Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Ancistrus Rio Abuna fry

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Ma (mm mm)
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26 Dec 2011 12:49 #1 by Ma (mm mm)

Ancistrus Rio Abuna fry was created by Ma (mm mm)

[Hi all,

I got a pair of wild Ancistrus sp (Rio Abuna) over 2 years ago in Kinseally.

I've began over the past few months to get them to spawn, 35 fry were counted last time but unfortunately I am as of yet to have a single one survive!

I use peat and have the aquarium planted, it is a 90L DD nano.

gH kH 3
ph 6.8
temp 26c
No nitrite niotrate or ammonia levels of concern
40% drip WC twice a week, water is dripped through peat to keep pH steady, no CO2

I have been using liquifry for egg layers to begin with then brine shrimp. They last about 4 days after they first appear from the hollowed wood the male lives in so I asume they make it about 7 8 days before they one by one kick the bucket. I am stuck on this one, have got Tetras to survive but it seems I am failing on a species a lot have had plenty of success with.

The little guys themselves
video]

[/video]

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!.

Cheers

Mark

Location D.11

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26 Dec 2011 18:53 #2 by Melander (Andreas Melander)

Replied by Melander (Andreas Melander) on topic Re: Ancistrus Rio Abuna fry

Congrats on the spawns!

I would not be bummed about "failing when others had plenty of success", remember that yours are wild and from what I have heard are much harder to breed then any common bristlenose. A quick look on planet catfish for Ancistrus sp. Rio Abuna shows breeding as unreported for instance.

I only breed the common "domesticated" versions and the most common reason that fry die in my experience is lack of food in which case the weaker fry seems to wither and get thinner very fast before death. I don't know if this is the case here but could be worth to look out for, it sounds strange that it would happend in your planted setup. If you find fry that seem to be on the thin end you could separate the little ones and make it easy for them to find food in a smaller container. I find corgetes to work great.

Cheers for posting the nifty video and good luck!

Melander

www.melandersaquarium.blogspot.com

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derek (Derek Doyle)
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27 Dec 2011 13:36 #3 by derek (Derek Doyle)

Replied by derek (Derek Doyle) on topic Re: Ancistrus Rio Abuna fry

Mark. wrote:
[Hi all,

I got a pair of wild Ancistrus sp (Rio Abuna) over 2 years ago in Kinseally.

I've began over the past few months to get them to spawn, 35 fry were counted last time but unfortunately I am as of yet to have a single one survive!

I use peat and have the aquarium planted, it is a 90L DD nano.

gH kH 3
ph 6.8
temp 26c
No nitrite niotrate or ammonia levels of concern
40% drip WC twice a week, water is dripped through peat to keep pH steady, no CO2

I have been using liquifry for egg layers to begin with then brine shrimp. They last about 4 days after they first appear from the hollowed wood the male lives in so I asume they make it about 7 8 days before they one by one kick the bucket. I am stuck on this one, have got Tetras to survive but it seems I am failing on a species a lot have had plenty of success with.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!.

Cheers

Mark

as mentioned the wild forms of loricarids are a lot more difficult to raise than the normal domestic forms.
water depth is very important as well as any even slight sudden changes to the water chemistry. also liquifry is a terrible pollutant if even slightly overused and i never trust it esp with fish that dont actually chase it down. there is enough microscopic food there already in any mature tank to feed the fry anyway for the first few days.
so my advice re things to try next time would be avoid large water changes for a few weeks till the fry harden up, add a piece of polyfilter to optimise water quality. dont feed anything esp for fry, just feed the adults and add microworms and hatched brine shrimp which will be eaten by adults as well as fry. the fry can suck on larger food particles within a few days so will be fine without the addition of extra microscopic food.
good luck with the next spawn.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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Ma (mm mm)
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30 Dec 2011 19:00 #4 by Ma (mm mm)

Replied by Ma (mm mm) on topic Re: Ancistrus Rio Abuna fry

Thanks folks!

I think I may have been overdoing it with the liquifry after reding above posts. I will also try less water changes, I already have a wad of polyfilter in there and change it more regularly than all the other media.

Will see how it goes this time, been 2 months since the last spawn, prawns trigger the female to lay eggs every time, after over a year of trying this and that fresh water prawn makes her go spawn crazy.

Mark

Location D.11

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