffspring os because I initially made a mistake in how I set up the clown loach tank. Inspead of using sand if fine gravel, I used larger river pebbled. This means there was a lot of space where eggs migh fall that kept them safe from the fish. Also, I had a bigh pile of rocks and wood with plants on them at th left end of the tank, This provided a perfect place for the newly hatched fry to hide where the other fish could not het at them.
Bear in minf that I got my first redline barbs about 20 years ago, The current group were all replacements for the last group with aged out. So, it was close to 20 years of haing them in my tanks before there was a single fry. Also, a nuber of onths back I decided to try feeding the clowns on cooked shrimp. I cut these into an assortment ov pieces sizes as I have clowns from anput 4 inches to 12 inches. The redlines attacked the shrimp with the same gusto as the clowns. Dor the most part the clowns were fed sinking foods and the barbs mostly got flake.
When I fed frozen the barbs would get a bit of it, but the clowns were more agressive feeders and the frozen sinks to the bottom of the tank fairly fast. So the amount of it the barbs got was minimal. Usually, the flake went in first and then all the sinking stuff followed.
Finally, while I have been diligent in doing weekly maint. and water changes, I attribute a lot of the breeding that has occured in my tanks to the qualit/parameters of our well water. This area has a lot of rock in it and I think to a certain extent the ground water feeding the well shares a lot of it's [parameters with the water in places like Brazil. I am still amazed by how many fish I kept spawned when this was never my goal in getting them.
I love corys and have always kept them in my community tanks. I have several speices in my inwall 75. I have only tried to get a couple of cory species to spawn. I have kept the black variety of Osteogaster schultzei for many years. For the past 10 years they have lived in the 75 with amanos, other corys and assorted tetras. Very recently I spotted a small one. Clearly is was born in the tank. Somehow an egg or two must have survived and when they hatched at leays one wiggler got very lucky. It surprised heck out of me as almost nothing ever managed to do this in that tank. Yhe exception was albino and super red bristlenose plecos.
My part in all the spawning I have seen in my tanks over the years was not zero. But it also was not intentional. Fish I wanted to spawn always go into a species tank.
Thankyou for you kinds words. However, I am almost certain that the reason some of the eggs survived being eaten and resulting in the pffspring os because I initially made a mistake in how I set up the clown loach tank. Inspead of using sand if fine gravel, I used larger river pebbled. This means there was a lot of space where eggs migh fall that kept them safe from the fish. Also, I had a bigh pile of rocks and wood with plants on them at th left end of the tank, This provided a perfect place for the newly hatched fry to hide where the other fish could not het at them.
Bear in minf that I got my first redline barbs about 20 years ago, The current group were all replacements for the last group with aged out. So, it was close to 20 years of haing them in my tanks before there was a single fry. Also, a nuber of onths back I decided to try feeding the clowns on cooked shrimp. I cut these into an assortment ov pieces sizes as I have clowns from anput 4 inches to 12 inches. The redlines attacked the shrimp with the same gusto as the clowns. Dor the most part the clowns were fed sinking foods and the barbs mostly got flake.
When I fed frozen the barbs would get a bit of it, but the clowns were more agressive feeders and the frozen sinks to the bottom of the tank fairly fast. So the amount of it the barbs got was minimal. Usually, the flake went in first and then all the sinking stuff followed.
Finally, while I have been diligent in doing weekly maint. and water changes, I attribute a lot of the breeding that has occured in my tanks to the qualit/parameters of our well water. This area has a lot of rock in it and I think to a certain extent the ground water feeding the well shares a lot of it's [parameters with the water in places like Brazil. I am still amazed by how many fish I kept spawned when this was never my goal in getting them.
I love corys and have always kept them in my community tanks. I have several speices in my inwall 75. I have only tried to get a couple of cory species to spawn. I have kept the black variety of Osteogaster schultzei for many years. For the past 10 years they have lived in the 75 with amanos, other corys and assorted tetras. Very recently I spotted a small one. Clearly is was born in the tank. Somehow an egg or two must have survived and when they hatched at leays one wiggler got very lucky. It surprised heck out of me as almost nothing ever managed to do this in that tank. Yhe exception was albino and super red bristlenose plecos.
My part in all the spawning I have seen in my tanks over the years was not zero. But it also was not intentional. Fish I wanted to spawn always go into a species tank.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
The news is not good. The past few weeks I have had health issues which slowed me down in terms of fish things. Several days the fish were not fed when normally they would have been. The rate of water changes etc. got longer.
Yesterday, having not paid much attention to the tank for several days, I went to check on the new barbs. To my dismay it appears as if I am down to just 6 which mean 10 were lost
There were no bodies I could spot. The six seemed fine since they looked great and were active. I had missed feeding the tank a couple of times. I do still have six today. If I could catch them s=all I would move them into the 75 where the biggest fish are few super red BN and a few of the corys. Neither are a threat.
