Robs fish room tales.

Great pics and lovely fish.

That male is gorgeous. Turquoise veil? S/S - D/+ - V/+?

I'll take a stab and say those pinoys and chocolate blues are what you saved from the batch I had mine from. My pinoy's seem a little behind yours but coming along nicely, the smokey blues are shooting up.

That male is gorgeous. Turquoise veil? S/S - D/+ - V/+?

Close! it's also got a smokey gene, and it's hiding a single pb so D/+ - S/S - Sm/+ - V/+ - +/pb, I'd call him a blushing black lace smokey veil.
Mum is a blue leopard ghost +/g - S/Z - Sm/+ - pb/pb, further more there's a 60% chance that one of the parents is carrying an albino gene, there might even be a pearlscale gene in the mix!

I'll take a stab and say those pinoys and chocolate blues are what you saved from the batch I had mine from.

Indeed, and these are some of the more advanced ones I kept, notice the disparity in size between the front and rear blue chocolates.

I just had another look, how did I miss the smokey.

I'll try and get a shot of "Rocket" tonight when it goes dark.

Well I know my advice is that if at first they don't succeed, be patient.....

...but sometimes frustration gets the better of me, so over the last few days I've decided to give a couple of pairs a rest, and let a couple of different pairs have a go in breeding tanks, this is a couple of them....

This pair are cleaning vigourously....


and this pair have only just been moved.....



As a matter of interest, this female, and the paraiba in the first photo are sisters.

All looking good as ever Rob.

Finally seem to have some more babies coming on...

The Blushing Black Lace Smokey Veil & his partner have only succeeded in raising about two dozen youngsters, so today I moved the parents to a new breeding tank to give them a second chance.
Meanwhile the blue leopard brother to the female is now the proud father of several hundred little free swimmers, here are a few of them with Mum....


Some of these should prove to be my first marble paraibas.

The Koi/sunset pairing pictured previously are also tending young, they have an enormous clutch of wrigglers due to free swimming on Friday.

Great news Rob no doubt those new tanks of yours will be overflowing soon .My pair of Smokey blue marbles laid again today,this is there 3rd spawn
the 1st one they ate the 2nd they moved the eggs from piller to post which ended in only a dozen or so wriggles but they ate those after a couple of days but i think that was my faught as i had a lot going on in the room at the time & the smokey blue marble & blue smokey pearscale are cleaning at the mo as i removed them from there fry last week as they are a fair size now & showing promise + the chocholate blue marble & albino pearscale are currently fanning eggs but i dont hold out much hope for those as they keep fighting over who shall remove some white eggs but due to this seem to be eating the good ones aswell but there are still 150 or so left at the moment.so i have my fingers crossed yet again for young from them.

Hi Paul,
Sounds like you're going to be busy too.

the chocholate blue marble & albino pearscale are currently fanning eggs but i dont hold out much hope for those as they keep fighting over who shall remove some white eggs but due to this seem to be eating the good ones aswell

They'll probably get the hang of it eventually, but you could try removing one, probably the albino (since their eyesight is suspect) if they keep bickering.

Hi rob
That is a very good pic and i think that fish is a stunner the young should
be nice to. Got to ask you is that just one shot with your camera, and perfect
first time, or did you have to take lots to get the one.
Cheers Tony

is that just one shot with your camera, and perfect
first time,

I wish!

or did you have to take lots to get the one.

I took about 100 shots yesterday, not all of this one fish, I got 2 or 3 good ones of this fish, of which, once cropped slightly, this was the best. Of the other photos about 50% were complete rubbish, 30% pretty poor, 10% Ok, 10% good-ish, and only this one which I felt warranted posting.
I got a new camera a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still getting the hang of it. With my old camera, I had a slightly better hit rate, but not by much!

I understand how many shots have to be fired off to get something decent. Low lit tanks are the worst to maintaining a reasonable shutter speed. I can't afford "fast glass".

Hearing of all these spawns is getting me itching to work on my fish house project. Good luck with the spawns all.

Time for an update....

Quite a few batches coming on at the moment, but for the most part all fairly small.

First off the blue marbles I posted about last month, are coming along, there are probably about 100-150 babies surviving in this batch. Growth rate seems highly variable, but that's probably to be expected due to the huge variety of phenotypes produced.
Two day's younger are the babies from the koi/sunset pairing from my April 2nd post. This is the largest of my current batches (probably about 200). These are growing rapidly, they're already significantly larger than the "blue marble" batch, and I have high hopes for them both in terms of colour & finage. Although about 25% of these should be paraiba koi & paraiba sunsets, at present there are few if any that I would be confident to identify as such.

