Meet the Parents

[RSFish1]

Well last night I pulled 6 of the herd and put them in the special holding tank. Got up this morning and nothing. I thought my attempt had failed. Then at 8:30 after breakfast I heard a splashing noise. Finally at last the spawning had started. And I got a couple of surprises.
I noticed one of my "males" was not participating. Strange. Turns out Spot is a female. An hour after Skeletor started spawning so did she.

Ghost decided to hold her eggs for some reason and not particpate. 22" and fat with eggs, I guess she wanted to keep them. I had another young female Sushui that I did not think would be quite ready but I put her in any way. She followed around and watched. But she will probably be ready next year.
So the parents are-
Mom #1 Skeletor-Yambuka-Ogon-Doitsu
Mom #2-Spot-Gin Rin Bekko ?
Dad #1-Tiger-Sanke
Dad #2-Hi Sushui Butterfly-Still un-named

I think it was the blooming water lily that was the final point of sending them over the edge.

Now the waiting and final preperations for the babies!

 

[addy1]

Happy fish daddy! Those should make some nice babies, all pretty fish.

 

[blessedfamily]

Congrats!! Finally!

 

[sissy]

congrates and poor spot was confused

 

[koidaddy]

They should turn out real nice. Congrats!:regular_waving_emot

 

[RSFish1]

The good thing is that Skeletor is much bigger than the boys. She had one very small pink spot that has already turned back white. And she looks very sexy in her new slimmed down body. LOL

 

[sissy]

uh oh fish fetish:lol::lol::lol::regular_waving_emot:fish:

 

[j.w]

Let us know when you will be handing out the cigars (bubblegum preferred please)

 

[RSFish1]

Well the pool the eggs are in sits in the shade all day. The water temperature is 74 degrees. I figured it owuld take approximately 5 days to see the first babies. Well...I was wrong!

We have babies!! Looks like they started coming out today. Blended up lots of algae filled water and started pouring it in tonight. Got a couple more buckets ready for the morning before I go to work and then will feed them when I get home tomorrow night.

Will get the brine shrimp hatcheries up and going in the next few days so when they can take larger food it will be ready.

I forgot how exciting it is to see the first babies. Especially when they came a day or 2 earlier then expected.

 

[addy1]

How neat! take some hard to see baby pictures...........

 

[RSFish1]

Tomorrow night when I have some more time, i will see if I can pull out my microscope at 10x power and get some pics. Or maybe in a glass with my regular camera. They took me by surprise so I had to get a couple of other things knocked out tonight or I would have had the camera out.

 

[addy1]

yep the lil ones are your priority!

 

[RSFish1]

Thought I would also post a couple of pictures. Water paramters are staying perfect so far. Just a couple of fry pics and my setup. The tank will hold I believe about 600 gallons. The filter you see is 2 milk cartons, covered in sheets and bungee corded together. About an 8' loop of trickle water. They are loving the brine shrimp. Some were born Tuesday through Friday or so. I have a baby pool I moved the eggs into and there are many, many more in there. Who knows how many I have all together. They get 20 gallons a day of green water. I blend up 4 gallons of algae in to it also.

 

[koiguy1969]

do you plan on switching to freeze dried brine shrimp cubes? its a food you've already got them on and they will devour them...and 45% protein minimum. i use them every year...they also go pretty far for the money...cheap on eBsy...and no oily film on the water. i start switching mine at 3 weeks old. time for me to start hand feeding soon.got to make them freindly.

 

[RSFish1]

I only do the live brine shrimp for a couple of weeks. I have 5 gallon buckets brewing under a mix of grow lights and natural sun lights in the house. After that it will be a mixture of the green algae water and some ground up flakes. But I will definitely look at the cubes. I flip flop every year on what to feed them. But I am a huge algae fan. I try to get the water as green as I can and let them eat whenever they want.

My thinking is to let them grow up on what they would get in nature. I have already been watching them pecking at the algae growing on the water lily. I know I cannot be here ot feed them more than twice a day with work. So I like to take a natural approach and give them a constant food source and then suppliment it with brine shrimp when I can and a little something else twice a day.