WTB red calico/marble bn

[PaperDoves]

Either long fin or short fin is fine. Must ship, unless you happen to live in Oregon, then depending on driving time I might be able to pick up.

[bekateen]

Have you tried either Aquabid.com or WetSpot Tropical fish (http://wetspottropicalfish.com/index.php/fish)? WetSpot is in Portland, which is pretty far away from you, so you probably don't want to drive there (although to be honest, that is an amazing fish store, so if you want to have a fun "field trip," it would be worth the drive). WetSpot will ship if you don't want to drive there.

[PaperDoves]

Thank you for your reply!

Yes, I've gotten fish from Wet Spot before with excellent results, I fully recommend them. For some reason I was having difficulty finding this particular fish either on eBay or on Aquabid. Well, there were a few on Aquabid but they were in multipacks and I only want one or two.There is a group of three subadults that I really would like to get, but the price is a bit much for me. I did eventually, after having posted this, track down one through Wet Spot via eBay but for some reason it wasn't easy.

As you said, I am pretty far from Portland, but the next time I can find an excuse to go up there I plan to incorporate a trip to Wet Spot, for sure. I understand that there is also a nice fish store in Tualatin. I usually stay in a hotel in Tigard when I go, so I could easily hit both stores. And of course, Hot Lips. I miss Hot Lips. I can get their sodas here in Bandon, which is wonderful, but I love their pizza too.

I had a calico bn, but it came in under an inch in total length. I bought it along with a lf green dragon, which was about the same size when I got them. The green dragon has thrived and grown like a weed, but the calico just never grew. It didn't look skinny or ill, it acted normal, I saw it eating frequently, but as I said it just didn't grow, and eventually it passed away. I understand that these things can happen with very young animals, but are there any steps that I can take to help ensure that this doesn't happen again with the one that I just ordered? I feed flakes, brine shrimp, fresh veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, half ripe tomatoes, honeydew melon, etc) and there is a chunk of apple wood in there (soon to be joined by some Mopani wood). All of which I frequently see the plecos eating. I replace the veggies every 24 hours to avoid fouling the water, and I do 50% water changes one to two times per week.

[bekateen]

I understand that there is also a nice fish store in Tualatin.

I didn't know about that. Is it called Upscales? If not, then what? I drive through Portland rarely, but I'd like to add this store to my list of places to stop. Thanks.

I had a calico bn, but it came in under an inch in total length. I bought it along with a lf green dragon, which was about the same size when I got them. The green dragon has thrived and grown like a weed, but the calico just never grew. It didn't look skinny or ill, it acted normal, I saw it eating frequently, but as I said it just didn't grow, and eventually it passed away. I understand that these things can happen with very young animals, but are there any steps that I can take to help ensure that this doesn't happen again with the one that I just ordered?

I may be off the mark here, but in my experience with the

Ancistrus

color morphs, they are so in-bred that it is common to have some individuals that grow but just don't thrive like their siblings.

Of course, this happens in regular fish too - if you think about the biology of how wild populations of animals survive, theoretically a mother and father need to have only two of all of their offspring in their lifetime survive to replace them in the next generation in order to preserve the population. Now, this isn't actually true in the real world, but it does show that when you consider the 100's of offspring a female can have in captivity, the probability that all of her offspring will be fit and healthy is extremely low, and many of the offspring are going to die for one reason or another (predation, disability, disease, etc.) before maturing and breeding, or at least grow poorly and be relatively weak as adults.

Therefore we should expect that some fish won't thrive as well as others - think of the "runts" of the litter for dogs and cats. What is my point here? That there may be many explanations for why your specific calico BN didn't grow and thrive: maybe it was stressed by the other fish, maybe it was more sensitive to water quality than the other fish, who knows. But one possibility which is impossible to rule out is that it was simply an individual of inferior genetic health compared to your other BN that thrived. And since these BNs are so inbred, the problem of slow-growing or non-thriving juveniles is exaggerated in the BNs compared to what we'd expect to see in regular species which are wild caught or first-generation captive bred.

Eric

[PaperDoves]

Thanks, your explanation is pretty much exactly how I explained it to my son, almost word for word- it's nice to know that I'm not off the mark here.

I'll try to remember where I saw mention of the fish store in Tualatin, and find the post so that I can let you know the name of it. I know that someone said that there's a very nice bio-cube there, if that's a helpful clue. I'll still look around and find it though.

I have three bns in there now- the lf green dragon and two regular (they appear to be of the 'Colombia' collection point variety, but they're just lfs fish so I don't know specifics. They have a specific look to them which is different than most 'regular' bns that I see though). Which is all irrelevant lol, my question is this: some of my bns show some territorial behavior, while one of them does not seem to do so. Is this indicative of sex? Are the territorial ones males? Or is it just down to individual personalities at this point? They're all around 2" tl, maybe a bit less.