Although I will leave this blog up for archival purposes, future entries will be made to my blog on the new site Nic's Aquariums II.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
New Site!!
Well the new site is up. I'm still working on getting a few things online but feel free to check it out.
Although I will leave this blog up for archival purposes, future entries will be made to my blog on the new site Nic's Aquariums II.
Although I will leave this blog up for archival purposes, future entries will be made to my blog on the new site Nic's Aquariums II.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Update: New Site Soon!!!
Hey all! Sorry about the delays, the new site is on the way I promise. I had designed the site the way I liked, then found a pre-fab website manager that looked cool so I tried using that. Needless to say the pre-fab manager was a PAIN to use and I had to uninstall it. I have a lot of stuff from work that I'm doing in the evenings these days. I am shooting for an opening day of Monday May 14th though. The new site will contain my fish/plant "store", my blog, a photo gallery and a forum. Most of it is already setup I just want to check the details and have some content ready for opening day ;)
Hold tight all, its almost here!
Hold tight all, its almost here!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Updates: New Site, Fish Death and Eggs
I am continuing to work on the new site. I'm almost ready to release it to the public. I just want to make a few more design changes before it goes live. With luck I should have it ready by sometime this week. For now its not all that impressive but as I have more time I'll continue to put more material online.
I had my first major fish loss in a while. My male Smokey Blue Blusher passed away on April 6th. It was a real disappointment as he was one of my favorite fish and one of the fish that got me into angelfish breeding. He produced a lot of strong offspring though and his legacy lives on through my smokeys and pseudo-clowns (his children). I'm in the process of tracking down a replacement male Dark Hybrid or Koi to put with the Koi female so I can keep her breeding. She looks so lonely just sitting there in the tank by herself.
Up until the smokey died I had 4 pairs of angels that were breeding, which is WAY more eggs than I can handle with my current setup. As a result I put up a thread over on the TAF-II forum where I offered to sell the eggs from 3 of the pairs if people were interested. Well I got a HUGE response, much bigger than I thought I would. Wouldn't you know it though, as soon as I got people lined up I lose one of my pairs and the others in the group tank all stop laying. I was so aggravated. It looks like my 2 remaining pairs are finally in the egg laying mood again though as they have their tubes WAY down. With luck I'll be able to start getting these eggs out soon.
A while back I talked about the pseudo clown fry that I was attempting to raise. Well after a number of problems with the hatchery I now only have 2 remaining fish. They are getting big and are just adorable to watch. While I would like to have gotten more of them I'll take what I can get for now. Although their patterning is still forming it looks like one of them will have some dark coloration, maybe a Koi or some kind of Smokey, while the other has almost no dark scales and might be a blue blusher which would be great. I know I still have to put up my post on what the pseudo clown prjoect is all about but I think thats something I might put up on the new website instead.
I had my first major fish loss in a while. My male Smokey Blue Blusher passed away on April 6th. It was a real disappointment as he was one of my favorite fish and one of the fish that got me into angelfish breeding. He produced a lot of strong offspring though and his legacy lives on through my smokeys and pseudo-clowns (his children). I'm in the process of tracking down a replacement male Dark Hybrid or Koi to put with the Koi female so I can keep her breeding. She looks so lonely just sitting there in the tank by herself.
Up until the smokey died I had 4 pairs of angels that were breeding, which is WAY more eggs than I can handle with my current setup. As a result I put up a thread over on the TAF-II forum where I offered to sell the eggs from 3 of the pairs if people were interested. Well I got a HUGE response, much bigger than I thought I would. Wouldn't you know it though, as soon as I got people lined up I lose one of my pairs and the others in the group tank all stop laying. I was so aggravated. It looks like my 2 remaining pairs are finally in the egg laying mood again though as they have their tubes WAY down. With luck I'll be able to start getting these eggs out soon.
