An Ichthyogeek's Scientific Fish Space

[Thaxxx]

hahaha, it's a bit too late for that, I literally already have the kid's name picked out and everything. Sucks that I'm going to have to figure out a surrogate (only one or two kids, more than that stretches out resources and I don't want my kids to deal with that) and stuff, but that's why the kid's probably going to be a late child. Also, I'm holding out for bipaternal research (we've gotten bimaternal mice....just gotta figure out the bipaternal bit) to get past the mouse phase. Maybe when I'm like....35. Yeah, that sounds like a good age to have kids. I'll still be young enough to do any high energy things that kid wants to do, but old enough that I'll be very very okay with a quiet kid that just wants to read all day.


...I'm trying to move there....

WHY?

 

[ichthyogeek]

WHY?

Because I want a kid?

 

[creativeballance]

...I'm trying to move there....

I just got out of there after living there most of my life. It is an expensive place to live that is doing its best to copy George Orwell's dystopian world.

 

[ichthyogeek]

So as an update, there is no update. Or rather, I'll get more information about moving and stuff by next Thursday. Fingers are still crossed that I can move soon and Get Stuff Started!

 

[xxkenny90xx]

So as an update, there is no update. Or rather, I'll get more information about moving and stuff by next Thursday. Fingers are still crossed that I can move soon and Get Stuff Started!

Lol thanks for the update!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Figured I'd drop my quarantine protocols here. They're current-ly live protocols (nothing's been set in stone just yet...), and I have questions. Mostly about fenbendazole.

Fish protocol here

Coral/Invert Protocol here

Macroalgae protocol here

 

[ichthyogeek]

Well...I'm currently still stuck where I am for now. Although there was this neat remote Ecologist position open...I'll apply to it on Monday....

I tried making my own fish food this week. Even though I'm allergic, somehow the magical freezer has seafood in it? So it's a mix of one scallop (we weren't going to use them anyways) one peeled and deveined shrimp (chopped off the fan, but the very edge still had shell on, so that went in), and 3 squid rings. I need to work on my knife skills, my mincing ability is just not what it should be up to at this point. Blenders/Food processors generate too much heat for my tastes. What I should really do, is buy fresh seafood, cut it into cross sections, freeze the sections separately, and then finely mince those x-sections so that I can get an even mince without the proteins developing to essentially make seafood paste (which sticks, and is negatively buoyant). Oh, and freeze the knife and cutting board as well.

I also moved some things around in the tanks I have where I am. Here's a cool picture of a tiger pistol burrow (sans shrimp) (and yes, that is indeed a tupperware container):

Anyways, I was meant to sort out the molly fry last week, ended up getting pushed to today because cApACiTY issues. Last night was me moving around tanks, and today was me sorting out the fish. I ended up having around 12 okay fish for future breeding endeavors, and 85 fish that I just didn't like (silvery bodies, enlarged gill plates, etc.).

The culls went into the "pretty macro" tank that I set up last night, since it's the heated one. The macro should help keep nitrates down, and the heater should help speed up growth. Also! The sargassum seaweed I got 3 months ago is somehow still alive! I need to rubber band some of it to rubble at some point, so I can attempt to see if it will make holdfasts. The tank's by a windowsill (yay more light!), so ignore the sunlight that is very obviously bleeding through the tank. The reason why there's an "empty" written on the tank is because I haven't had the chance to take it off. I bought that when an LFS closed down...approximately 8 years ago...

This is the bigger 30 gallon tank that I put my pretties into. There's some form of microalgae in the water, but I don't know what it is (probably Nannochloropsis or Synechoccus, I don't care too much). I'll fill it up with water over the next few days and get a filter onto the tank. And eventually I need to sex out the males from the females...hopefully the room temperature (68 F) will slow down the gonad development until I have the chance to grow out, and sell the culls.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Every new reefer: “OMG WHAT’S ThAT ICKY GREEN WATER????”

Me: “OMG LOOK AT ALL THE PHYTOPLANKTON AND MICROALGAE!!!!!”

oh, and also some tetras.

Feat. super glarey tanks because I took these pictures at the worst time of the day for them.

