Nature has little choice in terms of evolution as far as I am concerned. It is an ideal way to insure species are best adapted to their environment. It also wants to insure that species survive over time. And for a very very long time nature had its way. What changed things was us. Humans have gaine...

MY problem has been the house itself. My brother and I , two old bachelors, share a lovely house we inherited. Out parents built it in 1961 as a summer and weekend place. It is in the woods and has its own private well which is mostly why I have done so well with plecos. But the house has no basemen...

Next week I send out the final 12 offspring from my TR parented L173. The beeders went out almost 2 years ago. Also going out next week are my 3 oldest zebras the oldest is over 20 and the next one may be as well. The third is close to 20. Also going out in the very near future are my tank of mixed ...

When I was first setting up my tank for altums which is stained. I was interested in a pleco I could eventually add. I had H. contradens and apparently they come from the same region and some of the rivers where the Altums live. I put in a pair of my adults. I lost one after about a 18 minths and th...

Apparently yes. My brother sent me the pic which was a still taken from a vid. It is a small boat and the man is not reaching for it, so I would guess the fish landed back in the water. That is ubless the dog caught it.

Actually, zebras are omnivores who prefer meat while the Ancistrus are Aufwuchs feeders who eat the algae because it also contains small meaty critters inside it. Also the Xingu is a long river, but the zebras only live in the Big Bend. Look at what this site says about L144 and Lemon Pleco, neither...

I would go further than Eric re tank size. The more water that can be involved, the better it is for breeding and growing out fish. I have mostly worked with plecos for spawning. But I have a project going with the black Schultzei. I have 15 fish in a 20 gal. long which is essentially 30" x 13&...

I started to look at the link as I was a bit curious. About 18 or 19 years ago I got my first angelfish from a breeder. They were DD Blacks. She sent me 5 and I got a pair out of them. They spawned in my 45 gal. community, so the eggs did not last. The next spawn was on an long anubias leaf. A gent ...

Last Friday I sold 143 plecos. Since I began my planned retirement from the hobby I have sold all of my breeders save the WC 173. I also have about 30+ F1s as well. My 3 oldest zebra plecos are going to a retirement tank in CA to live out the balance of their lives. The 8 assorted offspring I should...

There are two possibilities that occur to me. One would be velvet aka Oodinium. This can be hard to spot on many fish. Velvet is similar to Ich but it is a golden color not white. This can make it hard to spot. Odinium can be treated with the same meds/methods as Ich. The second possibility is wasti...

I never got beyond my undergraduate degree in Psychology. But, paper of that covered expoerimental psychology. So I understand about variables etc. I also understand the statistical analysis basics. It was this that got me my final job. So, I tend to look for the uncontrolled variables that might ha...

I wonder about one aspect of this. Iy is obvious that nomrmally pigmented fish have black pupil. However, albinos have red pupils. For bottom feeders the eyes are normally places to be able to look up easily as that is where predator may lurk. Their eyes also can see sideways and maybe some to the r...

This shot comes along once in a lifetime!! And no it was not photo shopped. Enjoy it in all of its glory. Taken at the Bighorn River

I am interested in diet and fish. So I was curious about this paper. For one, I feed a mix of Frozen, Repashy and a commercial food. I rotate between them and try to hold the commercial to 15% or so of feeding until my last brand change. Commercial is a pretty generic term as it covers the worst to ...

eric- Here is what Carl S. the founder of the site I linked says in his very complete information re UV and changing bulbs. Bulb: Check your UV Bulb/Lamp every month if possible. More importantly, CHANGE your bulb every 6 months for aquariums (run 24/7 as suggested earlier in this article), and also...

The price is certainly a deal. I would be concerned about the fact that 5 in 1 comes in several sizes. But I cannot find flow rates. With UV what it might kill depends on several factors. The trick is to match those factors to the problem one is looking to solve. The considerations are: Kill level- ...

Sorry to hear it Eric. But I am older and had a worse one a few months ago. My WC L173 had been actively spawning and when I would look into the tank I could see an assorted size of offspring wherever I looked. I knew the time was passed to do tank breakdown and removal of offspring. But I had been ...

Sexing zebras can be difficult. Some of the most experienced zebra folks I know have confessed to getting it wrong when they were sure they had it right. This is one reason I prefer working with groups. The ideal ratio would be 2 males to 1 female. This is because females can produce eggs faster tha...

Sorry I am late to this thread. I would have looked to have a 2-1 m-f ratio. My understsanding that it takes a female about 2 weeks to produce eggs while the male will need about a month from spawning to the time her boots free swimming fry. When working with my Hypancistrus I have always used the g...

Nice- My experience with 236, 173 and 236 sw is that their young all tend to look super white to start, then they morph. This has led me to advise buyers that unless they know their source very well, it is safer to buy them when bigger and one can be certain of what the fish might be. While I have n...

One of my healthiest tanks is a 75 gallom. heavily planted but with barely an inch of sand. Most of the plants are aniubias, But I have some crypts and Hygro in small pots with fine gravel. There are two filters on the tank as it used to have fewer plants and much bigger fish. One filter is an Aquac...

I do not want to argue with Darrel. But when I do not seem to get much in the way of nitrates in any of the tanks where I am using a mature Matten filter. But I have not tested for nitrates in a long time. I do know two things though. The first is that hobby nitrate test kits are somewhat inaccurate...

I have been a big fan of air power and poret foam for a number of years now. I do not do corner filters however. I do Mattenfilters and I use a lot of the Poret cubefilters. I also have a single 5x5x10 inch Tower filter. I initially lpowerd all of Mattens with water pumps, but switched all but one t...

I have only 20 tanks holding just over 800 gals. But we have both out own well and a septic system. The latter returns water to the environment and it can work its way down being filtered and returned to the aquifer. The waste water from my tanks is either pumped out the windows, flushed down the to...

And here I thought there was no such thing as PhD in stupidity. Apparently I was wrong.

Well I guess id one acts rapidly it is possible to extract things and fertilize them. But I would bet you have to act pretty quickly after the fish died. If you find the fish floating a nibbled on after a day since it died ? And I actually was about to sweeten the deal with a second TR parented L173...

These fish have now been spoken for as part of a larger purchase. Unless things fall apart, which I do not expect, it is a done deal. When things are consumated, I will make the promised donation to the site.

I would also be worried about contaminants. Do the people with homes by the beach spay chemicals on their lawns or plants which may drift onto the beach? Are there vehicles which patrol or manicure the sand? These spew fumes that settle in the sand. What about garbage or oil spills? And after storms...

I have kept a group of these loaches for about 20 years. I have never seen any indication they spawn and I am not even sure what I could do to encourage them to. What really surprised me about these fish is how long they live. They compete with my clown loaches for longevity. Any clues to spawning p...

Nice rock. I have a similar looking rock also from a Scotish gent. It lacks the paperwork, but it sits inside my WC L173 breeder tank. I think they bring some sort of luck. Do not lose it.