Major Setback

We went out of town for a few months recently and came back to an aquarium jungle. Time for some major housekeeping work ... :S

RCS Eggs!!!

Finally, the time may have come for my RCS to thrive!!! Finally saw that 2 of the female RCS's carrying yellow eggs in their belly. Hopefully, it may be time for them to breed in the re-scaped tank. I guess all the re-scaping effort has not gone to waste. :)

3rd Generation Endler Frys!!!!

When I woke up today, I took a quick look at the temporary tank that I've setup for the endlers (1 male and 1 female) and found little slithers that zipped by real fast. Much to my pleasure, they are endler frys ... yes, these are the 3rd generation endler frys!!! YES!!! I've finally made it in breeding endlers!!! I've counted 10 frys altogether.

In fear of the frys suffering issues in the temporary tank, I've moved 8 of them over to the re-scaped tank (the last two is kind of hard to catch). Hopefully, some of these will grow up to be peacock snake endlers to even out the population of the tank that is currently fully dominated by the red chested endlers.

Re-scaped Tank

Bingo!! I re-scaped my planted tank. Here's how it looks like now ... nice, huh? I have not found time to update this blog in the past few weeks as I've been busy engaging and extending on this hobby ... now into planted aquaria. As you can see, there is a variety of plants in the nano tank i.e. riccia, spiky moss, Christmas moss, green rotala, luwigia arcuata, narrow leaf java fern, subwassertang and a few other small plants that I do not have a name to. :)

As you can see, it is a big leap from my previous tank setups and this will hopefully be able to cultivate a good growth for the RCS. For those of you who have been following this blog ... I know ... I wanted the RCS initially as a cleanup crew but have lately grown an interest in breeding them as well. Don't worry, I have not given up on my endler dreams but have merely diversified into RCS.

I'm currently also aiming to get rid of most of the fishes in the big tank to convert it into a bigger endler tank while the smaller nano cube tank will be mainly for RCS and boraras ... :) I think they are the only fishes that can co-exist with the RCS ...

More Colors

It has been over 2 weeks since the male endlers started to get their colors and they are starting to look really colorful now. The pictures in this post are the male and female endler frys. As you can see, the male is starting to get their red coloring but somehow, they do not look like the adult peacock snake male. Could it be that I got a different strain female? Anyway, the final fry count is 4 males and 4 females ... nice ratio. :)

On the flip side, one of the adult male peacock snake endlers seem to have disappeared. I think it died somewhere within the tank as I saw it swimming a little wobbly the other day. I've searched hard for it (without destroying the aqua scape) but still cannot find it ...

Earning Their Spots

It looks like most of the male endlers are starting to earn their spots and coloration. The picture beside shows 2 of the endler males and as you can clearly see, the orange and darker scale coloration is beginning to form. I guess it is just a matter of time before they look like the full adult males. In fact, even their sizes is almost matching that of the adult.

Also, I think I've finally completed the male-female endler fry count to be 5 males and 3 females. Not a bad ratio but certainly not the desired ratio for my first batch as well. I hope the 3 females make it to eventually provide the long awaited endler brood for the tank ... I guess only time will tell ...

Endler Fry Updates

The endler frys are maturing well now and much to my surprise, most of them are turning out to be MALES!!! I am beginning to worry that there may not be any females but I think I've counted at least 2 females and 4 males. Not sure about the other 2 remaining frys though. The males are beginning to develop the black endler spots and its black coloration on the tails and the females are developing the gravid spot.

I sure do hope that the remaining 2 frys will be females to even out the male-female ratio but it looks more likely for them to be males since I am unable to spot the gravid spot on them ... I guess time will tell.

Growing Endler Frys

The endler frys are beginning to take form but it looks like all of them may be females ... hooray!?!?! Just wondering what would happen if suddenly the 2 males decide to kick the bucket ... I hope this does not happen.

