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Ich is a very common parasite banana. If not treated can and most all of the time, will kill that fish.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Don't worry about them keeping it up, Rainbows are continual spawners and very easy to induce to spawn. Normally, in a healthy tank, all it takes is the morning sun. I turn the room lights on before the tank lights to simulate dawn and they go nuts. That's why they are nicknamed, "children of the sun." Raising the fry is a different story.

To be succesful you need to put them in a seperate tank and be prepared with food. They have very small throats and are hard to feed. Green water works well at first and then freshly hatched brine shrimp or liquid fry food will work. Its still hard to get them to adulthood. I've had a few successes but many more failures.

One tip, don't wait for the fry to hatch to move them to a rearing tank. Rainbow eggs are very tough. They are even mailed dry and hatch once put in a tank. If you know where they are laying eggs and can remove the item the eggs are attached to go ahead and place the item in the rearing tank. Let them hatch in the rearing tank.

They were only £4 each,they werent being sold quickly , presumably because no-one locally to me knew how to look after them,and because they always look a bit dull in petshop situations, so I got them cheap

Very beautiful fish. Are they usually very expensive?

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Cake or death?

theres some new pictures I took of them courting today on this thread.

http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Rainbowfish%20and%20Killies/67132.html?200512141530

On the extreme left of the picture there was a combined cluster of plants- proserpinaca pectinata, and some rather weedy looking alternathera.

The floating plant I forgot the name of, was in fact limnobium laevigatum.

Theres also vallisneria gracilis, bacopa rotundifolia,hygrophilia corymbosa, and two species of echinodorus in there.

I have had 2 fry hatch, but unfortunately the parents noticed them at exactly the same time I did, MUNCH, swear, stamp foot etc ! I wasnt expecting them to hatch because of the meds to be honest, so I dont know how long they took to hatch. All traces of meds should be gone in a couple more days and Ill start watching the spawnings, and seperate eggs laid over the gravel and in the java for seperate hatching and raising.

All fishies are otherwise well , active, and still tearing about the tank. Have already put some siamese flying foxes and more ottocinclus in the tank to give the plants a quick clean . I might not add anymore rainbows just yet , until I get some decent batches of fry, its hard enough keeping them away from the parents as it is. More rainbows would mean not an egg would ever hit the floor! I might add some blue eyes later, although I could go for some neons.Blue eyes might get bullied by this lot, they are very tenacious, and more than a little moody around the morning matings.

Ive been trying for about 30 minutes to get a decent piccie, but theyre dashing about too much at the mo to get a nice focus shot, I just upgraded the filter to an external 2224 eheim thermo I bought cheap, im cycling it in situ with the other filter still running,and put a small venturi aerator in to seriously up the oxygen during treatments a few days ago, so that and the flow from the two filters in the tank is exciting them, so will try again tomorrow when theyve settled a bit,when I get more eggs ill get a macro shot of those too (my camera takes some ridiculous macro shots).Im dying to see if I will be able to see the embryo in the egg with it


Last edited by longhairedgit at 13-Dec-2005 10:42

Update? More pictures?
What's the plant on the way-left of the first picture you posted? Do you know what other fish you're going to put into the tank?

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Cake or death?

Hahaha, sent me off on a tangent.But there may be something in it, you never know. But yes, aside from the ich, theyve settled in quite well, they already come up to the glass to look at my face and beg for food, so I assume they feel fairly safe. They might be smart too, they ignore my girlfriend who never feeds them , so they work things out pretty quick considering ive only had them a few weeks.

Heres one of the girls, looking much better, (slightly fuzzy pic, sorry), still a bit dark, but at least not still covered in spots.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_4689.jpg

Last edited by longhairedgit at 07-Dec-2005 05:34

Haha, oops. Just read the first sentence... meant to say 'pretty happy with the tank'. *rolls eyes at herself*


Last edited by bananacoladafuze at 07-Dec-2005 04:06

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Cake or death?

Interesting thought on the ich and how pretty they have to be to breed. Madagascans arent especially bright, and the stress from the ich is actually making them a little darker than they would otherwise be, this can make the deep tones more intense, and I suppose this could be mistaken for breeding colouration. Perhaps the illness is actually encouraging breeding at the moment , even though the stresses of breeding might be counterproductive.

