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hi, ive been keeping fish 4 bout ummm 8 years now, seince i was a lil fry. anyway, i got a 55 gallon a few years back. i had it set up with a baby oscar and some cory cats and stuff. it was pretty good, the corys even tried to reproduce. i say tried because the genious fish spawned on the filter, and everything ive seen says not to disturb there eggs so they got sucked into the filter. ah well i was young. then i had some problems in life and shut my tank down. i thought it would be 4 ever but i guess not.
now im going to set it back up, cause its went horrid now, but 2 of the chiclids ive kept are still fine. im wanting it to be a breeder tank 4 at least 2 species of livebearers, cory cats,and sumthing like a small egg laying species (danios perhaps?). but in any case ive lost alot of the skill i used to have, as gruesome as my tanks where i could always nurse friends sick fish back to health, i have no clue how.

heres what i was thinking, correct me if i make a mistake on anything.

6 female guppys, 2 male

a group of 4 corys, prolly more once i get some more cash.

i cant decide between zebra danieos or dwarf gauromies as egg layers, i hear both are easy to breed.

and 4 the 2nd live bearer im thinking maybe a few swordtails.

i want to make it as a efficient breeding tank as possible,
however my funds are extreamly limited at the moment. err untill 6 months from now atleast.

heres what i still have from my old fish keeping days

tanks:

1x 55 gallon

2x 10gallons

3x1 gallons that serv mostly to hold ghost shrimp.. or atleast thats what they used to do.

ORNAMENTS: (includes rocks,plants, and actual ornaments)

plants:the only live plant i have is a few things of baby's tears. im possibly going to get some duckweed, water lettuce, and hydrilla verticillata (idk its commen name). i feel these may help any fry to remain hiddin, and thusforth live longer.

rocks: i have about 11 pecies of medieum slate like 5x8 inches across and 1/2 a inch thick. i normaly make the larger pecies into a cave. i have a relly smooth round rock bout the size of my fist, i would say its a geode but its impossibly smooth to be a geode and its coleration almost looks like salami.

ornaments:i have a cave, a log, a log with rocks, another multy colered cave (seems to be a pattern), and a skeleton dude that used to be attached to the airtubes, but i lost the smaller tube that came with it. another cave but relly small, and i may get a clay pot to cause ive read they are good 4 soem fish to hide in, not sure bout it though.

artificial plants: i have quite a few artificial plants.

5x different sizes of what seems to be a plant resembeling baby tears

4x a plant that looks like ambulia

a plant that my grandma got over 20 years ago, idk what it is but its pink and glows in the dark.

i have a multy colered silk plant that appears to be a sad immatation of a amazon sword plant, plus a few others i have no earthly clue what they are.


the gravel is standered pea gravel.

i have a central heater 4 the 55 gal. that i plan to put directly beside the filter to get increased water circulation around it. and the airstone is like 8" long with a fairly powerful pump, its old but good and noisy as heck. im thinking that the diphagram is possibly cracking, bit theres also the thing where it only makes the noise when i sit it down (i have it sitting on a thick glove and its like 95% quieter but still noisy).

the 2 african chichleds i mentioned are each about 2 inches long, im planning on putting them in the 10 galllon like ive had them before, because all they do is sit there.
they are lazy like my oscar used to be before i gave it to my dad, its still lazy and is like 1' 3" long now.

sry ive kept u so long, but ive gotten out of shape shape with fish keeping and plan on getting back to my beautiful and amazing hobby.

ne help would be good, sry its long but remember i am relly low on funds right now

Here's what I do with my guppies, since any guppy babies end up as instant food for just about everything.

I got a couple of fish net brooders. When a guppy female looks like it is about to drop babies, I put her in the net which is fixed to the inside of the tank. I put in a bit of wisteria or java moss and she can then have babies in peace. When she has a few babies, I grab a little net and scoop them out. I put them straight into my shrimp tank. They are too small to eat the shrimp, and the shrimp can't catch the baby guppies.

I have learned, if you want cory babies, don't get tetras. They are particularly fast at stealing eggs, and I have even had them take them from my hand when I try to harvest the eggs to put into the brood net.

If you do manage to find cory eggs before the other fish do, put them into a broodnet fast. I usually put a couple of pebbles in the bottom of the net to stop air bubbles under the net and also a bit of java moss for the babies to hide in. They are really small and will wriggle into a gravel bottom and get stuck. I would keep them in the net for quite a while until they are also big enough to go into the shrimp tank. My cories don't eat shrimp, and shrimp don't each baby cories either.

Placing a heap of babies into a shrimp tank can cause an ammonia spike so make sure you do several small water changes over time until it settles.

get something along the line of hornwort or somthing with lots of room for the baby livebearers to hide. they need fine stands to hide. I have heard contrary to what the above post says about the net brooder and if you arent home when the time come then you are pretty much "screwed." just plant the tankt very heavily then when the babies are born they can hide. then keep another tank with low flow (maybe on of the 10g) for fry when you see them tan\ke them out put them in a water bottle and acclimate them to the water in the 10 for about 30min. then your babies will nbe safe and have a higher tendency to survive. most of this comes from research as i haven't had much success in my two weeks attempt at livebearer breeding. Ps i also heard the net brooders can be more stress on a fish becasue of the other fsih picking on it while in the net. (make sure if you use the net that there is a peice of plant to conceal the babies!!!)

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

well lucky me i just got like a 7.5 gallon acrylic tank from my spanish teacher. its currently full to the rim in my tub to see if theres any leaks cause i see a few cracks but they are small. i guess i could use that sealent thats "fish friendly". it came with a under gravel filter and a airpump. pretty basic but, who knows. i might use it as a breeding tank/quarentine tank with water changes inbetween. un fortuneatly it seems to have been made more for a reptile, and theres no lights in it so i will have to get a type of clamp lamp or sumthing.a trip to walmart is in the makeing.

skyeye, If you want to breed the fish, you must keep them in a seperate tank & breed them there. The Danios are egg scaterers, the Gourami are bubble nest builders & the Corydoras stick the eggs to plants or the tank glass. If you are going to keep them all together, all the eggs are going to be eaten, as soon as they are laid.

If you think that the tank has cracks, then seal it well before using it & don't take any risks.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

well the tank turns out to not have any leaks. i sat it out over night in the tud on a towel and it was still full to the rim when i woke this morning.
any way isnt it possible to get atleast 2 species to breed in a tank?

*another problem im haveing is that hard water buildup.
i took a scrubber and just bout killed my self cleaning a ten gallon. my 55 gal dont have it to much but any 1 got ne techneiqs to remove this junk?

You can breed the fish in the small tank, but not at the same time.

Hard water = water stains?. if yes, you can use a bit of vinegar, but i'm not 100% sure.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

ahh idk what the correct term 4 it is. but i do know that it is calcium deposits left behind from where water evaporates.its a real pain to remove. wouldnt viniger leave residue even if i rinsed it out real good? i dont want to do anything that would harm my fish.

one problem you might be haveing is just your water is too hard. try using a softener. also try putting the water in a rubbermaid tub or something to age tha water i have read by doing this some of the mineral deposits with in the water settle towards the bottom then you syphon or scoop the water with a pitchure to the tank.

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Having hard water can be a big problem also making it softer is not a cheap option. You might have to concentrate on a hard water fish. Check out your LFS to see if it is a local problem or something you have added to the tank (rocks or ornaments) I was at a LFS recently and the customer had very hard water in a very soft water area it was an aquarium problem not the water supply.

To remove the calcium crust a razor blade is is possibly the safest method (no chemicals) try to get the ones with a backing that is if they are still around today.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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