Archive for the Category »fish keeping experience «

Finally, a Discus Pair Breeding!

03
May 2012

Recently, there has been an exciting event in my discus aquarium. Why do you think these guys are looking on the other side of the aquarium?

image

Well, as I’ve said, a recent event made move these discus to the other side where red devil fish used to stay and unfortunately, the red devil fish has to move to my extra smaller tank. I can’t believe that after months of having discus fishes, I finally got a pair!

It is an odd pair, a red-spider discus and a red melon discus, but I am just happy to finally confirm that I have a discus pair. I was ecstatic to find eggs sticking on the wall of the tank. I am not sure if they will be hatched considering that they are not in a proper breeding cone but still I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Below is a parent which is taking care of the eggs.

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Category: discus, fish keeping experience, fish picture, red devil  Tags: , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

Three is a Crowd?

08
Jul 2011

The beauty of keeping an aquarium is that your fishes will give you some surprises from time to time like this one which I captured with my camera.

 

The three fishes are a big and a small parrot fish and a red devil.  I usually switch off the light after feeding them, so when I switched on the lights, I saw that these three fishes were sleeping together. So, is three a crowd? For these fishes, I don’t think so :)

Category: blood parrot fish, fish keeping experience, red devil, Uncategorized  Tags: , ,  6 Comments

Red Devil Cichlid: Care and Breeding

24
Jun 2011

red devil cichlid

A Convict Red Devil Cichlid which I bought from Mathsya Mela 2011.

Red Devil Cichlids, which has a scientific name of Amphilophus labiatus, come from Central America. They grow up to 10-12 inches and are typically an aggressive fish. Male Red Devil fish are larger than the females and they develop a hump on their forehead, with sharper, more pointed anal and pelvic fins

Since Red Devil fish are known for aggressive behavior, it is advisable to keep it alone in the tank, or choose an appropriate tank mates. They are territorial so a big tank like 55-gallon aquarium should be enough for one Red Devil fish, and bigger tank if keeping more than one. It is important to put hiding spots like plants and driftwood. Red Devil fish tend to jump, so put a cover on the tank. They are hardy fish but a water pH of 7.08.0 and temperature of 76-82°F would be suitable for them.

Red Devil fish would eat pellets, flakes, live food such as bloodworms, shrimp, brine shrimp, insects, and earthworms.

Breeding Red Devil fish is difficult. They are monogamous, that means a male Red Devil fish would only take one female Red Devil fish as his partner.  The female lays eggs on a flat surface such as rocks, logs, or breeding dish. The male will then fertilize the eggs and protect them. Red Devil fish protect their eggs and young fries so do not separate them.

I had two Red Devil fish but one jump out of the tank when I forgot to put the cover. My lone Red Devil which I have been keeping for several months had already killed two African Cichlid and injured a Severum and a Parrot fish. However, my Red Devil didn’t harm my other two Parrot fish and three Gouramis when he was sharing the tank with them since I bought him until a month ago. I decided to remove him from the tank where the Parrot fish and Gouramis are so that I can put back the other Parrot fish which he attacked. Right now, my Red Devil fish is living with several African Cichlids.


 

 

 

 

Category: aquarium, cichlids, fish care, fish keeping experience, guidance, red devil  Tags: , , , ,  2 Comments

Lets start fishkeeping

14
Feb 2011

Hi friends let starts fish keeping :-)

I will provide you some info to help you to start this hobby.

Maintain your Filter

Choosing a right filter is very important things, but for beginners you can start with a simple internal biological filer,price is lesser than other and excellent filter they are ,the filteration takes place biologically by forming colony of good denitrifying  bacteria inside it.

Clean the filter in 3-4 weeks, depending on the no of fishes you have,don’t put the sponge directly in running water, just slowing rinse with hand so that accumulated big particles can be removed.

Maintain water quality:

You should understand water quality is most important thing to maintain aquarium. There are many factors can be used to identify the quality of the water.

  1. Ph value
  2. Nitrite content
  3. Good bacteria ,i.e de nitrifying bacteria

There are many PH indicators available in the market ,it might be a handheld device or simple PH testing kits ,similarly Nitrite content can be checked by testing kits.

There should be required amount of Denitrifying bacteria which controls the nitrogen level automatically ,to have a proper quantity of bacteria ,you should do a nitrogen cycle of a new aquarium before keeping fish into it.There is other way too,from aquarium should Bacteria liquid can be purchased  ,just applying few drops is enough,follow the instructions from the pack.

You can weekly change 10% of water or more depending on the type of fish and type of filter you have.

Changing lots of water at a time is very risky, because it will reduce the amount of good bacteria immediately which is very bad for aquarium and the temperature also may go down drastically which is also risky for fish.

Maintaining the Plants:
Plants is very useful to control water quality,O2,CO2 balance, giving a hiding place and obviously it increases the beauty of the aquarium :-)
Although it looks good maintaining it is little difficult, anyway in this way getting beauty is always difficult :-)
You need to have proper lighting and adequate amount of CO2 too!
Avoid keeping rotten leaves, they make water more poisonous.
Happy fish keeping, the post is very small guideline but drop a msg to this post if you need any specific suggestion.


Category: fish keeping experience  Tags: , , ,  3 Comments

My First Aquarium

07
Feb 2011

FishBowlMy first aquarium wasn’t a real aquarium, it was a small cage, “Fish Bowl”!
I wanted to have an aquarium since childhood, and at the age of 27 I decided to fulfill my wish, I went to aquarium shop and looked for a cheapest solution, answer was fish bowl, (do I have to mention it was the smallest bowl available in the shop?).
Then I asked the shop owner on what should be right fish for the bowl, tough question indeed! Given an opportunity, a new born fry also might try to jump out of that! But the owner wanted to sell his bowl and some fishes too, so he pointed to me the two small fish. I asked what was the name of the fishes and he said it was a Balloon fish. “Oh,ok”, I pretended I know so much, so I chose one small white & black so called “Balloon Fish”. I went home and gave them name immediately, Jack(Black) and Jill (White), even I didn’t know about their gender, but later I discovered the naming was perfect, after all I was expert,said “Oh,Ok” to the owner when he said a wrong name for the fish ;-)
You have already discovered that I was a novice that time , so I shouldn’t pretend anymore as an expert from now on…..
I started doing research on the net searching balloon fish, and I found out that they are actually molly fish. Now, I found out what they eat, what they don’t (actually whatever you put in front of them, they eat). So I understood that internet was really a great source of information about fish,just google fish’s fictious name given by shop owner and check images in google.
Now I started feeding them, just keep putting food they never stop eating! I didn’t have idea about over feeding.

Few days after Jill gave birth, she was pregnant before I think.
I saw some small tadpole kind of things were floating over the bowl, so I checked closely and found that those were small fry, I didn’t have any idea before that fish could give birth directly instead of laying eggs.
Now because of no oxygen, filter, over feeding and a small cage Jill died!
I separated the kids before, and only very few survived.
By that time I realised the bowl is useless, a killing machine for any fish, nazi gas chamber! So I bought a real aquarium at last, it was small too but enough to fit oxygen pumps, filter, lights, and a life saving cover (for jumping jumping fish).
I moved Jack and later when small kids grew up I moved them there too. From here I started my real fishkeeping hobby!

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