Having given it a bit of thought it could actually be a survival tool, I dont honestly know if ich can invade eggs, but I doubt it. Perhaps evolution makes it beneficial to get some eggs out there if the fish pick up ich, in theory the fry might hatch after the infestation is over , even if the parents die, thusly continuing the population. I might keep the eggs a little longer, just to see what happens.

If that is how it works either the eggs will be damaged from the meds, or from having a diseased parent with a nutritional drain on its system, and the young will be weak. Or it might be that the rainbow young could be more resistant to meds and ich if they hatch. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

In theory a lot of aquarium fish from goldies to tetras may have gone through this kind adaptation to aquarium life, some goldies and tetras will survive diseases that annihilate other fish,, and if that means we see more captive bred madagascans in the hobby, Ill be a happy man .

In most cases of ich the first infection is the worst, then if the fish survive that they can be considerably more resistant to it,either not being affected in the first place, shaking infections themselves, or living longer before they die.If i do get survivors and healthy fry I will be breeding them with others, to generally increase hardiness, but not inbreeding as that will eventually lead to compromised immuno responses from all the animals. I wont let my rainbows go the same way that others do with many fish.To me natural variability of colour and build is just fine as nature intended, but breeding in disease resistance is a good thing



Last edited by longhairedgit at 07-Dec-2005 03:35

They eat away at the fish. But mostly the deadly part is the infections they get from the open areas. And I am sure there is a lot of stress involved with the fish, as the paracites are aggrivating. Causing the fish to rub on rocks and the substrate.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Hi Acid!
Okay, so it's a parasite.. How does having the parasite hurt the fish? Does it eat away at the fish, or hurt the immune system, or is it something else?

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Cake or death?

Just had the madagascan rainbows I bought just over a week ago spawn and lay eggs all over the place. Just as I noticed they have whitespot.Grrrrr.

Well the treatments just gone in, hope the eggs survive.With any luck I can ditch the meds before they hatch.

Im off to go kick some butt at the lfs a bit later today. Dont know if I should be happy or really irritated.

Last edited by longhairedgit at 28-Nov-2005 05:18

Wow, they must be pretty to be spawning while they're sick.
What exactly -is- ich? I know they get spots on 'em and they're sick, but why/how does it hurt them?

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Cake or death?

Quick update, the whitespot is starting to subside,I did change meds though, from interpets antiwhitespot, which didnt appear to be working, so I used ESHA EXIT,at a fairly high dosage, and the spots are reducing on day four. No sign of activity from the eggs, and the tank is around 80f during the treatment.so either they are infertile or the meds probably killed them.

Just thought id add that little snipped just so people can see treating ich takes much longer than 48 hours, and may be resistant to treatment even if you do know what youre doing!

Rainbows are still spawning though, hopefully if they keep it up another week ill get some eggs that will actually hatch.

Yup they do have the fuzzy roots, anything up to 8 inches long, althouth rainbows do tend to give them a trim.They grow so fast I literally throw pounds of them away weekly, and the turtles love eating them. In the other tanks the kutubus and new guinea reds eat bits off the roots all the time. Theyre about 4 inches from the lights, its not the brightness that bumps them off, its the heat from the lights. My hoods all have open backs so the air temp almost never exceeds about 85f, Much hotter than that would be pushing it.The plants are partially protected from the heat by transparent plastic drip trays.

And the fish are still a bit spotty, but otherwise behaving normally apart from the odd flick, and their still spawning . Meds havent run the full course yet though, but im sure theyll be fine in the end.



Last edited by longhairedgit at 01-Dec-2005 23:09

Is the plant in the second picture the one with the fuzzy roots? Kinda looks like my water hyacinth. How far do the lights have to be from the water surface to have floating plants?
How are the fish doing?

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Cake or death?

riccia.

Cant remember the latin names now, gone blank!

but heres piccies of them if it helps.
Ive got quite a bit of this..

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_4611.jpg

And thousands of these in tanks all over the house.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_4610.jpg

What kind of floating plants do you have in there?

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Cake or death?