Heros sp. 'Curare' - potentially the real Heros severus

[jmf3460]

wouldn't it get too hot during the day for outdoor growing? im guessing you would put it under a shade tree or something?

[Ryan]

I think that's why they suggest the floating plants. It shades the water a bit and helps keep it cooler. But if you had filtration moving through it I think it'd be okay. I've watched a local guy raise tons of severums in vats which are in a greenhouse, and in the summer you'll start pouring sweat the second you walk in. I was there in October and the temperature in the greenhouse was still over 100F. Yet the fish are all fine.

[pitdogg2]

must agree Pat I love those wish there was more of them in the hobby. Wonder why I've never seen them sold by Jeff Rapps he has over the years have some very rare fish. I remember 5-8 yrs ago when some of the ACA boys came back from a place in Central America and brought less than 20 La Ceiba Managuensis that were soon killed off by construction of their native habitat. basically Mo Devlin had several that had spawned.

http://www.tfhmagazine.com/freshwate...ll-article.htm

beautiful fish with nice blues and yellows not to mention they also feed young from a slime coat which others Managuensis do not from what I understand.

[Ryan]

Spawn #2 this morning.



At least they're happy, I guess.

[Second Hand Pat]

hehe...that is a lot of eggs. At this rate you will be able to supply the whole US with F1s
Pat

[Ryan]

I better start looking into those vats.

[Second Hand Pat]

[Ryan]

It's right at two weeks since the first spawn hatched and the pair now has wrigglers from the second spawn. They laid them on the same flowerpot as last time, at the far end of the tank, but have decided to dig a pit for the fry in the dead center of the tank. This is causing a real problem for the unpaired fish in the tank because the male is constantly beating up any fish who tries to swim anywhere. I wish they would have left them on the far end.









And a video. I try to move closer a few seconds in and you can see the little mass of wrigglers at the bottom left of the frame, at the base of the flowerpot.



Excuse the cull angelfish. He's my crash test dummy for quarantine. He apparently thinks he's pretty (even though he's not) because he always gets right up in the camera. Funny thing is that he's invisible to the severums. He can swim right up to their spawn and they totally ignore him. They only chase off other severums and the male Krobia.

[Ardan]

They sure are a beautiful pair!! They do rule the tank and want it all to themselves.
The angelfish sure wants to be a movie star

Thanks for sharing Ryan!

Ardan

[Second Hand Pat]

These fish simply glow and weird now the angelfish is not considered a threat.
Pat

[rickztahone]

Those colors are so intense! I wish I had a 6 or 8 foot tank and I'd ask you to put me down for a few

[Discus-n00b]

I better start looking into those vats.

Hey if you ever need a fish farm hand to help tend the vats let me know, will give me an excuse to move to Florida as well. LOL

Those colors are so intense! I wish I had a 6 or 8 foot tank and I'd ask you to put me down for a few

Was thinking the same. Amazing looking fish.

[Ryan]

Batch 2 is free-swimming.



Unfortunately my plecos got to them when they were wrigglers and so there aren't a lot left. I've moved the other fish out of the 210 into their own tank, giving the pair ample space to try and parent-raise a batch. We'll see how it goes. My issue now is that there was something wrong with my latest batch of decapsulated brine and none of them hatched, so my replacement batch won't be here until Monday. I'm trying some pellet dust and Hikari First Bites.

[Ryan]

Well, everything that could go wrong with my first batch of 'Curare' fry, did. I made the hard decision today to cull all 200+ of them. They were almost 1".

First a new order of BBS that I received was bad, and wouldn't hatch. It took a few days to get a replacement. In the meantime I tried frozen BBS, ground pellets, ground FDBW, shaved bloodworms -- and nothing. The fry spit it all out and refused to eat. By the time I got them back on regular hatching BBS they'd probably missed a few crucial days of growth.

Then I noticed they were dark and sluggish, and found that my heater had stopped working. The tank was in the low 70s. It took a few days to bring them back up to 82F. It was a brand new heater right out of the box. Of course out of the six new heaters I ordered, that's the one that chose to die.

Things seemed back on track until I noticed they were flashing and scratching. It got progressively worse over the past few days. It looks like gill flukes. Now I'll have to treat the parents and start over. I ran the adults through a number of treatments when I first imported them but the Prazi and/or formalin for flukes is the one thing I didn't do. Now it's coming back to haunt me.

Oh well, at least I have a summer project. Better to make sure they're healthy and growing well than try to sell sub-par fry. I'm still feeling pretty gutted, though.

[Second Hand Pat]

Sorry to hear Ryan but you culled for the right reasons.
Pat