Anyway, the fry count has dropped to 8 now as it looks like one of them is missing ... may have died without me knowing. One of the endler frys had ick the other day and I thought she was a goner but decided to give a shot at curing her. Much to my surprise, she made it and is now happily swimming with the rest again ...

Female Endler Down

Yes, it is sad but true ... one of the female peacock snake endlers died yesterday (looks like due to ick as I could see some while spots on the back and fins) and it happened so suddenly. She was still happily swimming the day before but was severely crippled the next morning. It looks like the other female endler may also be suffering from ick as I could see a faint white spot on her tail fin so I am not taking any chances ... general cure solution found its way into the tank this morning. Hopefully she makes it ...

On the main tank front, the last flower gourami finally followed his fellow gouramis before to their final resting place ... our bathroom toilet. He was not swimming well for the past week and despite efforts to cure him, he too bit the dust this morning. RIP my friend ... :(

Latest Fry Count ... 9!!!

Yep, you read it correctly ... there are 9 endler frys!! :) They little guys are good in hiding and we finally managed to count correctly after seeing all of them coming out of hiding for food. They are growing a little longer now and 3 of them is showing a slightly darker color than the remaining 6. Could the darker colored ones be males and the brighter ones be females? Only time will tell I guess ...

Finally ... Endler's Livebearer Frys ... Again!!!

After a long and painful wait, we finally got 2 pairs of peacock snake endlers from a seller on the MAC (Malaysia Aquatic Club) forum last Tuesday (I did not have the time to post this) ... and just in time as well since the male tiger endler kicked the endler bucket over the weekend leaving the lonely female tiger endler that still refuse to give frys despite my numerous attempts to feed her good quality live food.

Much to our surprise, one of the female peacocks gave birth to a small batch of endler frys this morning. One of them looked gravid yesterday but I thought it was still a little premature for her to provide young but I guess I was wrong. :) The downside is that she only gave about 4 young-lings (at least I can only see 4 of them simultaneously) but I guess it is quite common for first time mothers to drop only 2-5 frys at a time.

Anyway, this is enough to keep us excited as this wait has been long anticipated. Now, all that is left is trying our very best to keep these 4 frys until adulthood (picture of one of the actual endler frys on the left - they like hiding in the plants so it is hard to get a good picture of them) ... keeping our fingers crossed ... :)

Red Cherry Shrimp (RCS)

The fry moving experiment was a success and I now have 24 frys in the bigger tank with only about 9 frys left in the planted tank. I got 10 new RCS from a friend over at the MAC forum and they look to be happily "cleaning up" the planted tank. These little critters are a hardworking bunch and got straight to work the minute they were released into the tank. Hopefully, this cleanup crew will help to restore the planted tank back to its original condition.

I also began seeing the molly frys shoaling together to ward off the bigger fishes in the big tank. It looks like this bunch is going to make it unless some freak disease strikes ... :)

Homeys

I finally took the leap of faith yesterday and dropped in 12 of the molly frys into the main tank ... yes, with the "big fishes"!!! I figured that since they've outgrown the mouth size of all the fishes (except the pleco a.k.a. sucker fish), it should be safe to drop them in there. And to much of my pleasure, they are still happily swimming in clusters (and that is why I am calling this post homeys ... :) ... get it??) this morning. I hope to drop more into the main tank later this evening if all goes well to make room in the planted tank so that it is not so crowded.



BTW, the last of my RCS died yesterday and so I need to get more soon so that the planted tank do not turn into an algae jungle. I figured the reason the RCS's died was because of over-crowding in the planted tank.

Color Setting In

Amazingly, some of the molly frys are starting to show their colors ... yes, the bright orange from the molly "parents". However, some of them have some blackish coloration which is likely due to cross breeding with other molly colors while they were still in the tank at the LFS. It will be interesting to see what color each of them grow up to be ... and how I will be able to manage the numbers in which they come by.

