Robs fish room tales.

I've got 5, slightly smaller siblings here at the shop for £12.90 each, of course, they're not breeding, and they're in a sales tank, so their markings aren't quite as striking at the moment, but give them a nice settled home and I'm sure they look just as good!
Otherwise It's likely that I'll have to thin out some of the spares & pairs in the next month or so, to make way for all babies I have coming on!

All four pairs now have free swimmers, whilst the fifth pair have had another batch of eggs fungus, so I've removed them and replaced them with what I hope is a pair Male Rio Nanay, Female Manacapuru cross. They've been in their new tank for a couple of days and are behaving like a pair, so fingers crossed.

Here are some photos of the proud parents.....

Manacapuru cross, pair 1


Manacapuru cross, pair 2


Koi Pair



Platinum Marble x silver ghost (het. albino & pb)

Hi Simon,
Nice to meet you today, sorry if I seemed a bit bewildered, I spent all day doing deliveries in a very hot van, and as a result my head felt like someone was hitting it with a mallet!

Hope you like the pair you picked up they're the pair described as "Manacapuru cross, pair 2" in the post above.

Ha ha no problems mate, my full day meeting may felt pretty much the same ....
the pair are stunning mate and the conversation about the other pair I am seriously thinking I should return .... added bonus the wife even said they are nice   

they need to settle in but I have high hopes ....

Good to put a face to the name and no doubt I will see you soon

.... added bonus the wife even said they are nice

That always helps when it comes to spending money!

Ok, a little while since I posted about the progress in my fish room, here's why.....

My breeding projects usually follow an annual cycle. With school & therefore summer holidays in July & August, I usually try to run things down a bit in anticipation. Although I'm fortunate in having parents who used to run a fish shop, and are therefore quite capable of feeding flake without overfeeding, they certainly don't wan't the hassle of having to visit every day that I'm away, and having to deal with baby brine shrimp etc.
This year we went away at the end of August, but prior to that, the last batch laid were the koi pair shown in the post on 21st May. This koi pair were particularly productive, giving me at least 400+ offspring. I chose the female of that pair, not because of her colouration, which is frankly rather poor, but because of her slight dorsal striations. I wanted to see if she would pass them on to any of her offspring. So far I've spotted 3 individuals with very distinct striations, I haven't managed to get any very decent photos of them yet, but here's one taken a month or so ago...


As a bonus, I'm very pleased with the extent & intensity of colouration in some of these fish, but again, no decent photos as yet. since both parents carry a pb gene, a quarter of the youngsters are paraiba koi, and I have a suspicion that some of these are showing significant amounts of orange colouration.
In the run up to going away I took quite a number of fish to the shop, and more in the weeks following my return. This meant that I was able to set up 5 pairs in my 5 breeding tanks, 4 of these pairs either bickered, or failed to deliver the goods, so in the last week or so I've taken yet more fish to the shop and had a bit of a shuffle round, taking the opportunity to bleach &/or thorough clean the empty breeding tanks before introducing new pairs to some of them, I've also used a divider to split one of my larger tanks into two "honeymoon suites"....

I now have 7 pairs in suitable quarters and my fingers crossed. Two of these pairs are guarding eggs & I have my toes crossed for these. Bu the astute amongst you will have noticed that I said :-

I was able to set up 5 pairs in my 5 breeding tanks, 4 of these pairs either bickered, or failed to deliver the goods

and are possibly wondering about the 5th pair....

These are two albinos, the male is a blue albino and I suspect, a pinoy albino, he also has a good chance of having at least one stripeless gene as both his parents carried the gene....

 

The mother is only distantly related and is a blushing albino....

Since both her parents were het. for pb there's a good chance that she carries the gene too....



Initially this pair seemed quite antagonistic to each other, but they gradually settled down and on about the third or fourth attempt, got some youngsters to free swimming, sadly albino youngsters can struggle to find food in a typical breeding tank, and all were gone after 48 hours or so. So, next time round, I used a meat baster to pinch some of the wrigglers a day or so before they went free swimming. I moved them in a small (3 litre) glass tank, and having floated them, released most of them into a breeding net suspended in a 35 litre tank with no light on the tank. As an after thought I rinsed the small tank a couple of times in the tank itself, in case some of the babies were still hanging on to it....

