Northern Lights Aquatics Fish Blog

We have more German Blue Ram fry!

I can’t believe how tiny they are!

We noticed two German Blue Rams spawning Friday night, and this morning we awoke to tiny German Blue Ram fry.

Unfortunately the baby guppies in the tank were sucking them right out of the breeder net they were in.

We moved them pretty fast.

Fortunately they are big enough that they should survive with the adult guppies.

I can’t believe the German Ram fry are so tiny!

We didn’t have an open tank to put them in, and we were scared to leave them with the parents because the eggs have gotten eaten every time we’ve tried that, so I convinced Jeff to put the slate the eggs were laid on in a breeder net in the tank with 4 guppy fry, and 2 adult bushynose plecos, and 3 bushynose pleco fry.

Jeff was concerned because that tank only has regular water, and the only other time we had success with Ram fry was when they were in Reverse Osmosis (RO) water.

Fortunately we didn’t have any trouble, and although a few eggs did turn white, none of them fungused like they did in the RO water. We didn’t even have to use hydrogen peroxide to keep the eggs from fungusing - we just through the slate in the breeder net, and let nature take it’s course.

It’s really hard to tell how many fry we have, but Jeff and I both guessed around 50.

Of course we aren’t sure how many the guppies ate.

We did take the slate out of the adult Ram tank before the adults were through spawning, so they did lay more eggs on the replacement slate that Jeff put in after taking the first piece of slate out.

The female did look a little confused when she realized there were no eggs on the replacement slate, but she did continue to lay eggs on it.

Jeff thought that those eggs were oranger than the eggs that were laid on the first piece of slate, and those eggs also turned white pretty fast, so I don’t think the male fertilized them.

That’s a picture of the eggs on the second piece of slate.

It’s a little blurry, but it was the best picture Jeff took.

I stole this from the forums, but I figured that it was a good enough topic that I’d post it here.

We had a pair of German Rams lay eggs last night, the angelfish looked like they were getting ready to spawn, and we have about three bristlenose pleco fry

What’s going on in your fish tanks?

We made it back safely from the Tropical Fish Show - I still can’t believe that it snowed so much here.

Jeff is a raffle addict, and he won enough fish stuff to fill a huge bag - and I’m sure he’ll tell you about it later.

I got some purple shells for my bumblebee gobies from the show, and some moss balls from Terrequatics, a fish store in Champlin, MN.

Here’s a picture of one of my Bumblebee Gobies perching on a shell a few hours ago. I still haven’t seen any of them in the shells, but I’m hoping they’ll get in there soon.

I want some Bumbleebee Goby fry!

Jeff got a cave system from Tiffany of Salty’s Digz, a gorgeous piece of driftwood, and some Ultra Color Fish Food from Pretty Bird (the fish part of the website is still under construction).

We also saw some beautiful fish - I was really impressed with the discus!

They are a lot larger than ours are!

I was a little disappointed in the one talk we attended because I didn’t fully understand what it was supposed to be about.

Since the talk was titled “Oddball Fish for Aquaria” I thought that it would provide information about fish that aren’t commonly found in aquariums, but it mainly focused on breeding fish that are commonly found in aquariums, but aren’t commonly bred. I think we have or have had most of the oddball fish that were mentioned that aren’t commonly found in aquariums, like the Australian Desert Gobies, Bumblebee Gobies, and Dwarf Puffers, although he called them pea puffers.

Since there were weather problems (the roads that normally take to get from Moorhead to Minneapolis were closed Friday, and Saturday, but we managed to get through ok while they were open, we decided to leave early, so we missed the Plants in the Aquaria talk, which I was looking forward too.

If you made it to the show this year, I’d love to hear what you thought about it, so leave a comment and tell me.

Here’s a picture of Jeff’s driftwood in the Discus tank.

The Discus really seem to like it, and are trying to figure out who gets to live behind it.

We’re headed up to the Minnesota Aquarium Society Tropical Fish Show this weekend.

I’m excited!

The show is free, but it costs two dollars to get into the swap early - which I’m planning to do because someone is bringing in some crowntail and plakat bettas.

I’m going to try not to buy any though, but I’d like to see some nice ones!

Jeff is planning on buying a cave system for 8-Ball, our Figure 8 puffer, and the bumblebee gobies.

We’re also looking for a spawning cone for the discus, and some moss balls for the fry tank.

How exciting!

Northernlightsaquatics.com (Hey, that’s us!)is also sponsoring the Marine and Brackish class at the show, so we’ll be listed in the program, and on the awards.

I hope someone actually enters that class!

We aren’t taking any fish to enter in the show - it’s just too much of a drive.

Hope to see you there.