From Everett

[DLynn]

Hi,

I live in south Everett. I sort of fell into this hobby about 3 years ago or so. It started with a 12 gallon tank that PetSmart was all to keen on giving me at a screamin' deal. Now...we have 3-55 gallon tanks, 2-29 gallon tanks, a 20, and a 5. Okay...so we got a little carried away, sigh.

I have an affinity for community fish and my favorite tank is full of Australian Rainbows and live bearers. They do awesome together and both thrive in hard water. The Rainbows are much larger but leave the smaller fish alone and they eat the babies which I'm so very very thankful for.

My second favorite tank has a female beta (love the girls), frogs, and Corys. I tried shrimp but between the Cory's and the frogs...they didn't stand a chance. In fact, they were fodder for the Rainbow fish, as well.

Other fish we have, Bolivian Ram, Apistogramma Cacautoides, variety of tetras, and Angels.

DLynn

 

[Bob]

Welcome, nice to have some fellow rainbow fans, and another person north of Seattle. I probably have a dozen different types of rainbows.

 

[Grimblegrumble]

Welcome

 

[DLynn]

Vicmacki, Yay for Rainbow fish. I love 'em. They're very active and very hardy. What I really need to do is graduate to a 100 gallon...water changes would be so much easier!!

 

[Bob]

Off hand i have,

boesemani
boesemani "Lake Aytinjo"
Glossolepis incisus
Bedotia geayi
Pseudomugil gertrudae
Melanotaenia lacustris
Melanotaenia herbertaxelrodi
Melanotaenia kamaka
Pseudomugil furcatus
Melanotaenia parkinsoni
Melanotaenia parva

I know im missing a few more. Aquarium co-op had some really nice Glossolepis wanamensis when i was there last week. Very tempting but i had to save my money for a different fish.

 

[flamechica]

Welcome! I am also from Everett and I'm partial to the part of your post where you have corys and frogs. I love my corys and frogs. In fact I have a 20g long set up just for my frogs - 4 currently.

 

[DLynn]

I love my frogs too. There for awhile our frogs were breeding on a regular basis. We were able to raise 4 or 5 broods of them successfully and then got tired of it, as it took a lot of babysitting to get them from egg to tadpole. They take a little time to grow but they sure are fun to watch turn from tadpole to frog. I only have four now. The cats and the frogs get along well. I have some mystery plant in that tank (20 gal.) that grows faster than a weed and the frogs love hanging out in it. So does the Beta. I'll have to see if I can get a good picture of it and post it as my profile pic.

 

[flamechica]

That's neat! Mine breed all the time, but they eat the eggs or something because I never get tadpoles. I would love to get some though. I did see what I am pretty sure were eggs scattered all over a large piece of mopani the day before yesterday, but they are slowly disappearing, so they must be eating them. I've been trying to keep them well fed so they won't do that, but the little buggers insist they are always hungry. Lol.

 

[DLynn]

Well, if you want tadpoles, you need to pull out the eggs. If you're interested, I'll tell you how we raised them. Yeah, we just leave the eggs in the tank now too and all of the fish much on them. It's a great way to feed your fish nutritious food

 

[flamechica]

I'd love to hear how you raised them. This is the first time I have ever seen eggs. Probably, because I had fish in with them before and they got to them before I could even see eggs. I love having frogs so much, I decided to do a pretty much frog only tank. Plus, I have one frog, that I call Vicious, that was attacking my Corydoras at feeding time. So, that also motivated me to do move them into their own tank. They are pretty much by themselves, there is a pleco of some sort in there. I think he might be a chocolate zebra. Anyways, I am not sure how I could've removed these eggs this time. They decided to leave them on this huge piece of mopani that would've really been a pita to move. I have quite a bit of red root floaters in the tank and my hope was that they would leave eggs in those so they could be easily removed - but that didn't happen this time. Hopefully, next time.

 

[DLynn]

We did some internet research on how to raise them and came up with this method from things we already had. To remove the eggs from the tank, you need a pipette. I buy them in lots of 100 because I use them for other things. Here is a link to a single one that should be long enough to get down into the plants: http://www.amazon.com/SEOH-Dropping-Pip ... ds=pipette

You can get bags of 100 on Amazon pretty cheap also. We found that a very shallow and wide bowl worked best. I have a seed starting mat that I use to germinate seeds, we set the bowl on that to keep the water at a constant 75 degrees. We tried a Beta heater but it was too much of a hassle, you'll learn why in a moment. We removed water from the tank where we took the eggs from (about an inch and a half deep in the baby bowl) we sucked up eggs from the main tank and transferred them to the bowl. For as long as they stay in that bowl (the next few weeks) you will have to do 50% water changes twice daily. We used the pipette for that. The eggs seem to give off a whitish film and you need to try to suck up as much of that as you can. When you add fresh water take it from the parents tank. In roughly a week, the eggs will change to tadpoles. At first they really don't swim well which is the reason for the shallow bowl. Once they turn to tadpoles, you need to feed them baby brine shrimp. We fed all the fish in the house brine because they have to be baby-sized so the tadpoles can eat them. So we were starting brine every other day. Because you have such a small body of water, we would filter the brine in a coffee filter and rinse them with fresh water before adding them to the tadpole bowl. You'll see the tadpoles go after them too. From this point, when you do water changes, you will need to remove the dead brine shrimp from the bottom of the bowl. Once you get the tads to about 3/8" you can transfer them to a small 2 gallon beta tank. We have a tiny sponge filter for that tank and we put the air on low. If you can keep that tank half full until they get to about a half inch, that would be best. As they grow, they get to be better swimmers but if you have too much tank, they have a hard time getting the brine shrimp. We fed them brine shrimp until they had all their legs. Once those legs are in, you can start feeding them blood worms because that's when it seems their little mouths are big enough. It will take several weeks for all this to happen and for their tails to shrink to nothing. You don't want to transfer them to the adult tank until they are at least half the size of the adult frogs (roughly .75-1 inch). It was fun to watch them morph but like I said...a total pain in the behind. We were able to raise 4 or 5 batches. We probably lost that many too learning from mistakes. If you decide to try it, feel free to ask questions.

 

[flamechica]

Thanks for the advice. That does sound like a real pain in the rear. Lol

 

[DLynn]

Yes, it really is especially when they're so cheap to buy. That's why we quit...too many other things to do but it was fun to try and to do.

 

[lloyd378]

My son brought home 6 tadpoles from his school ..... I'm currently raising them up in a 20 gallon long with sponge filter and some intermittent water changes. I know I raised some when I was a kid in my back yard ( we had a pond and small stream in the field behind my house)

It's cool to see them in all stages on development, but I'm not sure what to do with them once they complete the change to frog hood......my son wants me to turn the tank into a terrium for them, we will see

 

[DLynn]

Lloyd378, are they tree frogs?

 

[lloyd378]

I'm assuming so, but not sure. I didn't ask the teacher nor do I know where they were collected.....my mom told the teacher we could take them becuAse I did fish and had equipment....

 

[DLynn]

Well...seems to me you'll find out what kind of frog, soon enough. I'm sure their instincts will kick in and they'll find their own way, if you decide to release them.

 

[Steelpony]

Welcome from another Everettite here!

Your tanks sound beautiful.

 

[DLynn]

Thanks Steelpony!

 

[discus_2013]

Pics?