Fish Thread

[ShrekDawg]

i’m a big fan of the pond guy, but don’t have any personal experience with his filters......i know i have to clean mine weekly (ish) with the algae i’m getting now so its mainly a matter of how easy the maintenance is on that filter......the fountain portion typically tells you when it needs cleaning as the “bell” of water decreases in size as the filters get stopped up.

Thanks! That makes sense. Maintenance seems pretty easy from what I can tell. I think the debris can just be pulled off or if it gets inside, I think the cover just pops off. I’m hoping the UV clarifier will help with algae.

 

[muddy75]

my goldfish have been very active today! they are coming to the surface much faster than the koi! yours are going to love being outside!!!

 

[ShrekDawg]

my goldfish have been very active today! they are coming to the surface much faster than the koi! yours are going to love being outside!!!

Aww that is awesome!!

That reminds me, when do you think is a good time to move them outside? That’s another reason why I haven’t yet. My mom keeps saying she thinks it’s still too cold and I should wait till it warms up more? Since they are used to being inside? But I’m not sure. It was still pretty cold a couple weeks ago but now I think it’s pretty warm but

Don’t wanna shock them or anything.

 

[muddy75]

i would run the pond outside for at least 1 week and then check your temp before moving them. I got most of my fish in april/may and put them directly in the pond.....goldfish are really resilient and do well outside so I would say that if you water temp is 50+/- after 1 week you should be good......you should probably consider “floating” them in their pond water before putting them in the new one or add a certain portion of their water to the new pond....

 

[ShrekDawg]

i would run the pond outside for at least 1 week and then check your temp before moving them. I got most of my fish in april/may and put them directly in the pond.....goldfish are really resilient and do well outside so I would say that if you water temp is 50+/- after 1 week you should be good......you should probably consider “floating” them in their pond water before putting them in the new one or add a certain portion of their water to the new pond....

Thank you!! This is really helpful!! Maybe I’ll set it up tomorrow and let it run for a bit. I don’t know if I’ll be able to dig it in yet but I might just put it on the deck.

 

[RiverOtter]

And I'm also working on breeding bettas! I recently joined the IBC and hope to start going to shows in the coming years. Right now I have six bettas from the spawn I did last year, all various solid blue-series veiltails (I love VTs and wish the IBC had VT standards for regular breeders, not just the new breeder category, but anyway). Currently I'm trying to breed a pair of halfmoon coppers. I tried a different method from what I usually use last time and it did not go well at all, so I've given them a month to rest and recover and I'll try again in a week or so.

I know this is an old post, but let me just say that I LOVE that you are breeding veiltails, they are my favorites too. And a lot of people favorites. I think the Betta fads where first everyone was crazy breeding halfmoons with tons of finnage, and when finally everyone was upset the poor things couldn't swim, everyone went nuts breeding plakats, with no lovely finnage at all.

If you ever have excess fry, don't cull - ship them to me! I'll buy them.

I currently only have a 10g walstad and a couple of micro tanks, but I have a 29 and a 55 that I'd set back up to raise out veiltail fry.

 

[Dinogrrl]

@RiverOtter It looks like the IBC does have VT standards for regular breeders now, but I don't know how many people are submitting in that category yet. Most if not all of the spring shows have been canceled so I wasn't able to go see for myself. Won't stop me from continuing to breed them though.

I do like halfmoons but I'm very iffy about the ones with excess finnage. They really do have so much trouble just getting around and I'm not down with purposely doing that to an animal just because we happen to like how it looks. If/when I get into breeding HMs my goal is for a sane amount of finnage that's something more than what a plakat can offer .

I only cull fry that have obvious life-impacting defects, like kinked spines or missing fins. I've only got like 5 that survived this time (it was a bad beginning to the year) and so far they all look pretty good. Not sure what colors the younger ones are but the two older ones are turquoise and royal blue. I'll be sure to give a shout when they're getting big enough to ship!

 

[RiverOtter]

@Dinogrrl , any fry growing out is a success! I used to breed a little about 5 or 6 years ago, then, life and now I have one fabulously ugly Petco baby growing out that I love. Raising the babies was always my favorite part.
I know lots of people feel better culling what they can't grow out, but I never did either. Any extras you end up with, please do give me a shout.

 

[RiverOtter]

Pictures do not do my little guy justice. He is white, with really black eyes, black speckles on his body, blue dorsal and ventral fins and a red tail. He really is ugly and I LOVE him.
I had seen him, but hadn't been in the petstore for fish, so left him. A week later, my daughter had to go to he petstore and called me with a question while there. I asked her to look at the baby bettas and tell me if the ugly one was still there. She said "Baby bettas are never ... oh, yeah, found him." and home he came!!

 

[Dinogrrl]

@RiverOtter lol wonder if your guy's a marble, they often start out super ugly .