The surviving youngsters from the smokey lace veil & his blue leopard partner are developing nicely, there are about 20 in total, most are veils. In theory 1 in 16 of this batch should be veiltail pinoy paraibas, although I have high hopes for one of them, it's too early for me to be sure! Meanwhile Mum & Dad are in a separate tank with a second batch which went free swimming two days ago. Once again this is a very small batch of about 50-60 but between the two batches should give me sufficient blue veils to work with.

The fry from another pair also went swimming two days ago, a slightly bigger batch of about 70 - 80 youngsters. The day they went free swimming, i came home from work & thought they'd eaten them all!...

...Closer inspection revealed that the parents had gathered them together and were keeping them pinned down on the gravel.
Female of this pair is smokey paraiba with a gold marble gene making her technically a Smokey paraiba blue koi, but I only discovered she carried the gold marble gene when it popped up in the offspring from a previous mating. Male is a platinum marble who's hopefully a ghost, and hopefully has a smokey gene, as I'm hoping for some chocolate paraiba blue koi.
This is Dad, I call him Lofty because of his high body shape, I'm hoping some of the youngsters will inherit this characteristic....



This fish is a chocolate blue koi (but not a Paraiba chocolate blue) and the reason I want to see what a chocolate paraiba blue koi looks like!


Elsewhere in my fish room, I've re-paired my sole albino male with a silver ghost, and at first attempt they produced wrigglers, but ate them almost straight away, I'm not sure if this was due to inexperience, the male's poor eyesight or the lack of a suitably large leaf to transfer the babies to, I've rectified this last fault, and have my fingers crossed for their next attempt.

My batch of Pinoys/pinoy paraibas/blue smokeys & chocolates are starting to mature and beat each other up. I'm really pleased with these, and have struggled to part with them which means I now have about 20 all vying to be top dog. I'm going to have to split them up very soon!
I think both parents carried a streaked gene, and I've notice how it really enhances the appearance of the pinoys....



Finally, what do you think to these?....




They're not genetically manipulated, or colour fed, they're simply paraiba koi from a koi x platinum ghost pairing. There was a good chance that the female was hiding an albino gene, and I'm wondering if the unusual pink colouration is connected, hopefully time will tell.

Great to hear all is going well Rob,sounds like the smokey lace veil & blue leopard pairing have given you some nice young if you have veiltail pinoy paraibas amongst the bunch.
Your boy Lofty does have a very good body shape & i can see why you hope he passes that on to his young.I remember when you first posted pics of the chocolate blue koi which again was or is a very nice fish so again understand why you want to see what a chocolate paraiba blue koi looks like as im sure that would also be a stunning fish & i will keep my fingers crossed on that one for you.
Your batch of Pinoys/pinoy paraibas/blue smokeys & chocolates really do look amazing with the added streaked gene & sure intensifys the blue,the one in the pic is that chocolate? What can i say about the paraiba koi exept wow what a great colour they have with the pink comeing through,but do you think they will maintain that or do you think that the fact they are blushing enhances it being as they are still young

Hi Paul,
The thing I find hardest about breeding angelfish is being sufficiently ruthless in selecting which to keep, I have about 20 from the pinoy batch, and realistically should be keeping no more than 6 or 7, but can't bring myself to part with any of them yet! (I know I've promised a few to you, so I will have to bite the bullet in a few week's time!)

what a great colour they have with the pink comeing through,but do you think they will maintain that or do you think that the fact they are blushing enhances it being as they are still young

I'm sure as they age the colour will fade, but I'm surprised how long it's lasted, they're slightly over 6 months old, coming up to sexual maturity and the largest of these has a body diameter of about 2". I've seen similar colour before, but not that's persisted anything like as long as this.

Hi Rob i know what you are saying about finding it hard to let some of the fish go & retaining to many as i have some young from the blue Marble / blue smokey batch that i know im not going to want to part with as they are starting to show some very strong colour but the time will come when i will have to part with them even though i have an even bigger batch from the same pair recently freeswimming & no dout i will be in the same situation again.
It will be good to see how the pink colour sorts its self & if it is an albino gene that is the cause.

Rob. The Pinoy's are looking great and I just wanted to ask if these are from the batch I had? Do you think I have streaked smokey pinoy's or just smokey pinoy's?