There is a strange fry though in the lot which remains relatively small for quite sometime now despite feed like the rest. That fry is either stunted in growth of a hybrid of some other kind ... endler+molly maybe? Only time will tell ...

More Algae Problems

After about a week, 3 of the red cherry shrimps died ... each dying a day or two apart of each other. The remaining 3 looks to be in good shape and one of them look like a female so hopefully, they can multiply and fill up the tank with an army of cleaners. I had to get Algol (looks like small silver worms) to attempt to cleanup the brown algae on the aquarium glass lately since the shrimps does not seem to be doing any cleaning on those spots.

As for the molly frys, they are still growing and growing but amazingly, at a very different rate. I can see very small frys and much larger frys ... I wonder if any of the smaller frys are endler frys (hopeful thinking) ... although it looks like the female endler is finally gravid. I hope she is able to give a healthy litter of frys that will make it to adulthood and colonizing the planted tank with ENDLERS!!!!

Growing Pains

The molly frys are still thriving in the planted tank so much so that the "bigger" molly frys is starting to bully their smaller brothers/sisters. I occasionally see a few of these bigger frys hogging the worm feeder in the tank. Good thing that the tiger endlers are still bigger than them and still get their share of the juicy worms.

I actually wanted to get a small pleco (a.k.a. sucker fish) for the planted tank to clean up the algae and also the left over food from the feedings but I read that the plecos tend to "destroy" the plants and sometimes up-rooting them. An alternate method was to use small shrimps for the house keeping instead and that was exactly what I did ... got 6 little red cherry shrimps from someone on the net (which turned out to be an ex-school mate of mine). The cherry shrimps are still hiding for the moment but hopefully, they will be up to the housekeeping job ... only time will tell.

Mollies Second Drop

The other female molly dropped her first litter of frys in the new tank making it the second drop of frys yesterday. I am not sure when it happened as she was still noticeably gravid when we left the house in the morning. But when we got back later in the evening, I noticed that the female got much thinner. I originally thought she had just stopped eating but Cheryl noticed that there was a fry resting down on the ground and thought that our original batch of fry is dying.

Much to our excitement, the fry looked to be too thin and small to be the original batch last week and so we concluded that it must be a new drop. We gradually noticed a few more "similar" frys but not nearly as many as the original ... or so we thought yesterday. To my surprise this morning, I counted at least over 22 frys this morning (they we all asleep when I woke up and so I managed to see more ... but they all went into hiding right after I switched on the light). I was expecting more since this female is slightly bigger than the previous that had dropped frys. Will try to count again later today ...

The Big Feast

Finally, some of the baby brine shrimp (BBS) eggs hatched and the molly frys got their first big feast ... and they were really hungry as I can see them gobbling up the BBS. The pictures cannot really show the BBS clearly as they appear as little white specs in the water and on the ground. I actually went over to the Perangin Mall LFS yesterday (since I was dropping by for some other reason) and got some advice on raising livebearers. It appears that there is a difference in the salt used for tanks with plants and for thanks without.

This is probably why I keep seeing the plants in the tank "gradually" dying even though I gave them plenty of light, CO2 and water. It appears that the regular aquarium salt will dehydrate the plants and cause them to be unable to absorb the much needed nutrient/water. However, a little salt is good for livebearers to maintain the water hardness. Thankfully, she had some "special" salt that is apparently good for both but costs 40x more than the regular aquarium salt. I hope this purchase pays off in the long run for me to be able to finally breed livebearers successfully ... the molly frys still looks healthy today ... and I think I counted 12 frys yesterday ... these little guys are very good in hiding ...

One Fry Down

One of the molly frys appeared motionless with its belly up when I got home last night. The rest (looks to be about 8 more - hard to count since they keep hiding in the plants) looks relatively healthy. The frys seem to be eating well (at least I can see some eating the crushed flake food). If this works out, at least it will serve as testimony that not all frys die in my hand ...

