Drape Fin Barb Fry and how To Grow Utricularia

Fry!

your guess is as good as mine as to where the fish are.

 The Drape fin barbs have produced fry! It's nice to be the first to spawn a fish in your local circle. From what I hear over at Aqua life, I am the first to have spawned these guys, Of course since the tank they are in is dense so i have no interest in hunting down fry and moving them to another tank for rearing. I figure since I barely see the adults in the underbrush that the fry should have an okay time reaching a non edible size in the tank. The tank is full of daphnia and other freshwater inverts so growth should spectacular. For anyone interested these guys are housed in a ten gallon tank on my porch under a car port. Temperatures have been as low as 57degrees over night. The parents have definitely fattened up in that tank.

All bladderworts look pretty mush the same.

     Also in this tank is some kind of  Utricularia. I'm simply not knowledgeable enough to identify individual species. My specimens must be natives that got caught when I caught my daphnia. Whats cool about these guys is the little traps in the corner of the stem axis. They aren't big enough to take anything larger then daphnia, mainly built to catch infusorians really. They grow much like moss but much more rapidly then mosses in my experience. The tank is under a car port, so is constantly in moderate shade. They tank has no water movement, outdoors, natural air flow take care of gas exchange. I dose 1ml of Excel every day. Inside the tank is going in front of a window and will have a sponge filter. This may effect growth or cause the plant to die, much the way turbulence kills duck weed.

How I Feed My Fish

     Fish food companies promote multiple daily feedings. While some fish, such as growing fry or fish with higher metabolism might need multiple feedings daily in a new tank, in a properly aged tank they should be able to find enough food to carry them over to your next feeding. Though specialized feeders such as algae grazers should be fed food like slice squash that they can slowly graze over. I prefer fresh veggies in this case as other fish are less likely to eat it versus an algae wafer.
     I start with a good flake. I used to be on the wall about flake food, thinking it was messy but if you can buy large flake that can easily be sized down for smaller fish. I find it very hard to find  appropriate sized pellets for all my fish. When i went the pellet route I ended up with five different cans for three tanks! Flakes can be crushed to feed even small fry or left whole for my driftwood catfish.
     Another food i find to be versatile and eagerly accepted is Repashy gel foods. Repashy foods are a powder that you mix with boiling water to create a gel to feed the fish with. This food is incredibly easy to mix, make, store, and feed. It's a gel so can be cut into any size but once fish realize it's food they simple bite chunks out of it. The gel takes along time to dissolve int he tank so overfeeding is not a real concern, just don't add more till the first cube is gone. The gel can also be poured over drift wood or rocks before it cools creating a natural feeding station. Down side is if you have scavenger snails they will also get to it and their population will explode. This food also makes feeding night time fish a breeze.
     For plecos and other grazers i use slice and chunks of any squash, cucumber and the like. I try to rotate between green and yellow veggies. I also only feed this twice a week unless i am raising fry.
      I live feed at least once a week. Tubifex worms and black worms will live indefinitely in a freshwater system so very little pollution is created in their feeding. In the warmer months i mostly feed mosquito larvae. A five gallon bucket filled with stale water and a handful of grass clippings will produce quite allot of critters, not just mosquitoes that your fish will love.You'll also get a variety of sizes to feed different sized fish. Weekly harvesting is a must.
    Once a week i also feed frozen food. Since I keep fish of different sizes I usually feed market prawns. these can be thawed out and crushed to various sizes and the relish it. I break off the tail fan and toss into the tanks with nosy fish like loaches so they can work the meat out. Plecos will rasp the shell down to nothing.
     Once a week i fast the fish. IN this case i don't even open the tank lids allowing any extra nutrients, fertilizers and what not to either get taken up by the plants or bacteria. This is usually a Monday. Tuesday becomes prawn day where i let the fish gorge themselves, this is the day i also do water changes. I feed fairly sparingly throughout the week. Though I'm sure the micro fauna in the tank keep the fish fat.
   

Expanding Foam!!!!!

