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Before Your New Fish Arrive:
Before receiving any Select Aquatics fish, read through "Fishkeeping
Tips- Receiving Shipped Fish", as well as the small
section on "New Tank Syndrome".
Then prepare a tank with filtration for
the new fish to acclimate and begin eating again
following the trip. Be sure your filtration provides adequate aeration
and some water movement. You must provide some
plants for shelter and security,
but still be able to keep an eye on them, with low to moderate
light. Bright light in a new
environment will stress them, especially shyer fish.
Temp. should ideally be about
73-78 degrees, pH neutral or slightly
above (my water is 7.4), and soft
to moderate hardness (my water is at 90 ppm). All of my tanks are
bare bottom with
potted plants, see
Fishkeeping Tips 1, though you can
certainly use gravel as long as it is
cleaned regularly of
accumulated waste. Feed lightly
1-2 times a day at first with a quality tropical fish food or live food.
Siphon away uneaten
or excess food. Lastly, do water
changes of at least 20% weekly. None of the fish sold at this site are
"jumpers", but it is
always a good idea to provide a cover on the tank the first few days in
their new environment, as some will jump,
especially the swords, until they become
acclimated. A one pebble thick layer of pea gravel over 13 - 1/2 of the
tank bottom will also maintain water quality, and is easy to
keep clean of accumulating debris.
Because of the rarity of some of
these fish, I recommend keeping them in a
tank of their own so that they are not
threatened or picked on by other fish, though most of the fish here do
well when kept with other species. If you have
concerns regarding fish you are considering keeping them with, please
email me at
selectaquatics@gmail.com,
and I will let you know what my experience has been, as some of the fish
sold here are better with some tankmates
than others.
When they arrive:
You MUST slowly acclimate them to your water. Simply empty the water
and fish together from the bag/container they
were shipped in into an empty
small tub or container, keeping different species in separate containers.
Tilt container if
necessary so that the bag water still covers the fish. It is best to
"drip acclimate", see Receiving Shipped
Fish on how to
do this. If drip acclimating is not an option, you may also slowly add
your dechlorinated water (or better yet, established,
clean tank water from another aquarium) so that it does
not exceed about a 1/4 cup every 10 minutes at first. Only
add new water when they are looking good. When you have added at least
as much of your own water as they arrived in,
begin adding your water in gradually larger quantities. Then, after approx.
1-3 hours, add to a prepared tank after ensuring
water temperatures are equal.
Recommended Care:
Once acclimated and comfortable all of these fish should be fairly hardy
and easy to keep. Like any specialty fish, none
of these fish will do well without proper
filtration, a fairly clean tank and at least weekly 20-30%
water changes. But unlike
fish you may have purchased from pet shops, these are wild fish-
watching their behavior can be particularly interesting.
(Some can be far more adept at avoiding being net caught than the pet
store guppies and swords you may have been
used to.) Most of these fish breed year around, but being still wild
there are some species that may slow down their
reproduction from about October until about April, possibly depending on
their exposure to outdoor light
cycles,
temperature changes etc.
Once established in a
tank, I try not to move them, and keep dramatic disruptions to a minimum.
Providing places to
hide, adequate swimming room and non-aggressive tank mates are essential
for overall health, while helping to avoid
disease. Avoid
temperature extremes or swings,
and feed live or frozen food occasionally. A
few of these wild fish may
stress easily, and generally require
plants to hide in. Be sure to provide room to swim and grow. Though they
are fed
here lightly many times a day on a rotation of
dry and live foods, they will do fine on
a dry food diet fed at least once a
day.
How
they will do initially and over generations is discussed in the article
"Fish Adjustment" contained
HERE.
Raise young together
in a separate tank whenever possible. Even if the adults of their own
species don't bother or
eat them, they will certainly be eaten by other tankmates.
Watch for "gravid" females. Many of the livebearer females,
such as the swords, will show a pronounced "gravid spot"- a darkened area of
the back half of the abdomen that
becomes larger and darker as she is about to drop. The
goodeids do not show a gravid spot in the same
way- they
simply become very large (see the females at "goodeids").
The gestation for livebearers (except the goodeids) is generally 25-40 days,
depending on the temperature of
the water
they are kept in. The warmer the water, the shorter the gestation. The
gestation period for the goodeids is twice as
long, at around 60 days. Most of the non goodeid
livebearers will drop up to about 40 young as they mature, their first
drop often being at around 10-15 young. The goodeids will
drop 5-20 young, also depending on their age and overall
size. The size of broods can be increased by generously feeding the gravid female
live foods, particularly chopped
earthworms, with substantial, regular water changes.
I once had an X. nezahualcoyotl drop 102 fry by
doing that.
Most livebearers generally drop their fry between sunup and noon, and
with a new fish still acclimating to a new
environment, I will sometimes leave the female in the new primary tank
when she drops (assuming there are not more
than a couple other fish in the tank
that will immediately eat them), and then make every effort to catch as many
young
as I can before they do get eaten. I may not save all of
them, but I will
save enough to increase my population, without
having taken the risk of losing the new female by moving her into a
smaller container that may cause stress. If I do
move her to a small container of her own (at least a 2 gallon "Critter
Keeper' or equivalent), I will pull her as soon as
she has her young, then raise the young on
baby brine shrimp and finely crushed
dry
food (fry should be fed lightly at
least twice a day), changing the water
in the fry tank about 50% every day for the first 10 days or so, or until
they
are big enough to be put into a small
filtered tank of their own, or a hung on the side of a larger tank in a
net breeder,
or released into the primary tank with the adults (after about a month). See the section
on raising fry and fry eating.
When tank space is at a premium, I will sometimes put a gravid female in
with young just old enough not to be eaten
by the gravid female but too small to want to eat the new
fry themselves. The older young are
enough of a distraction
(essentially functioning as dither fish) that they keep the female from
eating her own young, and provide enough cover
for the new young to escape into the
plants before being eaten. Then as soon as she drops, I put her back in
with the
adults. Many of the livebearers here are bred that way.
If tank space is available,
it is generally best to keep a female by herself for a couple days to get
her strength back
after having dropped. Particularly if you are working with only a
pair or two, a female released in with a male that
hasn't seen her in a week or two (because she had been in the breeding
tank) could be chased and harassed at a
point where she cannot defend herself, possibly causing harm.
To
further assist the successful keeping and
breeding of all of these species, there is a
Care Guide written for each
species, linked from each
species page. These address the problems some fishkeepers encounter, as
well as
most aspects of basic husbandry specific to the keeping and
breeding of each fish. In the Fishkeeping
Tips,
a Breeding Page also gives
careful instruction on breeding the fish found at this site.
When a problem does occur, or things do not seem quite
right, you may identify the problem and consider actions to
address and resolve it, including making changes to your
basic setup to prevent the problem from ever happening again,
through information contained in the
"Fixit Guide" where most
problems you will ever commonly encounter are discussed,
organized by issues that may occur within first your
Tank, then
The Fish, and
lastly, Diseases that
may appear and how
we address and treat them here.
Unlike some fish sellers, I genuinely care that the fish
you receive from Select Aquatics do well and breed for you,
and every effort is made here to ship fish that are best
prepared for acclimation to a new tank. If ever
the information provided here at the site does not answer a
question you may have, do not hesitate to email
me at
Selectaquatics@gmail.com and I will respond to any questions
within 24-48 hours.
Greg Sage
selectaquatics@gmail.com
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