A while back I talked about the pseudo clown fry that I was attempting to raise. Well after a number of problems with the hatchery I now only have 2 remaining fish. They are getting big and are just adorable to watch. While I would like to have gotten more of them I'll take what I can get for now. Although their patterning is still forming it looks like one of them will have some dark coloration, maybe a Koi or some kind of Smokey, while the other has almost no dark scales and might be a blue blusher which would be great. I know I still have to put up my post on what the pseudo clown prjoect is all about but I think thats something I might put up on the new website instead.
Friday, April 06, 2007
New Website!
I've been looking for a place to put up a real website for some time now. Well I'm happy to say that I finally found a host with Godaddy.com! Using a one time coupon from a friend I was able to get a domain name and hosting for 2 years at a great price. I'm not going to release the URL just yet, since I only setup the services tonight and haven't gotten anything online just yet. Within the next week or so I'm hoping to get some material online such as a "store" for my fish and plants (both aquatic and terrestrial), material on how to plant an aquarium, and some various other pages. Most importantly though I have finally found a place to host the material from my developing fry project! I know there are a number of people who have been waiting to see these pics and movies so now they will be able to!
Need any eggs?
Over the last few weeks it has become increasingly clear that I don't have the facilities to raise all the eggs that my pairs produce. As a result many of the eggs end up eaten and in the stomach of other fish. Rather than using them as a source of food, I've decided to sell off egg clutches that I am unable to raise. I posted thread over on the TAF-II forum offering the eggs to people who were interested. I'm happy to say that I've had a really great response. Currently I have 8 people lined up waiting for eggs. Now I just have to wait for the fish! ;-) If you're interested in raising some angelfish eggs head over to this thread and toss up a reply!
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Frustration
Well I'm sorry to say that I lost the majority of the eggs that I talked about in the previous posts. There are still a handful of fry left from the pseudo clown pair, but many of them were lost due to my poor covering of the filter intake in the hatchery. There were also no survivors of the smokey blue koi clutch, although that was what I expected considering that there was no heater in that tank for some time. Its a little frustrating but I guess it happens.
I can honestly say that I've learned a VERY important lesson in the last couple of weeks; When it comes to breeding, don't get in over your head! If you try to do too much at once you'll just end up in trouble!
So from now on I'm only going to raise one clutch at a time unless I setup a second hatchery which I don't think I'm going to do anytime soon.
I can honestly say that I've learned a VERY important lesson in the last couple of weeks; When it comes to breeding, don't get in over your head! If you try to do too much at once you'll just end up in trouble!
So from now on I'm only going to raise one clutch at a time unless I setup a second hatchery which I don't think I'm going to do anytime soon.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Updates: The good, the bad and the surprising
As the title suggests there has been a lot of activity in the tanks this week!
The Good (well maybe):
The pseudo clown fry starting swimming around Thursday/Friday. I'm still really excited to see what I will get from the cross. I took a couple pics of the freeswimmers and initially they looked great. When I checked them this evening however I admit I was a little worried. There were a number of fry hanging out at the bottom of the tank. I started feeding them today so the might have just been looking for food at the bottom of the tank, especially considering that if I tapped the tank most of them would shoot up into the water. I would hate to have this clutch end up a a group of belly sliders that I would have to cull. I've been doing 50% water changes daily, the water chemistry appears correct and the hatchery was just cleaned out recently so hopefully things are ok. I'll keep you posted.
Pseudo-clown freeswimmers
The Bad (rookie mistake):
As I mentioned in a previous post I pulled the clutch of eggs from Harald and Fawkes out of the group tank in order to hatch them by hand. When I pulled the clutch out of the tank they were ~6 days old and heavily wriggling. Well I put the eggs into a 3 gallon tank just to hatch them, after which I was planning on picking a number of them to grow out in other tanks. Since the pseudo clown clutch and this clutch were laid on the same day I expected them to be on the same developmental cycle. Well as the pseudo clown eggs began to freeswim the H&F clutch didn't. I couldn't figure out what the problem was.... then suddenly it hit me... I forgot to put a heater in the small hatchery that I was using, yeah I'm a moron. I'm not used to dealing with more than one clutch at a time and in all the confusion I totally forgot to put a heater in the tank. As a result the tank temperature fluctuated with the room tempature which dips into the 50's and 60's (*F) during the day while we are at work and don't have the heat running. I don't really hold out much hope for the clutch at this point. Most of them are still wriggling around but none of them have begun swimming, even after heating up the water, so I'm probably going to have to cull them. Doh!