Mine are also maturing well although seem a little behind yours in the "blossoming" department. They are also quite vicious as we have recently discussed.

Hi Roger,
Yes they are from the same batch that you had, so there's a good chance that there could be streaked in some of the fish you had. For instance I think that "Smokey Bacon" the "smokey paraiba" you posted on the "Only Angels" facebook page is in fact a streaked chocolate paraiba.
I'm not so sure about "Jet" or "Dizzy", The female you have paired with "Rocket" doesn't seem to have it and I can't find a photo of "Rocket".

The difference seems to be very obvious in the non-pinoy smokey and chocolates, compare these two....



I can't be sure that the first fish hasn't got a streaked gene, but I'm very confident that the second one has at least 1 (I think both parents carried the gene)
It's harder to see on the pinoys, but I don't think this one carries it...


Whilst I'm confident that this one does...

Mine are also maturing well although seem a little behind yours in the "blossoming" department. They are also quite vicious as we have recently discussed.

To be fair, I only post the best photos of the best fish, and I obviously try to keep the very best ones to grow on as potential breeders.

As an aside, out of a typical batch of 200 babies, I'll probably put about 10 or 20 of the best to one one side as "keeps", I'll then take about 50 of the larger ones remaining to the shop.
With the biggest fish removed, I usually see a bit of a growth spurt in the remaining 130 or so, so about 3 or 4 weeks later I tend to pick out a further 10 to 15 as my "2nd Selection". Most of the rest are then moved on to the shop for sale, but sometimes I pick out a few "late bloomers".

Of the "Keeps" 70 - 80% usually turn out to be males. Whilst a similar percentage of the "2nd Selection" are usually female.
The "late bloomers" can be either, but often have more unusual gene combinations, or appearance. Perhaps the best example of a late bloomer was "Mirror" who very nearly got culled he was so slow growing, but in the end grew into this beauty...



Once they're of an age where I can be reasonably confident of their sex, and depending on available tank space, I thin numbers of all the ones I've kept down to about 10 or 12, with a reasonably even mix of sexes.
Finally, adult fish get taken to the shop, as and when I've bred from them a few times, or when it becomes clear that I'm unlikely to need them for breeding purposes, or most commonly, when tanks start to look too crowded!

Ah I get you. I thought I remember you saying that the ghosts tend to have the broken up patches in the smokey when I was hopefully trying to pick out ghosts.

No worries either way, just another gene in the mix = more fun. I found an older shot of Rocket, I think he maybe streaked then. Excuse GDA on glass.

I thought I remember you saying that the ghosts tend to have the broken up patches in the smokey when I was hopefully trying to pick out ghosts.

Hi Roger,
your memory is almost right....

But...
Saying , "Men tend to be Taller than Women" is factually correct,
However that doesn't mean that, "all men are taller than all women"

Stripeless does seem to have an effect on the smokey pattern, but the effect is to reduce the extent of the pattern, where streaked seems to break the pattern up.
So from the photo I'd be fairly, but not 100%, confident that Rocket is a ghost, I'm less confident that he has a streaked gene.
In the case of the second photo in my previous post, the chocolate pattern has huge holes in it, in the case of Rocket & the first fish in my previous post, there are signs of the pattern breaking at the top, which may be due to stripeless, streaked or just part of the pattern.
To be honest, I haven't bred enough to fully disentangle the influence of the two genes, which is further complicated by the pb gene, which also seems to reduce black expression.

So this one...



is probably S/+ - St/+

To be frank, it's not something you can be 100% confident with, but the more you see the more you will get a feel for it.

HTH

Rocket, actually has more a more broken up appearance on his other side. Unfortunately, I don't have a shot of that side. If he is, he is, if he's not, then he's not.

I have a fear of getting into marble genes and now I'll be looking at fish thinking "is it streaked or not" lol.

27th June 2013

Rarely have ever felt this excited and simultaneously indecisive......

I've paired this domestic male silver (het. for pb)


with my largest German bred Manacapuru female...
Here he is displaying to her ...


Although I've had Manacapuru's for years, I've never manage to breed from them......


