Spend your money on a water butt and auto-shut off kit and then your current unit can fill the barrel with product water while you sleep, ready for you to use.

Thanks for the response, I have a tds of 5 after ro. Should I mix ro and tap water then?


Depends how soft you need it. I have kept blackwater fish in almost 0 TDS water in the past but you have to be meticulous with maintenance. I would mix in some tap water if it were me. You will need to ...

Use the RO unit. Do not use the salt water deioniser as it will make your product water salty as it swaps other 'hard water ions' for sodium to make the water soft - what you want is low tds water which is what a good RO unit will do. In my experience you are unlikely to need to the DI unit after ...

Sad news Eric but at least the older ones are doing well. Fingers crossed that remains the case and you have some more spawns soon!

Thanks Jools and well done. I was seeing the huge number of guest visitors for a while.

I use a mix of generic algae wafers and some larger tablets that are designed to stick onto glass but I just dump them in. They're both from here, are quality foods and always arrive in decent shape. All my food for fish is from them.
http://taaquaculture.uk/Wafers.htm

Don't know if they ship to ...

Fingers crossed you get a good hatching and survival rate.

It almost looks like freshly laid frogspawn!

Jools wrote: 17 Feb 2025, 08:44 What do you guys think about +x points per family and +y point for each genus?

I like it and, as the only person to be listed spawning Synodontis grandiops (I assume as other spawnings are all listed under S.multipunctatus), how about +z points for the only spawning in a species???

bekateen wrote: 15 Feb 2025, 06:18 Who did it better?

Cheers, Eric

I saw that on Facebook and thought it was good but (as a geneticist by training) preferred the detail of yours!

I've dosed excel and other forms of liquid carbon without issue with various fish species but I don't keep Hypancistrus. As Bekateen says I think it might be more of a chain of events or your new plants brought in some parasites that are now affecting your fish, with the most sensitive succumbing ...

It's a UK coarse fishing bit of gear called a swimfeeder. I went to my local tackle shop and tried a few versions and this closed end one seems to work the best. I just pop the cubes inside and the barbs and catfish can pull bits out as it softens. A lot still goes all over the tank but it means the ...

Found a good food for filling the bellies of these little barbatus - freeze dried tubifex seems to be a hit. This seems to be as plump as they're getting though. And whether it will help them grow faster is totally another question!

My young Scleromystax arrived with a hitchhiker small cherry shrimp in one of the bags. I assume they were living with them from the breeder I bought them from. After a couple of days however the shrimp disappeared and there was no dead body so I think it was eaten. I don't know if they'd eat the ...

The genetics of alleles in F1 organisms compared to the wild there is theoretically little loss of diversity, assuming a good range of genetics in the parents. However it could still have an impact as you suggest I. The genetics make up of the next generation if they substantially outnumber the ...

These guys have moved out to the main tank now and are loving the bigger area to dog in and chase each other around. I was getting a bit of aggression between the young males and thought they might need a bit more room.

Thanks Jools. Are the stripe patterns themselves pretty variable within an L-number? Is it more about colours and body shape etc. to ID them?
(I'm more comfortable with IDing cichlids than Plecos!)

Hi, this is a friends catfish that he bought from a local fish store and can't remember the ID. It looks like it has body odontodes. My friend was thinking possible L211 but not sure if that is rare and therefore unlikely to be for sale at a 'standard' store?

Here are some pics,
IMG-20250104 ...

Thanks Eric. Will get a new microworm starter culture ordered today!

Have found a cube of freeze dried tubifex went down well over the space of an hour or so too.

I've stepped up the frequency of smaller feeds and, while most fish now have slightly convex bellies, they aren't looking any chunkier than that after feeds. So I guess that's as 'fat' as they look as juveniles.

Have found a few offers of black worms on eBay and similar but their culture looks a ...

Thanks Jools - all working without needing to clear the cache on this occasion!

It happened again when I tried to look at your post - it seems to be linked to when I'm using the drop-downs or quick links at the top of the page.
Hope your work is going as planned otherwise!

And now it just worked after not working just before I posted this thread!

Getting this error when trying to access unread posts on the forum.

Your Wallago looked like it was stalking that Yellow Cheek! Hope it keeps out of its way!

Jools wrote: 24 Dec 2024, 14:54 Thank you @edds !

Cheers,

Jools

You are welcome. Thank you for all your work on the site.

Ed

Thanks Eric. I am doing 50% water changes daily so have been feeding (what I thought was) fairly heavily. Will try feeding smaller amounts more regularly over Christmas and see if that helps. Never seen live black worms for sale over here but will keep an eye out.
Thank you.

I have recently got some Scleromystax barbatus. They're currently in quarantine and eating well but they still seem to have pretty flat stomachs. They're not looking unhealthy IMO but I thought I was spoiling them with granular food and chopped bloodworm and was expecting nice round bellies.

But ...

You often have different mutations on different loci though so you'd be better banking on this also working with another mutation to produce the piebald effect.

Plus you'd need to backcross to eupterus to produce a hybrid that looked like eupterus.

I think this is a novel mutation.