The Surprising:
Last monday I was home sick with the flu. While home I watched as Hedwig and Errol laid eggs on the filter intake in the group tank. There weren't many eggs (only 40 at most) and I already had 2 clutches in hatcheries so I just left the eggs in the tank figuring that someone would eat them. Well boy was I wrong! As of earlier this evening the wrigglers were still on the intake! with 4 other angelfish and a pleco in the tank these fry were still alive and kicking! I was totally stunned! They should start freeswimming later today or tomorrow so I'm interested to see what will happen. I wonder if the parents will be able to guard the babies or if the other fish in the tank will take on a group parenting philosophy as they all seem to be interested in laying eggs these days.
Errol guarding and fanning her surviving fry.
The Good (well maybe):
The pseudo clown fry starting swimming around Thursday/Friday. I'm still really excited to see what I will get from the cross. I took a couple pics of the freeswimmers and initially they looked great. When I checked them this evening however I admit I was a little worried. There were a number of fry hanging out at the bottom of the tank. I started feeding them today so the might have just been looking for food at the bottom of the tank, especially considering that if I tapped the tank most of them would shoot up into the water. I would hate to have this clutch end up a a group of belly sliders that I would have to cull. I've been doing 50% water changes daily, the water chemistry appears correct and the hatchery was just cleaned out recently so hopefully things are ok. I'll keep you posted.
The Bad (rookie mistake):
As I mentioned in a previous post I pulled the clutch of eggs from Harald and Fawkes out of the group tank in order to hatch them by hand. When I pulled the clutch out of the tank they were ~6 days old and heavily wriggling. Well I put the eggs into a 3 gallon tank just to hatch them, after which I was planning on picking a number of them to grow out in other tanks. Since the pseudo clown clutch and this clutch were laid on the same day I expected them to be on the same developmental cycle. Well as the pseudo clown eggs began to freeswim the H&F clutch didn't. I couldn't figure out what the problem was.... then suddenly it hit me... I forgot to put a heater in the small hatchery that I was using, yeah I'm a moron. I'm not used to dealing with more than one clutch at a time and in all the confusion I totally forgot to put a heater in the tank. As a result the tank temperature fluctuated with the room tempature which dips into the 50's and 60's (*F) during the day while we are at work and don't have the heat running. I don't really hold out much hope for the clutch at this point. Most of them are still wriggling around but none of them have begun swimming, even after heating up the water, so I'm probably going to have to cull them. Doh!
The Surprising:
Last monday I was home sick with the flu. While home I watched as Hedwig and Errol laid eggs on the filter intake in the group tank. There weren't many eggs (only 40 at most) and I already had 2 clutches in hatcheries so I just left the eggs in the tank figuring that someone would eat them. Well boy was I wrong! As of earlier this evening the wrigglers were still on the intake! with 4 other angelfish and a pleco in the tank these fry were still alive and kicking! I was totally stunned! They should start freeswimming later today or tomorrow so I'm interested to see what will happen. I wonder if the parents will be able to guard the babies or if the other fish in the tank will take on a group parenting philosophy as they all seem to be interested in laying eggs these days.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Blog Maintanence
I made some minor changes to the blog this evening. I've updated some of the info in the sidebar as well as added a timestamp (not just a datestamp) to all my posts. I've also had a few people mention that the blog was loading slow because EVERY post I ever made was showing up when they came to the page. To remedy the problem I now have the blog setup to only show the 20 most recent posts. To look at any of my older posts just click the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of the page, or click the links in the Blog Archive in the sidebar on the right.