The female endler however does not seem to like the planted tank much. She seems a little more stressed than the other two males but she is surviving. I hope the same problem does not plague her and she will mature into a healthy breeding female ... just like the one we just lost ... sigh ...

Frys Galore

Yep, you've guessed it ... we just got a new batch of frys this morning. Unfortunately, it was not from the female endler. She mysteriously died 2 days ago (not sure why since she was already recovering from the internal bleeding) so we're now left with the last female tiger endler. The female endler is still quite young and I don't anticipate that she will be dropping any litter of frys anytime soon so I guess we'll have to wait. Another funny thing that happened was the male snake endler that we originally have suddenly disappeared last Thursday. I am not sure but I think he died and was probably eaten up by the other fishes in the tank ... poor guy ...

So who dropped the frys? Well, it was one of the female orange mollies. I woke up this morning to see some small things moving really fast in the new tank and was delighted to see that it was a molly fry. I think she dropped about 10 frys (it is hard to count since they tend to hide in the plants for cover). I wonder what we should feed them. We actually got the liquid fry (artemia) in preparation for the endler frys which is much smaller but the molly frys looks kind of big (looks to be over 5mm in length). Perhaps we should get them some bigger fry foods ... this batch must make it to adulthood or else Cheryl will surely be disappointed ...

Also, the babies are now living with the endlers (which I've transferred during the weekend into the new tank) and also the other female molly that looks about to drop a litter as well. I think it is safe to leave the female molly in there as the frys have plenty of places to hide and I do feed the molly well (she always have more than enough blood worms to keep her full and hence I don't think she'll be going after the frys anytime soon ... at least that is what I am hoping for).

Preparations for Frys

After all the efforts have gone in to attempt to "cure" the female tiger endler, we finally see some light. Had to use an anti-bacteria powder (that turned the water yellow) but we finally see the internal bleeding on the female endler stopping and fading away.

Meantime, I moved the 2 female mollies into the new planted tank to ensure that the tank has a "lived in" environment so that the female endler do not feel as stress when I move her there end of this week. It looks like the female endler is ready for her second batch sometime next week with her belly bulging up again.

Funny thing though is that one of the serpae tetras died this morning. Nothing seems to be apparently wrong with any other fish in the tank but somehow that serpae tetra just started swimming funny yesterday. I guess it may have died due to old age ...

New Setup

Finally, I'm done setting up the new "planted" tank for the smaller fishes after spending the money on the plants and also a new smaller tank (pretty hefty investment). It looks nice but when I started to introduce the endlers (1 male and 1 female) to the tank, the female looked really stressed out. After a day, I decided to move them back to the old tank but noticed that the female had some kind of "internal bleeding" near the gills and also near the tail fins. It worsened today and when I "googled" for this, it appears that this is a bacteria infection due to stress. I do hope that the female gets better soon (putting the entire tank on general cure solution with salt) as she is currently our last female endler that is reproductive (the other female looked to be too small for reproduction).

Meanwhile, we visited the LFS again yesterday and got a trio of orange mollies (1 male and 2 females). The female mollies are pregnant and we are hopeful that this new litter of babies will survive (although I do not really like the orange color but Bryan is a huge fan of orange fishes). Two of the females looked to be suffering from a little fin rot (likely due to stress as well) and so all the fishes in the main tank is getting the same "cure" solution.

BTW, the last goldfish did not survive after all. The "cure" solution did prolong his life for another 2 days but it eventually kicked the "golden" bucket as well and is likely in goldfish heaven now ... RIP ...

3 goldfish - 2 goldfish = 1 goldfish

Some mysterious disease hit our goldfish yesterday and I only noticed it after I got home from work. By that time, one of the goldfish was already floating belly up while the other 2 looked to be gasping for air. We quickly whipped out the water change bucket and went on to completely cycle the water in the goldfish tank in an effort to save the remaining two goldies. Of course, I've also deployed the general cure (green serum) with sea salt.

