It's Me Again!

I felt it was appropriate to post in the intro section as I have not been around for so long and could not easily catergorise these ramblings...

I have been extremely busy with work and other things for the last month or so, added to the Christmas season of outings etc etc and I have hard had time to check the forum, never mind post anything.

So a quick catch up:

I had a disaster last Thursday, I came home late from work to a load of dead fish. I had changed 7 tanks Wednesday night with water drawn Tuesday night. The were dead fish in 5 of the 7 tanks and two very shaky looking angels in the 6th tank. The 7th tank had only shrimp and they did not appear to suffer, though it is harder to tell if a shrimp is feeling unwell!!

Lidl are doing an excellent microscope from tomorrow, I think I posted on that already, it's the €139 model that I recommend for anyone interested, I got one last time round and they are fantastic, great value. Treat yourself for Crimbo.

I am starting a dating agency for fish, more of that another time.

I am the proud father of some macrobrachium dux, the babies are the cutest little things you ever saw, exact miniatures of the parents.

I have a lot of fish for sale, I don't have time to list them of photograph them, but I need to get rid of Pepper Corys 5 for €10 or Cory. schultzei 4 for €10. Anyone interested please PM or phone me.

So that's it for now, hopefully things will be back to normal in the New Year, in the meantime I hope that you all have a Happy Christmas and that Santa brings you the fishiest pressie ever


Daragh

welcome back daragh.
tough to lose fish like that.
what are macro. dux.
i'll take some of those cory schulzi.

Hi Daragh,

Welcome back to the forum

Sorry to hear about your disaster. I hope you'll manage to recover from it. Do you think it was your local water that caused all this ?

Looking forward to hear about your 'dating agency' project. :-D

Valerie

bummer about the losses, hope alls ok now
as for this dating agency, to quote an eighties show "what you talkin bout willis"

Hi Daragh,
nice to have you back where you belong!!! sorry to hear about the losses.

Mickey

Congratulations with the shrimp (macrobrachium dux). I would say the youngsters are bizarre looking little critters.

It can be a right kick in the teeth when you come home to several deaths. I hope there are no more loses in the days to come. It is unusual that the shrimp didn't go first if the problem was the mains water.

The microscopes went quickly today. I was unable to get one this morning.
Regarding the dating agency you can put me down for 2 tall blonds.

Macrobrachium dux are long arm shrimp from Congo.

I originally got six and there were definitely two females with eggs, one dropped the eggs too early and then died, one egg lasted a while but never hatched. The second female died before the eggs was laid. That is exactly what happened to the author of the Aqualog book on shrimps. It was a carbon copy of what happened his two females. That left me with two definite males, one huge with massively long arms and one definite female and one I was not sure about. Unfortunately the big female died and so did the questionable one, this left me with just the pair and one last chance to try and raise young successfully.

I spotted the little shrimplets the other night, they are tiny, about 1/3 of an inch and almost 100% clear. The male appeared to be chasing them but the tank is full of java moss and bog wood so fingers crossed some will survive. I did remove four (they took an hour to catch - they might be small but they have rocker propulsion) to a plastic breeding trap with solid bottom. this gave me a chance to look at them, they have the long arms and the eyes out on stalks and look exactly like the adults. An hour later the four were gone, they hadd escaped back in to the tank around the edge of the solid base If I get a chance I will try a capture a few more, I would love to get a photo or some video, but they are incredibly fast. Here is a video of the adults from when I got them first:



Yes, the deaths were due to the water without a doubt. I changed 7 tanks and five of them had dead fish. In all there were about 8 deaths on the next day (Thursday) and one since, the rest of the fish seem ok now. No fish from any tank changed with water from the night before or since died. My water is filtered through a huge "whole of house" style filter with sediment / carbon block and that was put in after the disaster we had earlier in the year when I lost a lot of fish and Platy252 lost even more.

The fish dating seems to be gathering a lot of attention Maybe I will organise a speed dating evening for single fish, you can just imagine the chat up lines of an ogre cat to a goldfish....

Daragh


PS. Anyone watching the video carefully will note the music does not match the credits!! That's because YouTube pulled the video due to copyright issues

Hi Daragh, good to have ya back!!! Shrimps look great, keep us posted about the fry!!!!

Welcome back mate,congratulations on the new arrivals,and sorry about the losses.Did you read of Stuarts disaster on Corydorasworld?I was almost in tears reading the list!
Hope life gets back to some normality soon,for all of us!
Is platty252 planning on trying to breed mermaids?

Acara wrote:

Is platty252 planning on trying to breed mermaids?

You know me, i will try anything once.