So far, So good...
So far things are going well with all my new eggs. Between the two clutches I've only had 3 white eggs (dead),no signs of fungus and both clutches of eggs are wriggling strong!
I pulled the eggs out of the group tanks and moved them into a 3 gallon tank to hatch out. It was really only a matter of time before the other fish in the tank got to them. But honestly, by the way Harald and Fawkes were treating the eggs I am confident that they would be able to parent raise the eggs themselves in the proper setting. If I have the opportunity, I would like to move this pair into their own tank to see how far they really could get the eggs. Assuming I have the genetics correct(Gm/+ - Sm/+ - S/S - V/+ x Gm/+ - Sm/+ - S/S, what I call Smokey Blue Koi), Harald and Fawkes will throw Blue Blushers, Smokey Blue Blushers, Chocolate Blue Blushers, Koi, Blue Koi, Smokey Blue Koi, and Chocolate Blue Koi, half with standard fins and half with veiled fins. This is of course assuming that the other male in the tank, the Blue Koi Hedwig, didn't sneak some sperm in during the lay. By the time I noticed the eggs they were already fertilized and being heavily guarded by Harald and Fawkes but Hedwig's tubes were definitely down so he might have attempted to fertilize some of the eggs.
Its really too bad that Harald isn't a veil tail though. One of my long term goals is to breed my own line of Smokey Blue Koi Superveils. A lot of people like the black/orange/blue coloration my fish have and I thought they would be a good line to setup. I'm almost there and with the fish I have in the group tank it could very well happen if Hedwig pairs off with either Fawkes or Errol.
The pseudo-clown eggs are doing well in the 10g hatchery. I am SO excited to see what types of fish I get from the pair!!!! I've had some requests to put up a summary of the pseudo-clown project; What makes a pseudo-clown different from a normal clown? What am I trying to accomplish with the project? etc. It's late now so I'm not going to write it up tonight but since I'm more or less snowed in for the weekend I'll try to get it up soon. :)
I pulled the eggs out of the group tanks and moved them into a 3 gallon tank to hatch out. It was really only a matter of time before the other fish in the tank got to them. But honestly, by the way Harald and Fawkes were treating the eggs I am confident that they would be able to parent raise the eggs themselves in the proper setting. If I have the opportunity, I would like to move this pair into their own tank to see how far they really could get the eggs. Assuming I have the genetics correct(Gm/+ - Sm/+ - S/S - V/+ x Gm/+ - Sm/+ - S/S, what I call Smokey Blue Koi), Harald and Fawkes will throw Blue Blushers, Smokey Blue Blushers, Chocolate Blue Blushers, Koi, Blue Koi, Smokey Blue Koi, and Chocolate Blue Koi, half with standard fins and half with veiled fins. This is of course assuming that the other male in the tank, the Blue Koi Hedwig, didn't sneak some sperm in during the lay. By the time I noticed the eggs they were already fertilized and being heavily guarded by Harald and Fawkes but Hedwig's tubes were definitely down so he might have attempted to fertilize some of the eggs.
Its really too bad that Harald isn't a veil tail though. One of my long term goals is to breed my own line of Smokey Blue Koi Superveils. A lot of people like the black/orange/blue coloration my fish have and I thought they would be a good line to setup. I'm almost there and with the fish I have in the group tank it could very well happen if Hedwig pairs off with either Fawkes or Errol.
The pseudo-clown eggs are doing well in the 10g hatchery. I am SO excited to see what types of fish I get from the pair!!!! I've had some requests to put up a summary of the pseudo-clown project; What makes a pseudo-clown different from a normal clown? What am I trying to accomplish with the project? etc. It's late now so I'm not going to write it up tonight but since I'm more or less snowed in for the weekend I'll try to get it up soon. :)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I spoke too soon!!