By the time night falls, the second goldfish floated belly up with the other one swimming sideways. It looked to be a goner as well but surprisingly, it was swimming happily in the morning. It looks like the general cure and sea salt did the trick but it was unfortunate that we have to loose the other 2 goldfishes. Anyway, I hope this last one makes it to full recovery ...

Endler Tank

Bryan and I went over to a few LFS over the weekend and got hold of a new smaller tank ... you guessed it, just for the surviving tiger endlers (I just realized that one of the male endlers which I thought was a tiger endler is actually a snake endler). We also finally got some soil and nice vegetation for the new tank in hopes to setup a really nice landscaped fish tank (at least that was what I was hoping for but I think Bryan just enjoys playing with the soil, water, fish, etc).

We actually spent the evening last night to setup the new tank ... yes, he helped ... in more ways that I would have wanted but at least we did have fun. It looked mediocre but at least it looks to be better than the current tank that we have. I actually did not know that aqua-scaping can be so much work but I hope it is worth the effort put in.

Still have to change the water a couple of times for a few more days so the murky waters clear up but once it does, we will be "introducing" the remaining 1 male and 2 female tiger endlers to their new home ... and will likely keep the 2 single males (snake and red spot) in the current tank with the rest in the old tank with the 3 new little goldfish we just bought (Bryan wanted more goldfishes).

Temporary Happiness

Guess what ... one of the female tiger endlers gave birth to a litter of 21 baby endlers but 6 of them died a few seconds after they came out (they got "attacked" by the other female tigers in the same tank). Lucky thing I was awake when this happened and immediately removed all the other endlers except for the mother female tiger.

So why is this a temporary happiness? Well, the remaining 16 tiger endler frys did not make it past the third day. I am not sure why but maybe it is because they were unable to feed on the crushed flake food that I fed them. Remedy: Got some liquid fry as backup for the next litter that comes out.

What makes things worse is that 2 of the female tigers died the very next day ... now leaving us with only 2 female and 1 male tiger endlers left. ALL of the peacock endlers (1 male and 2 female) also kicked the bucket yesterday making this a very huge loss. It looks like they were all infected with some parasites (likely to be something in the water). My wife looked to be in despair and have asked that I really read up on how to raise young endler frys before the next litter comes (if it ever comes from the remaining 2 female tigers) so if anyone out there has any advice, please feel free to provide them. We really need help as we've yet to be able to raise any batch of live bearer frys successfully ... :(

Great Losses & Endler Comeback

Missed me? I was kind of busy for the past few weeks with some personal stuff ... even neglected the fishes as we had to be away from the house for several days ... and the result ... dead fishes. Yes, it was another big loss with 2 endlers, 2 blood red mollies and 2 white mollies (yes, the ones that we just bought almost a month ago) biting the dust. Strangely enough, the tetras looks to be doing fine (I guess they were the ones that "ate" most of the other "dead" comrades to survive as I could only find some of the bones of the dead fishes when we got back).

Anyway, mind the title of this blog on a "comeback" from the ever famous endlers?? Well, I finally got hold of some female endlers (peacock and tiger) ... but they came at a pretty high price since they are quite hard to come by. I think all the websites were not lying when they mentioned that the female endlers look "plain". Check out the picture of the female tiger endler. Well, time to hope for many endler babies ... enough to repopulate the aquarium soon. :)

Another Molly?

In case you've been following, it has been over 1 week since I last updated this blog. Well, it is because Cheryl was feeling under the water lately and I've been spending quite some time taking care of her and also Bryan. She is finally looking a little better today and I hope she gets better tomorrow as well.

Anyway, we actually did get a new pair of white female mollies last weekend since Bryan was dying to get some new additions to his tank. They look just like the blood red mollies but just smaller and not pregnant. :( Bryan seems to like them ... well, at least for a few hours after putting them into the tank.

