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. :)