Apparently I spoke just a little too soon in my last post! I got home from work this evening and checked the tanks as I normally do. To my surprise the pseudo-clown pair of Buckbeak and Norbert had laid eggs!! I was so happy I starting jumping around my living room which, at which point my roommate began to give me weird looks. I pulled the eggs out of the tank and put them into the hatchery. It wasn't the biggest lay I've ever seen but for a first successful attempt I was pretty impressed.
The Pseudo-clown eggs in the hatchery. (~185 total count)
After my excitement about the pseudo-clown eggs I began to feed the tanks their nightly food. Even more to my surprise there were eggs in the 29G group tank as well! It looks like the parents were Harald (the dominant male in that tank) and Fawkes as they both had their tubes down and were guarding the eggs. I was happy to see the eggs on the slate instead of on the filter intake. Unfortunately I'm not setup to raise more than one clutch at a time and for now I don't want to mix up the eggs from the pseudo-clowns so for the night I'll leave the lights on and see if I can come up with something to do with them tomorrow.
Fawkes fanning her eggs!
Overall it was a pretty good day! The weather was great, I had a pretty good day at work and now I suddenly have more eggs than I can deal with! I really hope the pseudo-clown eggs hatch out well. I can't wait to see what I get! I'm also happy to see that the privacy bay setup in the 29G tank is working. Even with 6 angels in there, which some say is overstocked, the pair was able to lay their eggs and guard them without causing too much stress to the other fish.
29G Privacy Bay setup. Slate is placed on each end of the tank with a line of plants on both sides. The fish can then lay their eggs with some privacy away from the other fish in the tank.
After my excitement about the pseudo-clown eggs I began to feed the tanks their nightly food. Even more to my surprise there were eggs in the 29G group tank as well! It looks like the parents were Harald (the dominant male in that tank) and Fawkes as they both had their tubes down and were guarding the eggs. I was happy to see the eggs on the slate instead of on the filter intake. Unfortunately I'm not setup to raise more than one clutch at a time and for now I don't want to mix up the eggs from the pseudo-clowns so for the night I'll leave the lights on and see if I can come up with something to do with them tomorrow.
Overall it was a pretty good day! The weather was great, I had a pretty good day at work and now I suddenly have more eggs than I can deal with! I really hope the pseudo-clown eggs hatch out well. I can't wait to see what I get! I'm also happy to see that the privacy bay setup in the 29G tank is working. Even with 6 angels in there, which some say is overstocked, the pair was able to lay their eggs and guard them without causing too much stress to the other fish.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Updates
Things around here haven't been all that interesting lately but it has been a month and Ellen wants to know whats going on so here goes ;-)
I did see the Pseudo-Clown pair (Buckbeak and Norbert) lay again about 2 weeks ago. I think they are still going through some of the beginner breeder problems though. This time while the male (Buckbeak) seemed interested, the female (Norbert) was a little "off". Either she was confused about where exactly to put the eggs or she needs glasses because she was attempting to lay the eggs about one inch to the right of the piece of slate thats in their tank. It was kind of funny to watch her try to lay only to see the eggs fall then scramble to get them out of the gravel and ultimately spit them out back into the water in the same spot she laid them. I wanted to move the slate over to see if that helped but my plants got in the way and me going into the tank just stressed out the fish. On the up-side she does look a little plump these days so with any luck I'll get some eggs soon.
My original pair Razor and Blade, finally laid again. I don't know why they stopped for as long as they did but I'm glad to see them back in the swing of things. Unfortunately but the time I saw the eggs on the slate the pleco had eaten a number of them. My hatchery also wasn't in a great state since it hasn't been used in a while so I decided to just leave the eggs alone and not stress out the fish. Hopefully they will keep up with the laying now that they seem to be over their dry spell.
The 29G group tank is doing well. The fish have settled down a little and the females in the tank are laying rather regularly. Although I'm not actively looking to get eggs out of that tank I have placed 2 pieces of slate in the tank with plants surrounding them to make nice private areas for pairs. Unfortunatly thus far all the females have chosen to lay their eggs on the filter intake tube directly in the middle of the tank where they are easy pickings for the other fish.