BTW, one of the black neon tetras looks heavily injured (not sure by who or if it was after a fight or some fin nipping) and the poor guy does not look like he will last until the end of next week. He's not been eating lately and I think he may be kicking the bucket in the next few days or so but I think we're still hopeful ...

Faded Gold (Part II)

After battling for 2 days, the other goldfish decided to call it quits as well. It is really weird that he looked fine for the past weeks but showed some weirdness the day before yesterday. I thought that he would have bid farewell last night but he did not. In fact, he showed signs of recovery this morning and even fed for a while. I guess that was his last meal. Bryan had the "pleasure" of scooping it out of our tank for disposal. I was not around when this happened but Cheryl said that the sucker fish was literally "suckling" on him when she noticed the in activeness of the goldfish. I hope it is not a new disease going around in the tank again ... if it is, I will be really puzzled since we did not even introduce any new fishes for the past 2 weeks now ...

Missed Weekly LFS Again

In case you have not guessed, we missed our weekly LFS again this week. I am really beginning to think that Bryan is really losing interest in fishes. We actually wanted to stop by Prangin Mall yesterday to visit "The Fish Shop" (there is actually an LFS by that name in Prangin Mall) among other more popular destinations (the toy shop ... or ... the "racing car shop" if you asked Bryan) but decided against it since Bryan was feeling a little sleepy and it was also about to rain.

Anyway, the blood red molly is ballooning up now but still not big enough to indicate that she needs to deliver. :( I guess we still have to wait a little longer then ... maybe another week ... sigh ...

Tetra Breeding II

I decided to move the female tetras back into the main tank yesterday after seeing my female tetras "slimming" down. They do not seem to want to feed in the new tank (possibly stressed in the new environment) and so I made the hard decision to move them back. Perhaps I'll try again sometime later when we manage to get a proper second tank ... yes, a SECOND fish tank. :) It is mainly to house the smaller fishes like the black neon tetras ... away from the bigger fishes like the red eye tetra (you can see the red eye chasing the black neons in the picture).

FYI, we actually broke our weekend "ritual" last week when we failed to stop in any LFS!!! Bryan seems to be losing interest in fishes nowadays but he still likes feeding them. The blood red molly is still not showing signs of releasing the new brood of frys but it should be in the next few weeks. This is at least something to look forward to.

Tetra Breeding

After the few botched attempts for livebearer breeding, I decided to give tetra breeding another try ... yes, this is not the first time I'm trying. The last few attempts did not yield fruit as the female (long-finned serpae tetra) refuses breed with the male (he died in the last big lost). What makes me think I can be successful this time? Well ... NOTHING!!! But I am not going to give up.

This time around, I have already separated the female tetras (1 black phantom, 1 serpae, 1 long-finned serpae and 1 rosy) in a separate tank. According to some websites, this is suppose to "condition" them for breeding and make them more interested to breed when the males are introduced. In reality, I can only breed the black phantom and serpae since I do not have any long-finned serpae (not anymore) or rosy male. They are just there to make up the numbers so that the females do not feel stressed.

Hopefully, in the next 2 weeks, they (black phantom and serpae) will fatten up and become gravid with eggs ... stay tuned for more updates on this. Here's a picture of my proud sucker fish with his fins all stretched out. :) Enjoy ...

More Endlers

Yep, we got more endler livebearers today ... 2 more to be exact. They look like the peacock snake strain ... and yes, they are both MALES!! No females yet but we're really considering getting the costly endler pair.

BTW, Bryan suffered a slight relapse of his fever last night but luckily, it was just for a short while. We gave him another 2 doses of paracetamol and that did the trick. He is up and running today and that is why we managed to stop by our favorite endler LFS to get these little guys.

Blood Red Mollies

In case you are wondering, I did not update this blog for the past week. Bryan was down with fever lately and we were worried that he contracted the dengue virus and we were frantically trying to keep his temperature down. With God's blessings, his fever finally went down late this morning ... just before our doctor's appointment to draw his blood to test for dengue. Cheryl was really worried that Bryan had dengue last night ... I think she did not sleep much as she kept waking up to check on him. At least now, we can hopefully have a good night's rest.