In other news, I may have found a job? They need to raise money before they hire me (if any people approach you and you're super rich and they're doing a fish breeding venture, please give them money so they might hire me). And if not, I've lined up an internship (unpaid...although they'll let me work with my firefish!) for early January!

Because I'm former computer science trash:
if (job.hired() == TRUE) {
ichthyogeek.canbuyfish() = TRUE;
ichthyogeek.canmove() = TRUE;
ichthyogeek.canstartbuildthread() = TRUE;
ichthyogeek.canbreedfish() = TRUE;
} else {
ichthyogeek.canmove() = TRUE;
ichthyogeek.canbreedfish() = TRUE;
}

 

[ichthyogeek]

No picture updates today, but I felt particularly productive. I actually woke up relatively early to how I woke up pre-pandemic, and made my first trip to the local fish store in months. There may or may not have been squeeing involved because I saw some very rare fish.

On the plus side, my molly infestation is significantly less. I was able to get some store credit for 75 culled mollies. AND I sorted out all of the best mollies I had, it turns out I have 9 juvenile males, and 7 females (6 juveniles, 1 adult), which is FAR more manageable than the 300 I was working with before...

Said store credit went into purchasing freshwater fish. I've never seen Pangio shelfordii before, but I had to get my hands on them when I saw them in the bag at the store (they had just arrived a few hours previously). Oh and otos.

I wonder if I should buy myself a pair of fish for my birthday...but I'm going to move soon....but I just got paid from a gig...decisions decisions....

In the meantime, maybe I'll dismantle another tank so I can conserve heaters (currently all 3 are in use and I'm running 5.5 tanks...). I could always put the firefish in with the male mollies, the female had to be removed because she got way too aggressive towards the firefish, but the males shouldn't be too bad I think. It also gives me an excuse to buy some high quality flake food....

10 minutes later update: Amazon is not conducive for my wallet and savings....

 

[ichthyogeek]

Picture update! This is a rundown of what’s in my “fish room” as of Dec 2020.

Sad update first: A wild caught banggai cardinal that I was working with passed away yesterday. I’m not happy about that, since I put a ton of effort into getting it to feed. I even had a brine shrimp culture going...

I moved the firefish from the 29 gallon to the 20H. I did a full clean on the tank prior to moving them, and surprise! I actually have 10 male mollies, and a candy cane pistol still alive in there! The pistol was a surprise....oh, and I finally figured out what to do with those breeder traps they sell for guppies and whatnot. In the previous iteration of the tank, I had the caulerpa in a rubbermaid container, which, while ok, was not the best for the tank, as it ended up being a giant nutrient sink. BUT, I figured that if I put the substrate in thebreeder box, I can go ahead and keep the nutrients out as necessary! Hopefully the Caulerpa, Chaetomorpha, and Botryocladia all do their jobs and keep this tank from getting overly green again. I also went ahead and removed the Sargassum. It just kept melting and clogging all the pumps. I wonder if I should move the mollies over to the next tank and add some peppermint shrimp or more candy cane pistols...

Here is the female molly tank that I’m just using as a makeshift greenwater culture. I added a light to it! Below it is an Artemia growout tank. It gets fed with the molly tank’s waste water when I do water changes. The molly tank in turn gets fed with water from the 20H. I might take one of those hefty baskets they sell at garden supply stores and chunk the male mollies into one or two of those to give the firefish more space.

Finally, this is a little freshwater tank I’ve got going on. It’s ridiculously overstockes but shhhhhh, I know what I’m doing. It’s got 6 otocinclus, a group of 6 Pangio shelfordii, and 9 neon tetras. It’s typically darker than this due to tannins from Indian Almond Leaves I use, but I did a water change the other day so it’s still taking some time to darken back up again. The light is coming from the 20H, which I think is a pretty good way to conserve light and electrical outlets! There's also a group of amano shrimp in there. If they ever give me eggs, the zoea are going into the brine shrimp culture!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Another no picture update:

So my birthday was a few days ago, and I went to the LFS to treat myself. I bought some Endler's Livebearers which I attempted to acclimate to saltwater, but they ended up dying. So not the best. Observation: towards the end of hte acclimation, they seemed to be droopy, and unable to maintain equilibrium. We know that Poeciliids can acclimate themselves to saltwater since guppies and mollies can do it. Perhaps a slower acclimation will work? I have plans to go to the fish store tomorrow to get a replacement pair.