On the 8th the babies went free swimming, and I was surprised to see quite a few outside the net in the tank. the light has remained off, & I've been feeding rather heavier than I would normal youngsters, most of those in the tank itself seem to have perished, but a couple have survived, whilst in the net there were about 30. All seem to be growing and managing to find food, but the two in the tank itself have grown noticeably faster, so a couple of days ago I released some from the net into the tank. Not all seem to have thrived, but I'm left with about 15 or 20 in the net, and 8 or 10 individuals outside.
It's still very early days, but, in short, I have about 30 baby albinos seemingly thriving  

Meanwhile I expect the parents to spawn again soon, and now I have a system that seems to work, I'm hoping I might be able to pinch a few more.

At the very least, all these youngsters will be albino ghosts with one pb gene, at best, I'll also have some albino paraibas and albino blue ghosts!

Chickens & eggs, wish me luck!

Some pairs never get the hang of parent raising, some take months to get it right, but some just seem to click first time.....

To be fair, the blue marble mother is an experienced parent, but her blue smokey "toyboy" is new to the game, and they've only been together for 10 days (7 of them tending eggs & wrigglers)

Stunning pictures Rob. I'm getting fed up with two pairs that can't get it right, so one more attempt and one of the pairs is going back in the community lol

Fantastic news on the albinos Rob! I've not been breeding any angels for a while, got my hands full with malawis and synodontis, but I really miss creating something 'different'.
Did you know about Raiko sending the Bulgarian greens to the States......fancy doing another 'first import' to the UK?

Fantastic news on the albinos Rob!

They seem to be growing well, I'm fairly confident some are blushing, too early to say about blue, but the parents are guarding another batch of eggs laid yesterday.

Did you know about Raiko sending the Bulgarian greens to the States

Yep

fancy doing another 'first import' to the UK?

I'm working on it

save me some Rob

save me some Rob

Still early days, but I'm sure there will be plenty to go round, but you're now first on the list (after me!)

Yay!!! keep me posted Rob! I will need to have a shuffle round....not easy...but worth it! Did you see Raikos cold water fish? Stunning stuff.......

Did you see Raikos cold water fish? Stunning stuff.......

Indeed they are, but more problematic when it comes to importing them (due to the stricter regulations on coldwater fish).

That's a shame Rob, a shipment rounded out with some of those Ryukins (?) would have been fantastic (as if the angels aren't enough by themselves!).

My latest pair....

A Veiltail Streaked Chocolate Pinoy Ghost (D/+ - S/+ - V/+ - Sm/Sm - St/+ - pb/pb)




and a blue clown (S/Z - pb/pb)




Quite a small batch this time around, but still nice to see them taking good care of their babies.
See my post from Monday September 30th last year for a photo of the Dad's parents....

Whilst, if I'm correct about this, Mother also carries an albino gene as her father was my original albino. (see post Sunday September 8th 2013)

Well a couple of months since my last post, so time for an update.

I don't quite know what went on with the streaked chocolate pinoy & the blue clown pair. They both seem like dedicated & determined parents, they guarded the fry in the photos above to free swimming, then guarded them well for about a week, numbers dwindled slightly, which to be honest I tend to expect, but then, overnight, every last fry disappeared.
Their next batch didn't even get to free swimming, but the next two batches disappeared the night after going free swimming, for the next batch I pinched about 40 when they went free swimming and put them in a separate tank, and I still have a couple of dozen of them a month later, but those with the parents just disappeared.
I decided that one of the parents, I suspected the male, had gone rogue, so when the next batch went free swimming, I removed both parents from the tank, 8 days later there are just 5 survivors. I've removed these few & put them in a breeding net in the tank with their surviving siblings. Meanwhile I've bleached the breeding tank and will be trying a different pair in there. But I'm not going to give up on this pair, the surviving youngsters are looking very promising...

In my post of May 16th last year I posted this photo of a pair of koi who weren't delivering the goods :-



I wasn't sure that the better coloured one was a male, so removed them to a community tank for a while, where they continued to behave as a bonded pair. At the beginning of the year I decided to give them another shot in a breeding tank, and this time they've delivered the goods. Unfortunately they're very camera shy at the moment, so I haven't managed to get a decent photo of them with their young, who went free swimming about a week ago.
I have high hopes for these as the male is my best coloured koi :-



In that same post last May, I posted about two other pairs. The first of these was a pairing between a platinum marble and a silver ghost, and their youngsters are starting to shine.