Anyway, we actually went over to the LFS last weekend (I did not have time to update) and got a pair of blood red mollies (or maybe platies ... I think they are mollies but the LFS says they are platies). We've been keeping them fed well and finally, the female is showing signs of pregnancy (noticeable with the big belly in the picture). In case you are still guessing, the dark red is the male while the bright orange-red is the pregnant female. Hopefully, the frys will survive this time around ... since we've never had luck with guppy/platy frys in the past ...

Last Guppy Standing

So my last giant guppy decided to follow her comrades to bid farewell to my tank. She did not look too well for the past week and I've tried all possible ways to "heal" her but with no avail. She finally decided to call it quits this morning and she is still floating in the tank now ... why? Well, I'm waiting for Bryan to wake up so that he gets to "scoop" her out and take her to her resting place. Funny thing is that the other fishes in the tank does not seem to mind her floating in their home.

Now, we're left with only the small female guppy which I've been trying to hard to cross breed my male black bar endler but that does not seem to be going anywhere. I've finally found 2 individuals that sells the endlers as pairs but one of them require me to buy a few pairs and I am not sure I am willing to part with that much money for this hobby yet. I'm still waiting for a response from the other person ...

Faded Gold

Yes, you've guessed it right ... the goldfish is a goner. Thankfully, only one of them died this morning. The goldfishes seem to be suffering from "fin rot" (I never even knew what this disease was until now) and one of the was not feeding well. We actually rushed over to the LFS yesterday evening to get the "miracle" cure that was supposed to nuture them back to health but I guess it was not good enough. :( FYI, the picture of the goldfish in my previous blog on March 2nd was the one that did not survive. The survivor's picture is on the left ...

Anyway, I guess life moves on ...

I actually did use the "miracle" cure as well on the tank as some of the other fishes looks to be suffering from "fin rot" as well and even "ich". Hopefully, they will all recover and we will get the tank to be normal again (instead of the current green tank ... yes, GREEN ... due to the medicine and salt that we have to put into the tank).

Sad Ending ...

Came home after dinner today and found that 2 of the giant guppy frys were dead ... again ... due to unknown reasons. :( Was really hoping that the final giant guppy fry will survive to adulthood but unfortunately, it did not even last the night. When I checked back at 12 midnight, it was a goner ...

Goldfish Frenzy

We just went to a new LFS (at least new to us ...) over the weekend i.e. KW Aquatic over at Ayer Itam and I must say, it was very impressive. They have a massive collection of freshwater fishes there and yes, we got a pair of new fishes. You've probably guessed it right ... we got goldfish this time around. Pretty little pair ... at least I think it is pair although I cannot tell the difference between male and female goldfish yet.

Bryan was really happy as he really wanted goldfishes every since we saw one over at CTY Aquarium a few months back. What made us finally deciding to "give" him the goldfish was that we now have more confidence to "maintain" the adult fishes ... now that not that many is dying. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the giant guppy frys ... 2 more died over the weekend leaving only 3 frys behind now. I am trying really hard to keep them alive, feeding them daily with daily water changes. At least the last yellow tail giant guppy is still swimming ...

Anyway, we finally decided to really "decorate" our aquarium after being motivated by so many beautiful aquariums we see on the net and in the LFS in Penang. Hopefully, I'll get some inspiration on how to decorate.

As for the hunt for the endlers, I manage to find quite a few local forums where other hobbyist are selling "guaranteed" pure strain endlers. Currently hunting for a good strain and a good bargain for the endlers ... we may finally purchase one from the them eventually ... we'll see ...

