Hey Everybody!
Happy Monday! (Or as happy as I Monday can be!) I haven't quite started my day yet. I most likely will after the blog post is finished and I have killed at least one cup of coffee (yeah the green tea thin still can't get me going like coffee can.) At any rate, I can't believe that its already the middle of the month. This year is flying by and not in the good way. I suppose I am getting stuff accomplished but, just not enough as I had hoped. Enough blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm a failure at life talk. I am happy today for a couple reasons.
1. I some how won an auction for 6 red marble bristle nose plecos (for a song I might add!)
2. My dad is getting a new DSLR so he is handing down his older one to me! (I am pleased as punch to have any camera at this point that I can manually focus!)
Also, my summer tubs are coming along smashingly and should be ready by June 1st as I intended! I have been taking photos a long the entire process, so when it is completed I will write up a big post about it. It has been a lot of work, leveling, shimming, building up and skimming off, but after a ton of top soil and 2 tons of rocks, I am almost ready to finally order all the working parts for the tubs (Kensfish.com here I come!) and the plants that will need to take up residence first! The stock tank has provided some unique challenges as I was unaware they could leach zinc into the water, thank goodness for careful research. The plan is to grow out a bunch of fish to send out in fall not commit mass fish genocide. Back to the new red marble plecos, I am hoping they are the highly contrasty ones, BUT I can make due if they are not. As always I am very interested in genetics and after reading about the topic further, it is even more fascinating to me.
I will be raising these little guys up until they are old enough to separate by sex and then keeping one male and one female and the rest will be resold to out people who want them, so I can get unrelated mates for them (line breeding is a big no, no in my book unless I am really trying to preserve a selected trait and I only have one individual with priorly mentioned trait to work with.) I am also deciding that I will most likely be getting an albino female for Glen and Stu to pal around with. It seems that that white seams of fins may suggest that fish carries an allele for albinism (even more fascinating is there seems to be 2 or 3 different alleles that dictate albinism in bristle noses) As both Kiara and Manny have white fin tips and approximately 15 to 25 percent of their offspring is type 1 albinos (I think, definitely albino, type is a little bit difficult to tell at an inch long). One of two things could happen if an albino mother was brought into the mix (Kiara, Stu and Glen are all siblings) 1. Her already flawed genetics could increase the incidence of albinism or 2. The genetics of her more dominant parent could take over and I could possibly get no albinos at all. It seems the only way to find out is to find a pretty little lady. Now the question is do I search for a type 1 or a type 2 lady?
So fascinating. I truly like everything about my fish, although, the genetics are not as easy as with rodents. there are so many things that seems to contribute and change.
Back to the fish tubs (Sorry for all the skipping back and forth) the stock tank is going to house the growing number of plecos I have around here, Kiara and Manny, the peppered and the julii cories, and all the red wag and spotty wag platies. I am hoping maybe the cories will spawn better if outdoors. I know they do, but there are never any offspring and I am thinking there is just never enough food for the hatchlings (maybe?) The extra space should also help the baby plecos grow out better, although they are growing like weeds now, so if I'm not careful they will all be Godzilla by september. The other tubs will be:
Red tailed calico platies, Stu, Glen, and unnamed albino lady.
Snow whites, panda, and milk in ink platies, marble gourami (if I can't find a home for him)
Bleeding heart platies, red belly platies, tiger platies, other marble gourami (If I can't find a home for him) and zippy the yoyo loach.
My ultimate goal with these outdoor tubs is to make enough money back to pay for all my dry fish food for next year, pay myself back for all the tubs and equipment (which I need any way to set up the new fish room in the basement later this fall) and to possibly have enough to buy 3 ten gallon quarantine tanks for incoming/ outgoing fish. We will see how it all goes. If nothing else it will be a fantastic experiment.
I had better go and actually accomplish at least a couple of the things I set out to do today!
Happy Monday! (Or as happy as I Monday can be!) I haven't quite started my day yet. I most likely will after the blog post is finished and I have killed at least one cup of coffee (yeah the green tea thin still can't get me going like coffee can.) At any rate, I can't believe that its already the middle of the month. This year is flying by and not in the good way. I suppose I am getting stuff accomplished but, just not enough as I had hoped. Enough blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm a failure at life talk. I am happy today for a couple reasons.
1. I some how won an auction for 6 red marble bristle nose plecos (for a song I might add!)
2. My dad is getting a new DSLR so he is handing down his older one to me! (I am pleased as punch to have any camera at this point that I can manually focus!)
Also, my summer tubs are coming along smashingly and should be ready by June 1st as I intended! I have been taking photos a long the entire process, so when it is completed I will write up a big post about it. It has been a lot of work, leveling, shimming, building up and skimming off, but after a ton of top soil and 2 tons of rocks, I am almost ready to finally order all the working parts for the tubs (Kensfish.com here I come!) and the plants that will need to take up residence first! The stock tank has provided some unique challenges as I was unaware they could leach zinc into the water, thank goodness for careful research. The plan is to grow out a bunch of fish to send out in fall not commit mass fish genocide. Back to the new red marble plecos, I am hoping they are the highly contrasty ones, BUT I can make due if they are not. As always I am very interested in genetics and after reading about the topic further, it is even more fascinating to me.
I will be raising these little guys up until they are old enough to separate by sex and then keeping one male and one female and the rest will be resold to out people who want them, so I can get unrelated mates for them (line breeding is a big no, no in my book unless I am really trying to preserve a selected trait and I only have one individual with priorly mentioned trait to work with.) I am also deciding that I will most likely be getting an albino female for Glen and Stu to pal around with. It seems that that white seams of fins may suggest that fish carries an allele for albinism (even more fascinating is there seems to be 2 or 3 different alleles that dictate albinism in bristle noses) As both Kiara and Manny have white fin tips and approximately 15 to 25 percent of their offspring is type 1 albinos (I think, definitely albino, type is a little bit difficult to tell at an inch long). One of two things could happen if an albino mother was brought into the mix (Kiara, Stu and Glen are all siblings) 1. Her already flawed genetics could increase the incidence of albinism or 2. The genetics of her more dominant parent could take over and I could possibly get no albinos at all. It seems the only way to find out is to find a pretty little lady. Now the question is do I search for a type 1 or a type 2 lady?
So fascinating. I truly like everything about my fish, although, the genetics are not as easy as with rodents. there are so many things that seems to contribute and change.
Back to the fish tubs (Sorry for all the skipping back and forth) the stock tank is going to house the growing number of plecos I have around here, Kiara and Manny, the peppered and the julii cories, and all the red wag and spotty wag platies. I am hoping maybe the cories will spawn better if outdoors. I know they do, but there are never any offspring and I am thinking there is just never enough food for the hatchlings (maybe?) The extra space should also help the baby plecos grow out better, although they are growing like weeds now, so if I'm not careful they will all be Godzilla by september. The other tubs will be:
Red tailed calico platies, Stu, Glen, and unnamed albino lady.
Snow whites, panda, and milk in ink platies, marble gourami (if I can't find a home for him)
Bleeding heart platies, red belly platies, tiger platies, other marble gourami (If I can't find a home for him) and zippy the yoyo loach.
My ultimate goal with these outdoor tubs is to make enough money back to pay for all my dry fish food for next year, pay myself back for all the tubs and equipment (which I need any way to set up the new fish room in the basement later this fall) and to possibly have enough to buy 3 ten gallon quarantine tanks for incoming/ outgoing fish. We will see how it all goes. If nothing else it will be a fantastic experiment.
I had better go and actually accomplish at least a couple of the things I set out to do today!
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