I have been playing around with expanding foam this week, look:

     I was going for a swampy mouth of a cave kinda look. I realize it doesn't look super realistic, though i hope once i get the pothos and other plants to grow it it'll look better. Even with out the plants i feel the foam looks organic. The shapes did naturally occur for the most part so that helps.
      I did foam in some terracotta pots but I actually prefers the planters i made by simply carving some foam once it was dry. since this tank already had fish in it I did not foam directly onto the tank, instead i had to glue the pieces in place later. This was dumb on my part and would have been much easier it i had simply relocated the fish for foaming the tank. But I prevailed.
      I used crazy glue and black silicone. The super glue is not recommended for foam but I found it  held the pieces in place long enough for the silicone to skin and dry over night, so it worked for my purposes. Of course i used the liquid glue versus the water proof gel so things got a little runny and glue did hit the water. It skinned immediately and i scooped it out. Might want to shut power filters off for this, i use sponge filters so wasn't worried about things clogging and what not. After gluing i left the lid off the tank for a few day to let fumes rise out.
     I think all the folds and crannies will eventually build up the organic material that epyphitic plants will need. The foam structure it self will allow roots to anchor into it. Plecos are going in this tank so i made sure just the edges of the foam were under the water, i worry they could chew it up or at least scrape things off.
      I foamed onto a Plexiglas sheet i had and actually cut my face when the plexi broke. Because of this i would recommend foaming onto card board if foaming backgrounds or decorations for a filled tank, The foam should peel easily from cardboard or it can be soaked off once the foam hardens.
   

The Benefits Of Tubifex Worms

     Strangely enough tubifex worms are frowned upon while daphnia are exalted as awesome livefood, I find this odd considering every where that I've seen wild daphnia, I also found tubifex worms. I find them to be a very useful life food, of course i purchase them from a dealer and clean them.

      My method for cleaning the worms is simpler then most methods. I purchase them on my way to work and get them "dry", meaning I don't get any worm water with them. When I get to work I fill the bag with bottled water. If work is slow i may change the water in the bag once or twice. The worms sit in this clean water for about 8 hours. You could replicate this procedure by simply putting worms in            

a container filled with bottled water in the fridge over night. 

     Since I have several nocturnal fish I feed out worms as soon as i get home. I don't worry about quantity, the worms will live in the substrate until the fish find them. I do worry about where i dump them in. I find the worms wont travel far from where they hit the substrate, so if you drop them up front in the tank you'll find any survivors wiggling upfront where any body can see them. I try to drop them towards the back of the tank. 

     What i like about the worms is the survivors will filter the water somewhat while, their physical actions help aerate the substrate, assuming it's sand or soil like. Their ability to live in the tank means the fish get to hunt them down. The fish spend more time actively looking for food and dashing down to gobble it up and less time engaging in bored or socially negative behaviors. The worms can also be used in place of weekend and week long feeding blocks. They'll consume some waste versus making it.

     Naturally they should be fed in conjunction with a quality flake or pellet. Though if squash or cucumbers or other vegetables are taken then one in theory could develop their own diet. I personally rely on flakes to fill in the missing nutrients in the fishes diets. Despite the small size, because tubifex worms clump together fish of any size will take them. Though anything over 3 inches or so misses out on hunting opportunities. 

     I use quite a few different live foods and find tubifex to be the most versatile. Providing not only nutrition but behavioral outlets for small fish. Also since very little waste is produced by the worms, water quality improves versus feeding dry foods that rot very quickly if over fed.

The new 55 gallon or how I dirt planted tanks with diggers.

      Taking advantage of petco and it's dollar a gallon sale I snatched up a 55 gallon tank for 55 bucks. hoorah! The tank fits my dresser perfectly and I had purchased the T5HO in anticipation of a 4ft upgrade. The tank is about 2/3rds full to allow for some emergent growth and some hydroponic growth of pothos and other clinging climbers. 

     I usually use Miracle Grow Organic Choice potting mix under my gravel in planted tanks but this tank is for Filament barbs and 4 medium sized catfish who are potential diggers. My strategy so i can  have the benefits of potting soil in the tank,while reducing the chance that the fish Will make a mess, is to use it only directly under the plants and away from the hides.  

     I first put down an inch of pool filter sand. I arranged the hardscape, which in this case is replica rocks that are hollow. I like the false rocks because not only do they allow for hiding spots but displace less water. Unfortunately they all pretty much look the same so you've gotta be careful when arranging to hide this fact.The rocks were arranged and once i was satisfied i pushed them down into the sand. I then hollowed out where i wanted to plant, moving the sand out of the way, down to the glass. 

     I then filled in the hollows with the potting soil. Make sure to stay at least two inches away from the rock formations with the soil, because if the fish modify the hides, they'll dig out there. I then poured another inch of sand over the everything. I planted in such a way as to  fish a straight through dash of the tank, to minimize plant disturbances. These plants were from my other established tanks and had well developed root systems and are well anchored,. Still, i wanted to reduce the chances of fish weaving in and out of them and getting tangled.