Circle of Life

One of the red tail giant guppies gave birth to a litter of 8 frys 4 days ago ... was really hoping to see more of the guppies giving birth but an awful thing happened today. My reserve tank (the tank that I use to help the "under privileged" fishes so that they are nurtured back to health) sufferred a major blow ... taking along ALL of my fishes along with it (3 giant guppies, 2 cherry barbs, 1 endler and my only male long-fin serpae tetra). Three of the guppy frys also died due to unknown reasons as well.

This is really a major setback for us and my wife actually called me at work to inform me of this (she seldom takes hew of the fishes but this certainly caught her attention). This is indeed a very sad day for us ... well, at least for my wife and I. Bryan on the other hand got what he wanted ... "scooping" fishes ... dead fishes. Now, all we're left with is the last giant yellow guppy and the red tail's 5 frys (I really hope they make it).

BTW, I "googled" and found that the so called giant guppies is not really a species of guppies. According to a forum, they are genetically engineered with overfeeding and steroids. This is certainly not something I was hoping to find ... it is a wonder why we never saw the giant male guppies. According to the forum, the frys will turn out to be regular sized ... I'll find out soon enough assuming the 5 remaining frys will make it to adulthood.

Picture of our recently acquired Silver Angel fish ...

And the Winner is ... Endler Livebearers

Finally, we (yes, my wife and I) managed to find a shop that carries these beautiful little fishes. Yes, I am talking about endler livebearers. If you have not heard about them, just "google" them ... still working on my camera skills to get a good picture. These are fast little fishes (smaller than the average guppies) but livelier.

We saw our first endler at a local fish shop in Penang 2 months ago (on display) and so we've been frequenting the shop ever since in hopes that they will carry it someday ... and true enough ... the day came. UNFORTUNATELY, THEY ONLY SELL MALES!!! :(

I was really hoping to get a pair and hopefully be able to breed them but without a female endler, that is just so much I can do. When asked about the female, the shop owner said that he may be willing to scavenge the female for a much higher price but he cannot guarantee that the female will be a pure breed ... FYI, the endlers are known to cross breed with guppies thus "contaminating" the strain.

Still wondering if I should ask him for the female at that ridiculous price ...

Guppies Again?

Yep, we just got 4 guppies (all female). FYI, we started off with 2 guppies in the original small tank and they both died within 2 weeks of purchase. What makes us think that we should try again? I have no idea but Bryan's baby blue eyes when he saw the guppies may have an influence in our decision.

At least the 4 new guppies (2 red tail and 2 yellow tail) looked much bigger than the previous 2 and hopefully, this will give them a fighting chance to survive in the community tank. 3 of them looked to be gravid and looks like they are fertilized. Hopefully, we will get a lot of fry's from them hence making the investment worthwhile. :)

If you don't already know, Bryan likes to buy fishes and pouring them into the tank ... being a 2.5 year old and all, that should be about what we think we can expect from him. He also likes to "scoop" the fishes i.e. transferring them from one tank to a temporary tank for water changes ... although I've now reverted to doing water changes at night when he is asleep to avoid the "scooping" activities from scaring the fishes.

Rekindled Love ...

Recently, I've rekindled my long lost hobby of fish rearing. It all started when we had our long awaited holiday over at Genting Highlands last year. I introduced by 2 year old son to fish feeding ... koi fish feeding.

On our way back home, he kept talking about how nice it was when he was feeding the koi fish and so I decided to get him a few fishes in a small plastic tank, enough fishes for him to feed so that he does not keep bugging us to go back to Genting to feed the koi fishes. Of course, my wife was originally against the idea of rearing fishes ... well, at least back then. :)

It has been a couple of months since then all but one of the original "colony" of fishes that I got my son still survived ... the golden barb (getting big and fat too). Now, we're all fish lovers ... yes, my wife as well ... and we have a nice little bow front glass aquarium filled with all sorts of fishes (tetras, barbs, platies, gouramis and of course my sucker) ... all freshwater.


Starting this blog in hopes to find others out there to share the new hobby as well as exchange ideas on aquatic life.