quote:

Originally posted by bitterboy:
How many tanks do you have?

Just 2 - a 30 and a 55 -- well, and a 3 here at the office.
Angels in the 55, bosemanii rainbows in the 30, and endler's and cherry shrimp in the 3. Live plants in all of them, so I've got them kinda tricked out to varying extents with CO2, lights, and such.

Had a line on a free 125 all included a couple of weeks ago, but my wife has said, "when we move."

When I was a kid I used to breed angels as well. Bettas too. Lotta fun.

As with many hobbies, aquaria info is one of the things I've found the internet most useful for. Heck, there is a killifish club that meets right down at COD. Last time I was at one of their meetings, they were trying to get rid of a bunch of 10s for (IIRC) $5 each. And they have an annual show/swap over in Lombard.

And there are the Green Water guys down on Archer. But the Chicago Cichlid guys are the closest to us.

You can get so much info so readily from just a couple of on-line forums. There really is no reason why anyone should need to walk into a pet store and have to rely on the clerks for basic info.

Yep, it always the wife who prevents us guys from having a little fun.

When I raised Angels, to prevent cannibalism, I always had to remove the eggs from the tank after they had been laid. Some breeders, I know have been successful in allowing the eggs to remain in the tank with the adults. There has got to be a secret behind this. The breeders I spoke to were reluctant to give it up. Any ideas?

quote:

Originally posted by bitterboy:

When I raised Angels, to prevent cannibalism, I always had to remove the eggs from the tank after they had been laid. Some breeders, I know have been successful in allowing the eggs to remain in the tank with the adults. There has got to be a secret behind this. The breeders I spoke to were reluctant to give it up. Any ideas?

No secret that I know of. My understanding and experience has simply been that some parents will raise the young, and others will eat them. I assume you are keeping the breeding pair in their own tank? Because no one will be able to keep eggs/fry alive in a community tank.

A couple of my angels periodically lays eggs on one of my swords. If I wanted, I could float the leaf in a breeder net, but I'm not interested in breeding right now so they never make it past wriggler stage. For a while I experimented with egg crate to divide the tank, just to keep the parents form beating up the other fish. But now I just let them at it.

quote:

Originally posted by Dinsdale:
... Make sure you have a solid stand - filled with gravel, that 20 will weigh around 500 #. ...

Man, I sound like a product of D41! Make that closer to 200#.

I never really owned any community tanks. Pretty much just Angels. After the eggs had been laid, I would remove the eggs into a 5gal, put in some methylene blue, put an airstone under the leaf and suck off any decayed eggs over the coming days. Before, I stopped, I started getting into Discus. What a beautiful fish!

Who are the Green Guys on Archer? I used to live off Archer on Lockwood, between Pulaski and Central.

quote:

Originally posted by bitterboy:
Who are the Green Guys on Archer? I used to live off Archer on Lockwood, between Pulaski and Central.

Used to be a club caled Green Water Aquarists Society or something. They held their auctions on Archer. Just tried my bookmarked link and seems to be broken. Don't know if they are still extant.

quote:

No secret that I know of. My understanding and experience has simply been that some parents will raise the young, and others will eat them.

I tried everything. As soon as the fry were able to start eating dried foods, I stopped feeding live foods. I thought maybe i'd kill off any predatory instinct by doing this. I tried covering the sides of the tanks to ensure their privacy, raised and lowered temperatures, adjusted PH and used different bulbs. No luck. You must be right.

All this talk is making me want to get back into it. It's a great hobby.

Thank you to huahualover1 for brining over the Betta fish. My son was stoked. He called it a Chinese fighting fish. So far the turtles seem just to be curious, but we will keep an eye on them.

quote:

Originally posted by Fish:
Thank you to huahualover1 for brining over the Betta fish.

Mmmm....brined Betta...sounds tasty. I brined my turkey for Thanksgiving and it was delicious!!

True 'dat. Good indeed. Brining really helps retain the moisture in meats, and apparently fish, that have a tendency to dry out.

Dins,

This Christmas the kids received a 20 gal long. It's the first tank that I we have had in over 10 years. Who am I crappn'? It is really more for me than it is them. I figure that if I can stimulate their interest in the hobby, I'll have an easier time convincing my wife to allow me to start up again. BTW, you nailed it when you wrote this:

quote:

Just saying, if you let the kid pick you might end up with some clown-puke gravel and a little sea diver in there.

I let the kids pick out all the fixn's and just as you scribed they picked the clown puke gravel. We went with artificial plants too. Real cheesy, but they love it. I'm on my way!