     I chose really robust plants for this tank, seeing as it was full of heavy hitters and potential plant eaters. Mainly this tank is full of crypts(lutia and spiralis), willow hygro, amazon swords, dwarf sag. and tiawon lilly(get it from a fish club memeber). Strappy and tough leafed plants that also bend easily enough. I will also add sunset hygro, and some other more "delicate" but fast growing plants just to test the barbs appetites. 

     The barbs don't seem to be too voracious in their plant eating, more opportunistic then anything and with the roots from floaters and duck weed i believe they'll be distracted with these easy marks and will be less focused on eating my hardier plants. If they insist on eating these plants, i have no problem just doing anubias, java fern, african fern and mosses for plants, other then the price.

     Since i was using fairly well aged filters and decorations in this tank i had no problem setting up the tank and adding fish immediately. To be on the safe side i am adding an instant cycle product to ease the transition. 

Drape Fin Barbs

     I just got a pair of these and they are awesome. These caught my eye after i read about them in tfh. They are definitely not the size i though they would be, they are barely bigger then my thumb nail. But in the shop as well as at home males are already displaying to one another and to females.
     I brought them home and put them in a ten gallon, weedy tank I've been keeping on my porch for the summer. It's under a car port so it never gets direct sunlight. I had a reasonable sized daphnia and copepod colony in this tank. I say had because within 24 hours they had wiped the colony out. These little guys have appetite.
     They are also prone to jumping and repeatedly tried to do so. I would not open top these guys unless there was an intense cover of floating plants. From what i googled about their native range, the average temperature in January is 61 degrees. Though any care sheet style web posts puts them in the 75 degree range. either way my pair is spending the rest of the summer outside until i finish moving some tanks around to make room.
      And room I'm hopefully going to need because by day two they were spawning. Or at least in the early morning I caught them assuming the inverted posture under the crypt leaves. I did not witness any eggs but this pair is really small so it may be a dry run for them or just the excitement of the move.
     They seem easy enough to feed, though not as voracious as other barbs. They may become more savage at feeding time once they eat the tank out of inverts. The tank I'm planning on housing them in will be a thickly planted 20 hex, with paradise fish, peppered cories and oto cats, set at 75 degrees or so. I pretty sure a small colony could do well in a ten gallon tank. Heavily planted a must, my pair so far is very bold, I believe this is due to the heavy plant cover they know they can dive into if required.
     I understand these little guys are fairly common in Europe and with their small size, interesting behaviors and outstanding looks i can see why.

Trachelyopterus galeatus:The Usesless Cat

     My all time favorite fish is my driftwood cat, Trachelyopterus galeatus. Of course everyone in the know calls them useless cats,, meaning they are definately not a cleanup crew canditate. Like the stiped rapheal these guys are impressive when they get big but you'll hardly ever see them and they are utter gluttens.
      My female is not overtly predaceous. She has the capacity to eat full grown sailfin mollies, which she has done, but if the fish is guppy sized or smaller she will not eat it. That would require work. Oddly enough the only time I've ever seen her awake and feeding during the day was when i had a batch of hungry bristle nose pleco babies in the tank so i threw in a banana slice. She charges over and devoured it. Plecos are another fish she largely ignores.
     Despite her bulk i would not house her with synodontus catfish. I one point i did house her with synos and they, despite being half her size simply tormented her to the point where she refused to leave her cave to feed at night.
     Besides eating bananas, other weird qualities of this fish include growling at me. If I'm doing tank maintainance and she feels disturbed she rumbles out a warning, don't know who she's warning, i assume it would other catfish if any were present because if i press my luck she madly dashes around the tank as if on fire. She really is too gentle to be housed with rough and tumble fish. Medium sized pleco push her around.
     Despite the species have a reputation for glutteny, i find she will occasionally not eat for up to a month, or at least i don't get to witness her feeding. She never seems to loose condition after these fasts and appetite is normal afterwards. She seldom leaves her hide during theses times.
     Speaking of hides, she either crams herself into the smallest one in the tank or nestles up to an object longer then herself. She will not enter a cave that is equal to or larger then herself.
     Max size for these guys is supposedly a little over 8 inch but after five years she is only about 6 or so. Recently she has taken up the habit of digging out her hide which she decided is just snuggled up to that fake rock in the picture. This new habit aside i believe them to be planted tank safe, despite her size her movements are careful and graceful. From what I've read they are a social species, though she obviously isn't suffering from being alone, non the less i want to expand to a smalll school of them soon, hopefully to breed.