These two are smokey "blue" koi - "Blue koi" is a name given to blushing silver gold marbles, confusingly they don't have to have the Philippine blue gene to qualify for this name, although these two do carry one copy of the gene :-
 

If they had two copies of the gene, they would be paraiba blue koi, like like their sibling below :-



The other pair were koi, a fairly nice male, and a rather insipid female who I had chosen as she had a slightly striated dorsal. I'm really pleased with how these turned out, firstly they produced hundreds of babies, something like 400-500. Of these colour was variable, but there are some really nicely coloured individuals, there are also some paraiba koi and three individuals with very clearly striated dorsals. Finally, for me, most importantly body shape and finnage is what I'm looking for, this one for example :-


and I've finally manage to get a couple of half decent shots of two  of the striated ones :-




Add to that one more batch from a blue clown veil female and an unusual platinum marble male, more on him another time. Plus finally getting hold of some of Raikos fish, some decent Czech bred half blacks, my F1 nanay's my manacapuru crosses and a dozen surviving albinos from my October 15th post, and you will realise that I have more projects than I have tanks!

Some real beauties there Rob, I'm especially intrigued by the striated blushers!

Finally got a half decent shot of the camera shy Dad....


and a better one of Mum...


Plus one of the third, and smallest, Striated koi...

I'm especially intrigued by the striated blushers!

Indeed, I'm hoping that I might be able to get a line that throws a higher percentage of them, then I want to see what happens in non gold/gold marble varieties. But as usual, space is sure to limit progress.

It's a few months since I last posted in this thread so, time for a little update.

I've two batches of "Manu-Nanus" coming on (see Wish me luck if you don't know what I'm on about), the older batch are starting to colour up nicely :-




For those who think I shouldn't be crossing fish from different regions, I'm also pleased with the development of my Rio Nanay youngsters :-




However part of my reasoning in doing these crosses is that I'd like to try and introduce some of the characteristics of both populations to some of my domestic colour varieties. Up to now I haven't had any success in that regard, but today this pair's babies went free swimming :-



Not the best photo I'm afraid, Dad's an F2 from the Mananacapuru x domestic pairing, whilst Mum's a fairly young koi. The size difference between them is very noticeable, but they get on fine.

Similarly this female & her much larger partner seem well matched despite the size difference :-





Unfortunately, like many previous batches of blue marbles, numbers are quite small (about 30-40 babies) and I was beginning to think that there might be some fundamental issue with blue marbles and fertility, but then another pair, Blue marble male & veiltail blue clown female gave me this batch of wrigglers :-


There's one more batch of youngsters coming on, from this sibling pair :-



Anyone care to guess at their genetics? They've certainly got me puzzled, and I'm hoping this batch will give me some answers :-

such stunning fish ...just AWESOME I'm drooling over some of them. I love my pair and I so wish they'd spawn again and this time get it right but sadly I've about given up on them

Good luck with the fry

Stunning Rob!!!

I'm just loving the fins on this one :-



I've got her paired with my favourite pinoy :-



I've also got my fingers crossed, because they haven't delivered any eggs yet, but I've high hopes for this pair.

I've moved my baby rio Nanays to a larger tank & they seem to have put on both a growth spurt & more colouration :-



But some of the Manu-Nanus are even more colourful:-

Beautiful angels Rob! Any spawnings from the 'bulgarians' ?

Any spawnings from the 'bulgarians' ?

One, but not terribly successful....

3 months ago these two gave me a batch....


....but only 7 babies survived, of those 1 is a bit of a runt, and one seems to have buoyancy issues, but the other 5 youngsters are coming along nicely.

Female is a blue ghost veil, all the babies are black lace, so whilst 7 isn't enough for absolute confidence, it does strongly point towards the idea that these dark Bulgarians Green are homozygous for dark.

I'm also reasonably confident that the father is homozygous for pb, it's too early to be sure, but I'm reasonably confident that all youngsters are pinoys. Add to that, there are two ghosts, and two veils, but no ghost veils.

The parents seem to reach a hiatus after this batch, so I'm giving them a rest and trying a pair of Bulgarians, but they've only been together for a week or so, so no eggs yet.

I'd post photos of the youngsters, but they're in a tank where it's too awkward to get decent photos, but they're going to have to be moved on to larger accommodation soon, so I'll post photos when I do.

Have you managed to find an empty breeding tank for any of yours yet?