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If you want, you can follow the progress of my spawns and other bits of info that is not included here in THIS THREAD on the Houston Fishbox.
1st Spawn (June 19, 2009)
June 19, 2009
Aaaaaargh!!... they laid eggs! I noticed 6 guys crammed into the far right corner of the tank and a pair that seem to be defending the left side with great ferocity! I take a look behind the tank ... lo and behold.... eggs!!!
I'm even more excited because this might possibly be the first ever case of electric blue rams breeding here in the U.S.A.! Well.... even if it is not, it may well be the first DOCCUMENTED case in the U.S. At the time of this spawn, I have yet to find any webpages regarding breeding of Electric Blue Rams in the U.S.
June 21, 2009
I wake up today and no sign of the eggs... they must have been eaten during the night... boo!!! Next time i'll remove the eggs.
June 28, 2009 (day 2)
I just got home from the airport from my trip to Pasadena, CA. I walk through the door and find once again a pair of electric blues have taken over the left side of the tank and the others are hiding at the right side. I look at the same location as the last time and looks like there are eggs again!
This time the eggs are kinda gray with a dark line through them. It seems as though they might be more mature that the last (failed) batch of eggs. So probably they must have been laid on June 26th or 27th. Judging from the egg maturity, i'm going to assume that they were laid on the 26th (day 0).
This time I remove the eggs and place them in strong methylene blue solution with strong aeration.
Close up of the eggs. You can see the dark lines of what i presume to be the Spinal Cord.
June 30, 2009 (day 4)
My eggs have grown tails!!!!
July 1, 2009 (day 5)
They have all fallen off the slate and now i have a bunch of belly sliding wigglers. Cool stuff. Today I decapsulated a tablespoon of brine shrimp eggs and stored them in strong brine in the fridge in anticipation of the hungry mouths. Double checked the vinegar eel culture. Looks like we have lots!
July 5, 2009 (day 9)
Yesterday had a nice 4th July surprise. I saw 2 fry had started free swimming. The rest were still belly sliders. This morning I woke up and all seem to have arisen to become fairly competent swimmers. I started a vinegar eel harvesting bottle this morning and hopefully by this evening i should have hundreds of vinegar eels ready for their first meal. I also raised the airstone from the bottom of the tank to about 1/2" away from the top of the tank. This helped to reduce the turbulence and allowed the fry to swim without being violently tossed about.
July 7, 2009 (day 11)
Had a massive dieoff today. Half of the fry just upped and died. I have been feeding them only vinegar eels since day 9. I noticed that some of them were eating the VE quite well. Most of the dead ones that I see were skinny and were probably were not eating. The ones that survived had nice round white bellies. At last count i have about 40 or so fry left. Still doing daily siphoning of the tank bottom to get rid of all the gunk.
July 8, 2009 (day 12 morning)
The spawn seems to have stabilized today. No more sudden dieoffs. This morning i started them on newly hatched BBS which i hatched from decapsulated eggs. The decapsulation process allows the BBS to emerge sooner and consequently are smaller and have more nutrition. I notice them try to pick at the BBS but spit it out again. I suspect that even decapsulated newly hatched BBS are still too large for them. At last count i have 35 survivors.
July 8, 2009 (day 12 evening)
Well.. it seems like they are actually eating BBS. Look at this nice big orange belly.... I like !!!!
July 13, 2009 (day 17)
I now have 2 spawns going on simultaneously. The 3rd spawn has now begun to eat BBS readily. To save on space, I have decided to consolidate the 2nd & 3rd spawns into a single 2-1/2 gal. This would make it easier for maintenance also, not to mention free up my only other 2-1/2 gal in case another spawn comes along.
So if you want to keep following the progress of this spawn... you may pick up the story below.....
July 2, 2009 (day 0)
Holy Moly!!! Looks like I have another pair!!! This time I managed to grab a camera and made a vid. After the spawning was complete, I removed those eggs and now they are residing in another tank of methylene blue.
July 5, 2009 (day 3)
Couple of eggs are starting to wiggle this morning. Couple have slid further down the inclined piece of slate, spreading out the the spawn. Their tails are still too small to see easily with the naked eye.
July 12, 2009 (day 10 morning)
I got free swimmers today! There are still some belly sliders but I expect them to all be competent swimmers by tomorrow. These fry seem larger than the last spawn. Unlike the last spawn, I introduced both BBS and vinegar eels into the tank today. Hopefully we can minimize the massive dieoff that I got last time. Fry are too many to count... perhaps 100... or 200?
Free swimmers!
Somebody asked for a shot of my breeding setup, here it is... nothing special, hope you are not too disappointed.
July 13, 2009 (day 11 evening)
Man.... these guys are already eating BBS! I guess that it is not necessarily true (as in so much literature out there) that rams cannot eat BBS as first foods. I bet the decapsulation process helped a whole lot. My first batch of decapsulated eggs hatched in merely 16 hrs, compared to the 24 hrs it takes to hatch out "normal" brine shrimp eggs. I'm guessing that the early hatching means that the naupuli are much smaller than if they waited for 24 hrs. On top of that, I bet they are more nutritious because they don't have to spend a couple more hours of energy trying to break through the hard shells.
Anyway, since they are eating BBS, I'm consolidating both spawns into a single 2-1/2 gal. This should free up one tank just in case i have another spawn. On top of that, it would make maintenance a little easier.
Here are some updated pics of both spawns together. They are definitely schoolers.
Close up of the first spawn... Nice round orange bellies... I likey!
August 1, 2009 (day 30-ish i think)
Well.. I just got back from Shanghai. Thank you Casey for looking after my babies. I think its time for an update.
Here's the latest pic. Methylene Blue is finally gone due to the partial water changes.
They are looking like miniature versions of their parents now. I'm excited to see how they will turn out. The guys at the LFS has an ongoing bet... that their parents are dyed or something ridiculous like that. I hope to prove them wrong.
As of November 2009, ALL my fry have been sold to various people locally. I currently do not have any for sale. Further, because of work commitments, I currently have no plans to further breed any more Electric Blue Rams.
Nobody that i have given fish to have reported any anomalies with the color development of the fry. I can only assume that they did indeed turn blue like the adults and that they are NOT dyed. If you have gotten fish from me and have noticed that the colors don't develop, please let me know.
On the urging of my friends, I started this website by putting together the original (and quite successful) B. Macrostoma pages. Since then it has grown to include much more aquarium related information. All this time I've provided all this info and lots of free e-mail support to anyone who needed help. The advertising on this page helps out a little to offset the cost of webhosting. So if you see something that you may be interested in listed within the GoogleAds banners, then please don't hesitate to check it out.
I thank you all for your great interest in my articles and I hope to keep hearing from you guys, even if it is just dropping me a note to say hi. God Bless!