I think I may have found a suitable webhost for the photos and videos for my developing egg media. I am still processing the video file to make them a bit smaller but I will drop updates as I get things online. For now though getting them online is the last in a long line of things that I'm working on.
I did see the Pseudo-Clown pair (Buckbeak and Norbert) lay again about 2 weeks ago. I think they are still going through some of the beginner breeder problems though. This time while the male (Buckbeak) seemed interested, the female (Norbert) was a little "off". Either she was confused about where exactly to put the eggs or she needs glasses because she was attempting to lay the eggs about one inch to the right of the piece of slate thats in their tank. It was kind of funny to watch her try to lay only to see the eggs fall then scramble to get them out of the gravel and ultimately spit them out back into the water in the same spot she laid them. I wanted to move the slate over to see if that helped but my plants got in the way and me going into the tank just stressed out the fish. On the up-side she does look a little plump these days so with any luck I'll get some eggs soon.
My original pair Razor and Blade, finally laid again. I don't know why they stopped for as long as they did but I'm glad to see them back in the swing of things. Unfortunately but the time I saw the eggs on the slate the pleco had eaten a number of them. My hatchery also wasn't in a great state since it hasn't been used in a while so I decided to just leave the eggs alone and not stress out the fish. Hopefully they will keep up with the laying now that they seem to be over their dry spell.
The 29G group tank is doing well. The fish have settled down a little and the females in the tank are laying rather regularly. Although I'm not actively looking to get eggs out of that tank I have placed 2 pieces of slate in the tank with plants surrounding them to make nice private areas for pairs. Unfortunatly thus far all the females have chosen to lay their eggs on the filter intake tube directly in the middle of the tank where they are easy pickings for the other fish.
I think I may have found a suitable webhost for the photos and videos for my developing egg media. I am still processing the video file to make them a bit smaller but I will drop updates as I get things online. For now though getting them online is the last in a long line of things that I'm working on.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Project: Pseudo Clown update
Well it looks like I'm getting a little closer to working out what exactly a pseudo-clown angelfish is genetically. Earlier this evening for the first time my pseudo-clown pair started laying. The male, Buckbeak, didn't seem interested initially but eventually caught on. Unfortunately since this was the first time they laid they ended up eating the eggs. I was kind of expecting that to happen so I'm not terribly upset, if anything I'm thrilled that they seem to be getting along and are finally laying. With any luck I'll get some fertile eggs on the next lay. :-)
TAS Meetings: Standards, BOD, and General Assembly
Well its been a busy couple of weeks on the TAS front. Work on the new Phenotype Library continues. Phase II pages are being put together and everyone on the Standards Committee has been doing a great job! Unfortunately there were some problems regarding official TAS authorization of the pages that had to be taken care of. Luckily between the Standards Committee meeting we had last week and the BOD meeting we had on this past Sunday everything got worked out.
The General Assembly meeting on Sunday went rather well. There was a great presentation about taking photos of your fish. Afterwards there was a lot of talk from our members about taking photos with everyone talking about their cameras and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun.
On a TAS side note, I'm now also part of the website committee!
The General Assembly meeting on Sunday went rather well. There was a great presentation about taking photos of your fish. Afterwards there was a lot of talk from our members about taking photos with everyone talking about their cameras and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun.
On a TAS side note, I'm now also part of the website committee!
New Member of the School
A couple weeks ago we got a new member to the school when I picked up a green cory to put into the beta tank. Since corys usually do better in pairs I'll probably pick up another one eventually but for now I wanted to make sure that Sal (the betta) didn't go after the cory since he is sometimes a little aggressive. Heres a pic of the tanks with some close ups of the new guy.
Sal and his new buddy the green cory
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Changing Tanks!