I also moved most of the male mollies into a plant basket. The water in the 20H kept gettting to green, and part of that is I believe due to having too many fish in that tank. So 7 of the males got put into the basket and I kept three in the 20H, leaving me with 3 male mollies and 3 firefish (unsexed) in the 20H. The tank is currently very clear, but we'll see how long that lasts. I also split the C. prolifera into two containers since it was getting a bit overly bushy. Hopefully this will help with growing it out and allowing it to uptake more nutrients and thus outcompete the greenwater where I want it to be outcompeted.

 

[samnaz]

Happy birthday!!!

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Happy belated birthday!

 

[fishlover1478]

happy birthday!

 

[ThePurple12]

Cool, happy birthday!

BTW, Caulerpa doesn't need sand to grow. It can just float around.

 

[ScubaEthan]

Hi! I found your thread and happy belated birthday!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Happy birthday!!!

Happy belated birthday!

happy birthday!

Cool, happy birthday!

BTW, Caulerpa doesn't need sand to grow. It can just float around.

Hi! I found your thread and happy belated birthday!

Thank you all for the happy birthday messages! I went to the LFS today and got a replacement pair of endler's. Hopefully these will turn out well. They're going to chill in a .5 gallon cycled freshwater bowl for now.

Interestingly those little jars that AlgaeBarn sells hold 1/8 of .5 gallon (so 1/16 of a gallon or one cup). I'm thinking that over the next few days I'll just toss out exponentially larger amounts of water and replace them with saltwater (so tomorrow is 1 cup of freshwater out, 1 cup of saltwater in, the next day is 2 cups out, 2 cups in, etc.). My water runs fairly low at 1.021 because instant ocean. So around Day 5 (1.0125) I'll add in some caulerpa prolifera (apparently it can grow at 1.0113 or so) to start sucking up nutrients and introduce beneficial saltwater bacteria. Of course, if the Endler's can't handle a day, I'll either go back to the previous day's calculations, or I'll see if they can handle it.

Day	SG
0	1.000
1	1.025
2	1.05
3	1.075
4	1.010
5	1.0125
6	1.015
7	1.0175
8	1.020

Ironically, I believe this counts as an arithmantic series (math!! the horror!!!). So you can also calculate how much water gets changed more simply by using the equation:
(# of terms) (first term + last term) divided by 2
(7 terms) (1 cup + 7 cups)/2 = 28 cups, or basically almost 2 gallons.

Chew on that next time you think about how long it takes to acclimate a fish....

 

[ScubaEthan]

You continue to amaze me.

Also, I just looked up Endler's and wow! What an awesome looking fish. I know nothing about freshwater and I'm not even familiar with the fish options over there. Hope they do well!

 

[ichthyogeek]

You continue to amaze me.

Also, I just looked up Endler's and wow! What an awesome looking fish. I know nothing about freshwater and I'm not even familiar with the fish options over there. Hope they do well!

Thank you! I endeavor to try to add in some science to this build thread (it will get far more science-y later on, but still very much lay-person readable). I am slowly becoming a simp for euryhaline fish. Maybe I'll get my hands on some Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis or something later haha. The pair I'm trying to work with are the "Lime Endler's" line, which is supposedly an N class line (meaning genetically pure Poecilia wingeii, no P. reticulata bred into the line), however that means nothing without paperwork.

Also, I forgot to mention: I may have gotten a job lined up for January? And this means that I might be able to actually start this build thread instead of rambling about acquiring freshwater euryhalines???? and, y'know, earn money for fish??? (and also like, an apartment and stuff, but fish.)

 

[ScubaEthan]

Congrats! Hope the job works out! And then a new apartment. I can't even imagine trying to move with all those tanks

Whoa the wings, I mean fins, on Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis look rad!