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The pattern we've seen near the end for all of them is that their scales start to look ragged on the edges. It's as if their bodies can't maintain or repair their scales. Their colors are not as bright, and they are somewhat less active than before. Nonetheless, this didn't keep them from...
I haven't kept curviceps, but I've raised a lot of dorsigera which I'd guess probably pretty close in terms of life span. Since we've raised a number to adulthood from fry, we know exactly when their birthdays are. We have one generation now nearing the end of its lifespan. Out of the 7 fry...
We use flourite as well and our plants seem to really thrive in it. The one thing I'd mention that contradicts the manufacturer's information concerns the effect of the substrate on pH. It is said to be have no notable effect on pH, but I suspect this is in waters that have some degree of...
My vote goes to bushynose plecos (aka common bristlenose, etc). After years of battling algae they did wonders in our tanks. The only drawback is that the larger ones (say 4" or larger) will turn some of my Mayaca thickets into bird's nests (do the same to Rotala to a lesser extent).
With...
In addition to the plants mentioned above, I would recommend Mayaca fluviatilis. This plant grows extremely fast and will form dense thickets that give excellent shelter. It is also a plant that can tolerate tanks with rather low lighting (grows like a weed in 10 g w 15W normal fluorescent)...
Laetacaras are certainly tricky in this regard. In most cases, the males are in fact larger and they have more elongation on the dorsal and anal fins, but there are some odd ball exceptions, one of which lives in my tanks. Until she spawned I thought my largest female L. dorsigera was a male...
I am still on 56k (at least for now), so I certainly am compromised by large images posted directly. This has certainly made page loading take forever on other boards I know that allow direct image posting (where some members don't really pay attention to their image size). I'd like to see the...
Here in the San Francisco area we have seen L. Thayeri three different times (in three different stores) in the past four years. I recall two of the three times they were actually labelled as "curviceps" in the store, whereas the other store actually it labeled L. thayeri. Stores tend to have...
We have dorsigeras that spawn fairly regularly. It seems to take our females about 3 weeks before they are able to lay eggs again--3 weeks counting from when the last set of eggs were laid, rather than when eggs, wrigglers, or fry disappeared.
Dorsigera are indeed very tricky to sex. Most of the pairs we keep, or have kept, have small systematic differences in dorsal and anal fin elongation (i.e, more elongation in the male), but there are exceptions. We currently have a female who has significantly more elongation in both fins than...
Glad I could be of help. It sounds like the fry are pretty much ready to be moved. I know how you feel about watching them grow. We (John & Judy = Laetacara1 and 2) are hardly jaded veterans ourselves, having successfully bred only two species (Laetacara dorsigera and Apistogramma...
Hi Jim,
Nice to hear you have ~dozen thriving Viejita fry.
As for the first question, if you have a few days (or even one day) before leaving on vacation, you should try feeding them powdered flake food to get them used to it. We've always alternated feedings of powdered flakes and BBS...
In all but one of our planted tanks, we filter over peat that we have in mesh bags in our HOB filters. The amount of peat we use is enough to adjust our pH downward as needed. We already have super soft tap water. The color difference in our tanks is really not noticeable. If we dump some of...
You may also wish to feed live brine shrimp if they are available in your area. We've spawned ours on a diet that is mostly flake food (primarily Aquarian, OSI Vivid Color and OSI Cichlid) with a live brine shrimp "treat" meal every third day. Most folks, however, will feed a diet much richer...