Well this past weekend I ran through a maintenance cycle to take care of some much needed upkeep. In total I pruned back all my plants, cleaned algae off the glass of most all the tanks, completely took apart my 10G hatchery to clean it and get rid of the snails that had invaded the tank (hopefully all that escargo is now escar-GONE!) and finally moved some of my fish into different tanks.
In general I haven't had time to really work with any fry lately, but I'm still trying to get a couple of my pairs to lay, in particular my "pseudo-clown" pair. Since they weren't laying with other fish in the tank I removed them all and put them into my now empty 29G tank, along with some others I have, leaving just the pair in the 20G tank. Well boy did that work! Within 48 hours the female's (Norbert) tubes were completely down and the male (Buckbeak) was showing interest. Since this is their first lay ever and they are still kind of getting used to having the tank to themselves I think I am going to let them work this out on their own before I put slate into the tank and pull the eggs. That said her tubes are still down, and she still looks plump with eggs so I may put the slate in tomorrow morning just in case.
With all the moving I now have 6 angles in the 29G tank (See the sidebar for an updated inventory). Some may say its overstocked but the fish seem to be getting along just fine and I'm not really looking to breed from anyone in that tank at the moment. Apparently the fish didn't get the memo though because almost all the fish in the tank have tubes majorly showing, its like a fish orgy in there! Up until now I have only had a single breeding pair to deal with. Now I have what I would consider 2 confirmed pairs plus a bunch of females that are in a frisky mood. I now see how people can easily be overwhelmed with fry ;-)
On one last note, the pair of fish that I mentioned in this post have been named. My friend Catherine was living with me when they were hatched and she kind of watched them grow up for the first few months of their little fishy lives, so I decided to let her name them. Since she is Norwegian she named them after the royal family, Harald and Sonja.
In general I haven't had time to really work with any fry lately, but I'm still trying to get a couple of my pairs to lay, in particular my "pseudo-clown" pair. Since they weren't laying with other fish in the tank I removed them all and put them into my now empty 29G tank, along with some others I have, leaving just the pair in the 20G tank. Well boy did that work! Within 48 hours the female's (Norbert) tubes were completely down and the male (Buckbeak) was showing interest. Since this is their first lay ever and they are still kind of getting used to having the tank to themselves I think I am going to let them work this out on their own before I put slate into the tank and pull the eggs. That said her tubes are still down, and she still looks plump with eggs so I may put the slate in tomorrow morning just in case.
With all the moving I now have 6 angles in the 29G tank (See the sidebar for an updated inventory). Some may say its overstocked but the fish seem to be getting along just fine and I'm not really looking to breed from anyone in that tank at the moment. Apparently the fish didn't get the memo though because almost all the fish in the tank have tubes majorly showing, its like a fish orgy in there! Up until now I have only had a single breeding pair to deal with. Now I have what I would consider 2 confirmed pairs plus a bunch of females that are in a frisky mood. I now see how people can easily be overwhelmed with fry ;-)
On one last note, the pair of fish that I mentioned in this post have been named. My friend Catherine was living with me when they were hatched and she kind of watched them grow up for the first few months of their little fishy lives, so I decided to let her name them. Since she is Norwegian she named them after the royal family, Harald and Sonja.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
TAS Meetings / New Phenotype Library Release
The TAS had their first Board of Directors (BOD) and general members meetings of 2007 earlier tonight. Both meetings went rather smoothly. I won the door prize at the general members meeting for the 3rd time! This is getting really funny at this point.
During the meeting the Standards Committee also released the new phenotype library. We've been working hard on this for a while now and Phase I (single locus phenotypes) is finally complete. We are already working on Phase II (multi locus phenotypes) and will put the pages up as we get them finished.
The library is avaliable to everyone, both TAS members and non-members so go check it out by clicking here.
During the meeting the Standards Committee also released the new phenotype library. We've been working hard on this for a while now and Phase I (single locus phenotypes) is finally complete. We are already working on Phase II (multi locus phenotypes) and will put the pages up as we get them finished.
