Fish room Equipment

       As mentioned in a recent email to the Keystone and Chesapeake Killie clubs, we are hoping to help the Harper family dispose of fish room equipment.  Some items like the linear piston air pump and the small box freezer may have multiple interested parties.  In such cases those items will be auctioned to find a fair winning bid.  In many cases, items will be free and it is the Harper's desire that such items find a new home rather than a spot in a land fill.  Please get back to me with an interest and I will keep a running list.

Metal stand with two 20 gallon high tanks with individual hoods.

     Stand on the left has 5 shelves holding a total of nine 5.5 gallon tanks and one ten gallon tank.  The stand itself is 36" wide, 18" deep and 6 feet tall.  The second stand on the right is 4 feet by 2 feet by 6 feet, with four shelves.  there are a total of five 5.5 gallon tanks, and twelve 10 gallon tanks.  There are two air line distribution manifolds with individual valves.  I will be interested in the manifolds.

Stand with a couple of shoe boxes

      This is a wooden piece of furniture acting as a fish stand.  The tank on the bottom is 4 feet long by one foot wide and 18 " tall.  Just above it to the left is a 29 gallon tank 30 " by 12 " by 18".  There also is a ten gallon in the picture, and an assortment of critter keepers.

       Same as above but showing more detail for the 29 gallon.

Free standing small chest freezer.

      That's a pretty good overview of the larger items.  There are also nets, smaller air pumps, and all sorts of other items you would expect.  Please come on the 15th to help move all of this stuff out.  Thanks, reply with interests to George at   gdfishman@verizon.net   

Vacation Notes

     Just got home Saturday from our visit to daughter Emily and family in Port Orange, Florida.  We left early on February second, and got back home mid day on February eighteen.  Didn't really get to fish work until the 19th, so the fish were without food for 17 full days.  A male Aphyosemion bivittatum Funge died, but his mate had died just before leaving so something may have been wrong in that tank.  Even the dozen or so small Aphyosemion australe Swartzflosse all seem to be alive.  So the fish are hungry, but swimming.
      The grindal worm cultures did not fare so well.  Of the 16 coir cultures, probably eight of them show little sign of life.  The best cultures are the two that were on foam.  I was about to discard them before I left because they were accumulating dirt, but they still had lively worms.  Took some of those worms to reseed the failed coir cultures.  By day three, all of the cultures are showing signs of recovery.
       The blackworm cultures that I am trying to cultivate are alive, but the worms are thinner after the long stretch without food.  The good news is that I don't have to start from scratch to get colonies to work with.
       About half of the daphnia cultures fared well.  With some green water feedings, I think they will recover quickly.  The cyclops cultures have provided food for the baby fish.
       All of the blue crawfish survived the vacation.  Now I have to try to fatten them up to pair some to try to get some baby crawdads.
       Before I left, I checked the plants with the biv Funge trio for eggs and found a couple.  Took out all of the plants, and put in new java moss and oak leaves.  The plants were put into a peanut jar for the vacation, and one baby was found swimming two days ago.  Checking that tank for eggs this morning, I found and removed a total of nine!  Will leave the trio in the tank for another week before removing the breeders.

Hypsolebias trifasciatus egg

       I bought a small bag of Hypsolebias trifasciatus eggs at the Keystone Killie Club meeting on November twelve, 2016.  The eggs were marked "Coll 10.08.2016".  Since the eggs originated from a European fish keeper, that would indicate they were collected on August 8, 2016.  If the eggs needed a 3 to 4 month incubation period, they might be ready now on November 22, 2016 for wetting.  A couple of emails from Keystone members suggested checking the eggs to see if they had "eyed" up.  So I fired up the little microscope and wrestled with remembering how to operate it and take pictures.  Here goes:

      Here is the Hypsolebias trifasciatus egg collected from the peat today.  This shot is at 20x.  To my uneducated eye, I would assume the round circle at the bottom of the egg is the developing embryo, which just might be showing an eye within the inner circle.  In any case, I would not think that this egg is anywhere near ready for wetting.

      Same egg at 30x.  The possible eye shows up a little better.

      When I started this photo session, I was looking for water bugs from a standing sample of aquarium water with a thick algae mulm on the bottom.  The egg is in the corner, and all the little specks are some little creature, with three somewhat larger paramecia in the upper left corner.  Should have used tap water to look at the egg.
      Now the interesting part:

      Two much larger creatures came from somewhere and appeared to be grazing the surface of the egg.  They looked to be fairly developed.

