so i've got a question

ok so i'm sure plenty of the members will know that in the past few weeks i have managed to get my wild caught brichardi to spawn ( through no efforts of my own i do assure you ). so the question i have stems from the fact that any website i read states that these fish should be kept in water of a ph somewhere between 7.5 and 9 ( obviously due to their origin of lake tanganyika ) but ...... the pair i have are in a tank where the ph is only 6.5 ..... and to make things more interesting they have spawned again in the last few days and i noticed approximately 200 eggs hatching this morning .

is this a freak occurence or are the fish just that adaptable to conditions ???

and secondly

would the fry when they grow a bit more , be more suited to a tank of the same ph or would they too adapt to higher ph if placed in a true tanganyika set up ??????

they are adaptable martin and they will adjust to ph change as long as it's gradual. u should try to get the ph up a bit though. add a little bread soda as u do small water changes and gradually bring it up to at least 7.4.

So, here's the thing, this is all based on genetics, every organism has the capacity to adapt to new sets of conditions.
Over millions of years these fish have exchanged genes. It throws up slight variations in the phenome, in some cases this allows an organism to adapt to conditions it would normally die in or at least fare badly in.

You see, all the time, fish from warm climates being able to tolerate cooler periods. A perfect example of adaptation would be Puffers living in brackish water, those living further up stream would have a higher tolerance to fresh water than those nearer the sea. They would all share the same genes but one would have a gene allowing survival in different salinity.

You could have been lucky to have a strain that succeeds well in lower ph, something that may have a detrimental effect on the developement of the fry due to reduced Calcium. A good test would be getting the parents into a ph closer to the " proper " perameters and see how it goes.

Kev.

ok .... so would the fact that the parents have bred before and the first clutch of over 100 fry are thriving in the 6.5 ph not indicate that the conditions in said tank are far from detremental to their well being ?

and another question i have would be ..... wot advantage would i gain by raising the ph slightly ?

by the way i am not questioning the advice guys ... i just don't understand ........ i guess its the whole " if it aint broke , don't fix it " regime lol.

thanx for the help

martin

Hi,what I would say is that if your pH is a bit low,there is a chance that your water is a bit "soft":low content in minerals.If there is little mineral,the fry could be lacking those minerals to devellope properly.for exemple,as mentioned previously,Calcium.
It would then be beneficial to raise the hardness(mineral content)of the water which would also raise the pH.

I hope this helps,And hope your keyholes get some success some day!!!!

Dimitri

ahhhhh now i understand ....

thats pretty cool .....
thanx for the advice guys .......

now !! anyone wanna buy a load of brichardi fry
lol

thanx again guys

Totally understandable, and Derek is the Guru bar none regarding Cichlids, ask anyone, any forum, anywhere.

There is the , if it ain't broken, don't fix it school of thought, I doubt if you have them in a tetra or Discus setup and I'd be astounded if they thrived in the said setups so it's given you want to do things the "right" way. The conditions of the lakes they come from are very stable and don't fluctuate bar a slight rise and fall in temperature due to seasonal variations.

How long are the fish in your setup? Were they put into these conditions from day one or did something happen slowly to change the conditions giving the fish a chance to adapt. You hear, all the time Discus laying Eggs in water that they shouldn't, mostly they don't hatch or if they do they don't last long.

Cardinals can live in harder water but people don't try to breed them in hard water because of how difficult it is in soft, but whose to say they wouldn't if you really tried, you could have a pair, like yours that would have a built in tolerance to hard water. cardinals suffer from calcium obstructions in their Kidney tubules and age quicker in those conditions.

I'd just say, let the fry grow up in those your conditions and see if they survive, the fish may be able to breed but will the fry survive? if they do, stands to reason they too should inherit the ability to breed in the same water their parents did.

Hope you are still awake lol.

Just my thoughts

Kev.

thanx kev ..... i understand wot you're sayin ... just didn't get it the first time around .

in answer to your question ,the parents have been in this set up for over two months at this stage ....its a small 60 litre tank and to be honest they were put in there to try reduce crowding in my other tank where i was tryin to get my pair of keyhole cichlids to breed ,

i knew the conditions weren't ideal for them in there but i was planning on getting around to maybe introducing a few shellies and then starting maybe a very small tanganyikan set up .

then just under 4 weeks ago i noticed they had spawned , my first ever time having any fish spawn by the way , so i was very excited and decided to leave them alone to see how they got on .

this tuesday the fry are 4 weeks old and to be honest i have not noticed a fall off in their numbers .... and they seem to be developing at a very steady rate . upon close inspection you can clearly make out a full set of fins and tail and their energy levels are incredible .

then as i said yesterday i noticed a second ( and larger ) spawn from the same parents ..... so i will bow to superior knowledge and raise the ph of that tank slowly

thanx again for the help

martin

Good on ya Martin whatever the reason they spawned I'm jealous:angry: Anyway, give em some brine shrimp with spirulina etc, food with Calcium and you'll be good to go. I have a small harem of shellies in a Fluval edge with what is supposed to be the right conditions although most would argue the volume is small. I hope I am as successful as you.

Kev.

thanx kev ..... sheag here on the forum has a booming colony of shellies at the moment ...... you should have a chat with him ...... cheers again

martin

Cheers!

Kev.

so this evening i thought i'd shoot a very quick clip of the fry and see wot ppl think !!

looks brilliant. keep us up to date with how they progress up to selling on size. What are you feeding the fry?

at the moment i'm just feeding them once or twice a day on a diet of HBH fry bites , and i have also started crushing the flake food that i'm putting into the tank for the parents in the hope that maybe the older of the fry will manage some of that

thanks for that. starting a killifish tank tomorrow and have read they cant eat baby brine shrimp right from birth sometimes

baby brine shrimp are a fantastic food for any fry to be honest .... but for the life of me i can't find my hatchery anywhere ... otherwise i would probably use that too