The library is avaliable to everyone, both TAS members and non-members so go check it out by clicking here.
New Smokey Pair
So I found out that I have a new pair of standard fin smokeys in one of the tanks. They were actually fish that I was trying to sell off but never found any buyers. It looks like I might keep them after all. Now I just have to figure out some names for them :-)
Smokey Mom with tubes out
Smokey Mom laying
Smokey Dad with tubes down
Smokey Mom laying
Smokey Dad with tubes down
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Adsense: GONE!
As some of you may know I've been having an odd problem with my Gmail account recently which I am trying to get resolved post haste. In the mean time, when I got home from work today I found a rather annoying email in my inbox. So apparently by encouraging my readers to click on the banner ad at the top of the blog I have been generating "invalid clicks". And I quote,
"Invalid clicks include but are not limited to any clicks
that are generated through the use of robots, automated clicking tools,
manual clicks by a publisher on the publisher's own web pages, or a
publisher encouraging others to click on his ads."
So I can put the ads on the page... but I can't tell anyone they're there, and I can't click on them myself, "due to the potential for inflation of advertiser costs". Right...
In the words of a great philosopher of my generation, "EAT MY SHORTS!!" Google ads will no longer be part of this page so long as I have anything to do with it. (Although I do want to thank everyone who took the time to actually click on the banner when they visited. I had actually gotten up to around $8 although you don't see a check until you get to $100 so I guess that money just goes into the internet oblivion now, or maybe google's pockets, ah well)
"Invalid clicks include but are not limited to any clicks
that are generated through the use of robots, automated clicking tools,
manual clicks by a publisher on the publisher's own web pages, or a
publisher encouraging others to click on his ads."
So I can put the ads on the page... but I can't tell anyone they're there, and I can't click on them myself, "due to the potential for inflation of advertiser costs". Right...
In the words of a great philosopher of my generation, "EAT MY SHORTS!!" Google ads will no longer be part of this page so long as I have anything to do with it. (Although I do want to thank everyone who took the time to actually click on the banner when they visited. I had actually gotten up to around $8 although you don't see a check until you get to $100 so I guess that money just goes into the internet oblivion now, or maybe google's pockets, ah well)
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Project: Developing Fry
Ellen and a few others have asked what ever happened with the Developing Fry project that I was working on so I thought I would drop a quick update. Due to time constraints I really haven't had time to do a whole lot of work on the project, not to mention that the fish have stopped laying for some reason. I would like to get the images and videos online but there is a LOT of material. All said there is more than 3GB of images and videos. The problem is that reducing the size/resolution to make the files easier to move around online results in a massive loss of detail, which is really the whole point. I'm working on getting that resolved so I can get this stuff online but until then here are a few teasers for anyone who's interested, I hope you like them. (Click on the images to see the full resolution versions, captions are BELOW each photo)
A 4 day old fry. This image is a rebuild of ~35 individual images. During upload the image was significantly shrunk, the REAL full sized image is extremely detailed.
An egg at ~1 day old.
A developing spinal cord and early organs at ~2 days.
The head at ~3 days old.
The tail at ~3 days ols.
The tail at day 4 with obvious bloodflowing.
The developing fins and gills at day 5.
Another shot of the gills and head at day 5.
You can see both the sex organs and digestive track at day 6.
The tail at day 6.
The fins at day 7.
You can see both the sex organs and digestive track at day 6.
More photos
I took a mess of photos for a couple of posts over at TAF-II, but since you have to shrink down the pics to upload them to the forum I thought I would put some high resolution shots up here. Click on the photos to see the full sized versions.
Hedwig - Veiled Blue Koi
Fawkes - Veiled Smokey Blue Koi
Misc. Blue Koi
Misc. Smokey Blue Koi
Buckbeak (pseudo-clown)
Buckbeak again
Solo - the last of his clutch he is the lone survivor of a mysterious affliction that wiped out about a dozen of his siblings.
Solo again
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