....until now


Now what's going on here is that the female is clearly the dominant partner in this relationship, and is assiduously guarding the wrigglers on the spawning cone, every so often a few of the wrigglers tumble down the cone, at which point the male nips in to gather them up. She does her best to keep him at bay, but he has clearly decided that the wrigglers need to be moved to the leaf you can see him spiting them on to.
She dives in, drives him to the corner of the tank, grabs a few wrigglers and spits them back onto the cone, in doing so, a few wrigglers are dislodged and tumble down the cone, at which point.....

...and so it goes on.

My anxiety is this, do I leave them to it, and risk one or other getting so fed up that they attack the other, or eat the wrigglers, and also risk damage to the wrigglers from the constant moves?

Or do I risk moving one or other parent (in which case, which one?) and run the risk that the remaining parent is so traumatized that he/she eats the wrigglers.

Or do I take both parents out, and risk snail attacks, or general lack of success. In general I find I do much better with parent raised babies!

On balance I'm thinking I'll keep my fingers crossed & leave them to it.

I have a similar dilemma with his sister & my albino male, who also have wrigglers, my last couple attempts at intervention have ended in failure, so I'll keep my fingers crossed over them too!

Great news Rob & what a stunning pair of fish.
I wouldnt worry to much about them constanly moveing the fry as i have a pair that move ther fry at least 3 times a day from piller to post & i havent noticed any stress or damage caused to the fry so far,although damage to each other is more likely but saying that it has to be your call as to wether you remove one or the other or even both.
Do you feel that after waiting so long for a spawn from the Manacapuru that you should intervean.
From what you have said do you feel the male would be the better parent to leave with the fry & by doing so do you feel this may put the female off spawning again,
or do you feel the mother should be the one to raise the fry so as to give her that much awaited chance or rearing young.
Robin who breeds Manacapuru has found that they are not good parents so he removes the fry & rears them himself so it may be worth asking him about his experiances with Manacapuru & take it from there.
I wish you luck with these as i know this is something you have been looking forward to.
I also hope that your albino's fry make it this time around now they have had a few practice runs.
Good luck with both rob.

Well both pairs still have their wrigglers this morning, so I'm going to leave them to it, and just keep my fingers crossed!

I wouldnt worry to much about them constanly moveing the fry

My concern is not that they keep moving them, but they can't agree where to move them to, I suspect that even the most dedicated parents can inadvertently swallow the odd baby, and that when they are trying to hang on to the wrigglers whilst being attacked by their mate for moving them, that this is more likely to happen!

do you feel the male would be the better parent to leave with the fry & by doing so do you feel this may put the female off spawning again,
or do you feel the mother should be the one to raise the fry so as to give her that much awaited chance or rearing young.

Both seem to be good parents, so I would hope that either would cope alone, but if I possibly can I really like to leave the parents with the fry. It's my belief that most angelfish are naturally good parents, but that when raised artificially for several generations there's a risk that that parenting ability could be lost, I suspect that there is both an instinctive element & a learned element. As you've found with your female paraiba http://www.uk-angelfishforum.org.uk/t537-paraiba-x-albino#3772 if fish come from several generations of parent raised fish, they seem to instinctively know what to do, (She's a 7th generation parent raiser on at least one branch of her family tree)

Nice 'though Robin's fish are, from the photos I've seen, they look subtly different to my Manacapurus, so I suspect they've come from a different source, maybe his experiences in getting them to parent raise stem from a few generations of ancestors raised away from their parents?

One further piece of news, I brought 4 of these Czech bred fish home last week....
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Now I have even more directions to try to run in!

Awww they look stunning Rob!! Fancy hiding the pic at the end of this post!!

Glad to hear you have still got the wrigglers & I have to agree with you regards leaving both to it if poss & this was a lesson I learned from you.
If they get them to free swimming which I hope they do, do you feel that constant bickering may cause them to eat the fry & if so would you then consider removing one or the other or both.
Regards the Paraiba female I have from you I have to admit is a marvellous parent,& from what I have gone through with fish that were not raised by there parents they like you say have in turn been very bad at raising young if able to at all without intervention.
Robins fish now you mention it do look different from yours & I do know he has been raising his fish himself to breed later with as I think you know bad results as far as getting them to parent raise so I would have to agree again that they must to some extent lose the knowledge/ability to do so further down the line.

That half black is very nice rob, I have been looking at these in my local shop but all seemed to have bad & misshaped ventral fins hence I haven't bought any myself but would like to, as some that I bought before I had to sell as they just didn't express the black in the way expected so were a disappointment when they arrived from Czech after waiting the month or so that I did for them to be of an age the breeder was willing to let the supplier have them.