Jack Wattley Hi-Fin Coerulea X German Colbalt

[April]

Some of his fish came to Canada and I helped clear the shipment and transfer to the next plane. They were resold eventually.
I never got my hands on any.

[mee]

Some of his fish came to Canada and I helped clear the shipment and transfer to the next plane. They were resold eventually.
I never got my hands on any.

April, PM me about any of his strains you may be interested in. I have enough space to breed one or two more lines, and will be back in the states in a year or so.

[mee]

The pair which remains in the community tank spawned today at 6:30pm (the misses watched it and was nice enough to remember the time for me). For the first time I have placed a mesh around the eggs to keep them from eating any. My plan is to move the eggs, mesh and parents to the new 20 gallon tomorrow evening.

[mee]

The male and the eggs are isolated now in a squeaky clean tank. I count a hundred or so which still look good, and they should start breaking free in the next 5 hours or so.

[IMG][/IMG]

[mee]

[IMG][/IMG]

[mee]

Update: There are now about 30-40 wigglers The number has stayed pretty much the same for the last 2 days so I think this is going to be my first successful brood. After all is said and done, I am sure I could have taken off the mesh after moving the eggs and the male and had a higher survival rate. My focus was on ensuring some fry this time rather than many, so now that I have seen his behaviour as a sole parent, next time I can go for big numbers. Videos should be coming soon.

[mee]

Number still holding steady, and fry are now starting to attach to daddy.

[eddiecheng]

thanks for sharing these photos.

[mee]

thanks for sharing these photos.

Your welcome,

Unfortunately I lost the fry, but the same female spawned with a Male I had not put to the test yet, and 200 hundred wigglers hatched. The pair layed the eggs on the edge of a divider separating them and my pair of Flora Heckels. After they hatched and before I could suck them up and move them to a planned tank they moved them to the center open mesh of the divider where one by one they slipped through to the Flora Heckels side. The Flora Heckels kidnapped them and placed what looks like all on their breeding cone, and they remain today. This was potentially a great accident, because the Heckel Crosses bicker allot and only once recently spawned after about a year in my care. They are still bickering a little but have both taken a side of the cone to guard. My hope beyond having them successfully raise the fry is for them to build a tighter bond and spawn again soon after I remove the fry with some strong parental experience to draw on.

I will post a video of a bit of the kidnapping a bit later, and if things go well keep updates coming of the grow out.

[mee]

No video today (it will come) but a short update. The heckels indeed kidnapped all 200 fry, and raised them for nearly a week, but either the female heckel, the bio-father or both ate them. For the most part they attached to the large male heckel, and the female didn't seem too happy with it. I suspect she snatched up quite a few, but also witnessed the bio father in the segment over eating some. The Heckels look ready to spawn again any day though, and I am watching the watleys spawn as I type. They are in their own tank now with two HOB's with prefilters (of course) and one of the dual sponge filters I use in all my tanks you see.. oh, and a nice new breeding cone. I will pull the female very soon because I am ready to grow out some fry already.

[Yogibearal]

They look absolutely stunning. Reminds me of my pair I had in the 90's supposedly Cobalts from Watley. Keep up the great work. Look forward to seeing more photos and videos.

[mee]

Thanks. I definitely think I could have made these even better if I had more time to power feed and do multi daily water changes like I did in the beginning, but I am pretty happy with these nonetheless. FYI, I may be paying Sadaki a visit soon. Probably not going to throw down on any 1K+ fish, but I will be looking for something new to work with.

Oh and a mini update, after a night of party that became a marathon well into the next afternoon, I came home to wigglers, and I have decided for now to keep the girl in the tank as things look good.

[Chee_dog]

truly amazing strain, lmk if you get fry and want to sell

[mee]

truly amazing strain, lmk if you get fry and want to sell

Will do, and will do. I am in Japan but barring a major mishap fry will be coming back to the US with me and likely the adults as well. The time table is still unknown for my return, but I am aiming for a year or less.

[mee]

took way too long to encode this due to my own errors, but here it is. A bit long, but if you hang there are some great moments of color especially on the female. This is in a fairly dark room, with just a bit of day light shining in from a slightly open curtain (no artificial lighting whatsoever). Blue tint on the left of the tank is from another tank with a blue background reflecting. and the occasional movement on the glass is from me holding up a white blanket behind the camera to cut reflection. Just want to drill in the point that this is very accurate color for these two post spawn. Wigglers are on the intake filter but not really visible. Oh, and it is shot at a bit of an up angle, which squished their bodies just slightly.