      In this picture it looks fairly similar to a terrestrial deer tick.  Any ideas?
      I did let the water on the slide dry out, then threw this egg away.  Don't want those critters getting any bigger.

Take it Off the Bucket List

      I missed the Chesapeake Killie meeting on Saturday because I am visiting my daughter in Port Orange Florida.  Ever since I saw photos of huge redfish in Mosquito Lagoon, I was quite literally hooked myself. These three monsters were caught on blue fish chunks.  Only bait they took today.  Thank you little blue fish that took our shrimp. Then became our wonder bait.

Fish Number 1

The Smallest one, a mere 41"

Fish number 3

Hurry, get him in before the line breaks!

      Wow what a wonderful day.  And yes they were three different fish.  My wife pointed out that my hair is different in the three shots, evidence of the windy day.  Am already planning the next fishing adventure.

Annulatus Update

      The six annulatus that I Bought from Gary Haas on 9/12/15 turned out to be three pairs.  One pair went into the shallow "Surefresh" four liter box at the top right on 12/3/15. Finally on 1/18/16 I found one lone tiny baby with the parents.

Box A

      This is the Box A with the parents and single baby.  The male is in the lower left corner.  The parents have been fed on a nearly exclusive diet of grindal worms, plus whatever cyclops I find to pour in their tank.

Box B

      On 1/18/16 the parents were moved to this different box with java moss and some floating plants.  The single baby was left in the Box A to see if any other babies would show up.  With my patience wearing quite thin, I was going to move the baby to some other container, but this morning, on 2/7/16, I spotted a second much smaller baby. Finally.  Nineteen days to get the second baby.  And I had checked often to see if any late babies had hatched.  So now the two babies will be left in Box A to grow out.  Maybe some more will pop up while I wait.
      As of 2/7/16 no other babies have been spotted in the other two tanks with the other two pairs of parent annulatus.
      Spotted another tiny baby in Box A on the morning of 2/8/16.  Brings the total to three.
      On Friday, 2/12/16, I found five smaller babies and the one larger one!  Sieved some cyclops from a holding jug and added them to Box A with the babies.
      Since this box method seems to be successful, I moved the breeding pair from Box B to a newly set up Box C.  The pair was in Box B for 3 1/2 weeks and no babies were observed in the box.  Now we wait.

      2/17/16:  Highest count in Box A has still been five small babies and the one larger one.  Put in good collection of cyclops.  Box B has still not produced any babies.

      4/6/16:  Box A count down to two, the original biggest baby, and one surviving secondary baby.  This box was down to just those two after our return from the two week Florida absence in early March.  Both babies moved into separate file card boxes.
      Box C has one tiny baby!  The pair was moved to Box B with a complete water change.
      Box B never had a single baby show up, boo.  Pair moved into Box B to let Box C sit to develop hatch out any additional babies.

Red Cherry Shrimp

      Here is the 2 1/2 gallon tank that contains five adult shrimp, four females and one lucky male.  He is the much fainter colored shrimp in the black circle to the left.  Two of the females have dropped their babies, resulting in a count of over twenty this morning. Those two shrimp have not berried yet for their next round. The other two females, one on the filter and the other on the lower left are still carrying developing eggs.  I think I will let them go to baby drop, then probably remove all of the adults.

      Same five adults, but here you can just see the back end of a female in the circle.  The male ls at the top left of the plant clump, against the aquarium glass.

      This picture shows five of the baby shrimp in the circles.  As small as they are now, they are at least double the size they were last week.

Growing Scuds

      I purchased some scuds, probably Hyalella azteca, from John Clairmont a couple of years ago.  They went into a ten gallon tank on a bottom row, and were mostly forgotten. Sometime later, when a tank was needed for a purchase of Red Cherry shrimp, I saw no reason to continue wasting a tank on the scuds, so in went the shrimp. They have been coexisting quite well, with increasing populations of both invertebrates. And the tank is pleasingly clean versus my other tanks. Having read that scuds eat both hair algae and black beard algae, I added ten each to two quart containers with black algae problems.

      Probably 15 smaller scuds were added to this 15 gallon that contains a trio of Red Cherry shrimp. The hair algae is thick on the left side of this tank. Obviously the cherry shrimp don't eat it. It will be nice if the scuds clean it up.

Scuds added 12/25/15