Yesterday, having not paid much attention to the tank for several days, I went to check on the new barbs. To my dismay it appears as if I am down to just 6 which mean 10 were lost
There were no bodies I could spot. The six seemed fine since they looked great and were active. I had missed feeding the tank a couple of times. I do still have six today. If I could catch them s=all I would move them into the 75 where the biggest fish are few super red BN and a few of the corys. Neither are a threat.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
I spent about 6 or 7 hours today working on the 125/ O bleach dipped all the plants. They had gotten too tall and that meant algae. Sp O lowered them on the wood and got them all a few inches or more lower. In the process I discovered two dead redline offspring. They were somewhat rotted and fuzzy, so I could not determine any cause of death. The remaining six are active and look OK.
The tank really needed a good cleaning which it got along with a 50%+ water change. I actually vacuumed it some. This all may have been what got to some of the kids. Fortunately, my health as taken a turn for the better. I was pretty tired when I got done, but I only took a break for lunch. That was more tank work than I have been able to do for some time.
The clown/barb tanks is in the main house but I dealt with the plants in the other building where I have a utility sink and 3 going tanks. This meant ferrying the plants out and then back when done. I set up my usual system for bleach dipping. I filled the utility sink with clean water, I filled a 5 gal bucket next to the sink with a 19/1 water to bleach dip. Then I filled my 20 gal Rrubbermaid garbage can 85% with water and a huge dose of Prime.
The process was first to put the plant into the sink and manually scrub the leaves with a dedicated tooth brush and/or and algae pad. In some cases I removed the plant from the wood so I could shorten it which also meant having to reattach it later. I was shortening it by removing bag leaves near the bottom and then pruning the rhizome. I have a timer out there and I dip anubais for 2 minutes. Then. I added a small amount of Prime to the sink and rinsed the plant in the sink and then dropped it into the Rubbermaid. Only a few minutes in the can and the bleach is neutralized.
This was when I reattached detached plants to their wood and those dipped still on the wood I detached, pruned and reattached. I did the tank in two halves, This let the fish able to be in the other half with plenty of wood and plants there to make them feel safe. I returned the plants to the first half before i began work on the second half. One advantage to this process that it was very easy to scrub the algae off the glass in the tanks as removing the wood and plants really opened things po and made algae scraping very easy.
Once I had dealt with the plants and also a few of the river round rocks, it was time to clean the filter media and do the water change. I have been thinking I needed more circulation and perhaps mechanical filtration it the tank. I was contemplating doing this in the original 150 the fish were in until it leaked. What I did today as a temporary solution was to put a second H.O.T. Magnum with the micron cartridge in it on the tank.
My clowns are my favorite fish and they will be close to the last to go as I back out of the hobby. I would love to upgrade them into a 220 gal. or even an 8 foot long tank. I would love a 96 x 36 x 30 inch drilled tank so all the equipment is out of sight. I would do just clowns and redline barbs.
The tank really needed a good cleaning which it got along with a 50%+ water change. I actually vacuumed it some. This all may have been what got to some of the kids. Fortunately, my health as taken a turn for the better. I was pretty tired when I got done, but I only took a break for lunch. That was more tank work than I have been able to do for some time.
The clown/barb tanks is in the main house but I dealt with the plants in the other building where I have a utility sink and 3 going tanks. This meant ferrying the plants out and then back when done. I set up my usual system for bleach dipping. I filled the utility sink with clean water, I filled a 5 gal bucket next to the sink with a 19/1 water to bleach dip. Then I filled my 20 gal Rrubbermaid garbage can 85% with water and a huge dose of Prime.
The process was first to put the plant into the sink and manually scrub the leaves with a dedicated tooth brush and/or and algae pad. In some cases I removed the plant from the wood so I could shorten it which also meant having to reattach it later. I was shortening it by removing bag leaves near the bottom and then pruning the rhizome. I have a timer out there and I dip anubais for 2 minutes. Then. I added a small amount of Prime to the sink and rinsed the plant in the sink and then dropped it into the Rubbermaid. Only a few minutes in the can and the bleach is neutralized.
This was when I reattached detached plants to their wood and those dipped still on the wood I detached, pruned and reattached. I did the tank in two halves, This let the fish able to be in the other half with plenty of wood and plants there to make them feel safe. I returned the plants to the first half before i began work on the second half. One advantage to this process that it was very easy to scrub the algae off the glass in the tanks as removing the wood and plants really opened things po and made algae scraping very easy.
Once I had dealt with the plants and also a few of the river round rocks, it was time to clean the filter media and do the water change. I have been thinking I needed more circulation and perhaps mechanical filtration it the tank. I was contemplating doing this in the original 150 the fish were in until it leaked. What I did today as a temporary solution was to put a second H.O.T. Magnum with the micron cartridge in it on the tank.
My clowns are my favorite fish and they will be close to the last to go as I back out of the hobby. I would love to upgrade them into a 220 gal. or even an 8 foot long tank. I would love a 96 x 36 x 30 inch drilled tank so all the equipment is out of sight. I would do just clowns and redline barbs.
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
OP
OP
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
Here is a look at the rest of the tank and fish. You can see it is gunking up. Yesterday before I worked on it it was 10 time worse.
And here are the bigger barbs and the big clown and friends.
And here are the bigger barbs and the big clown and friends.
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