Captive Breed Heckels???

[jimg]

Jim, you may just have to wait long enough...

It is worth the wait i guess. I like watching them grow. mine are growing quick and hopefully, and I do mean hopefully they will pair!

[Ryan]

This is exciting!

[illumnae]

I'm interested to know the water parameters. 99% RO, what's the remaining 1%?

[NanDiscus]

1%= tiny bit of good ole' Budapest tap water.

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More info coming later, the world is upside down there. The divider is up and looking good, but the guys are a little shy.

Nandi

[jimg]

Nice! thanks for the pics

[Second Hand Pat]

Looks like a healthy batch of eggs.

[Jennie]

Andrzej Nowicki has already accomplished this successfully...check out his photo albums https://www.facebook.com/renataandrzej

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

[illumnae]

Hmm so for every 99 litres of water he puts in 1 litre of tap water. Very interesting.

[NanDiscus]

Hmm so for every 99 litres of water he puts in 1 litre of tap water. Very interesting.

No. This is just a very rough estimate, intended simply to give an idea about the approximate ratio of RO+tap.

Jennie,
We know about Andrzej's success, but it seems so far it's only my friend who could do it after him. We're far from being successful yet. The pics speak for themselves though.

Nandi

[NanDiscus]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Here are the 'happy water parameters' as of yesterday evening:
pH: 4.7, EC: 60mS, NO3: somewhere between 0 and 10.
The pure RO-water used for the w/c's has an EC of about 10mS, the extra 50 comes from the life in the tank (food, etc.). The tap water I mentioned earlier is no longer present (or detectable) in the tank, it was only added before the long vacation to provide a bit of pH buffer while a not-so-very-competent person looked after the fish.
Otherwise there is nothing added to bring the pH down, time and the filtration takes care of this. Attila used to filter the prepp'ed water through peat, but he gave up on it as the fish didn't like it nearly as much as the pure RO. (I had the same observation re Xingús and peat.)
The parent fish arrived in early March 2009 as semi-adult fish, since then they have been in the same tank that's located in a corner of the kitchen, right next to a door, so there has always been relatively heavy traffic around the tank, which they seem to have gotten used to. They are fed primarily on a variety of frozen foods, discus granules and occasionally on fruits. What they accept and enjoy of the latter is very much mood (or season, flavour, etc.?) dependant. (Again, the same as with my Xingús.)

Approx. 36 hours after spawning, more than 90% percent of the eggs look nice and viable, the odd fungussed ones the parents pick out. There are about 100 eggs as we speak. More pics to follow tomorrow.

Nandi

ps.: Temp: 29C.

[nc0gnet0]

How soon after the extended vacation did they lay eggs? Just curious.......Were they fed during this vacation?

[jimg]

Nandi I have the altums and heckles which I have been keeping in 90%+- ro to tap to get an ec of 35 ph is around 5.5 i always kept water with the wilds at 150- 250 ec depending on species. this going this low with ph/ec is new to me.
The question I have is with a very low kh when I let the water go for 2-3 days without changing any the ph will drop(.5-1)) and the ec rises or stays the same the same as you mention, problem I find is when I do wc's with aged water with the same ec as the tank, the ph will be higher so I need to do daily small or add acid to match the ph. If I just lower the ec with more ro than tap to match the ph I would eventually be down to pure ro.
what I'm getting at is the water changes from nitrification and I seem to be chasing it, and there is really no way without raising the kh to stop that, does it really matter?

[Inland Empire Discus]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Here are the 'happy water parameters' as of yesterday evening:
pH: 4.7, EC: 60mS, NO3: somewhere between 0 and 10.
The pure RO-water used for the w/c's has an EC of about 10mS, the extra 50 comes from the life in the tank (food, etc.). The tap water I mentioned earlier is no longer present (or detectable) in the tank, it was only added before the long vacation to provide a bit of pH buffer while a not-so-very-competent person looked after the fish.
Otherwise there is nothing added to bring the pH down, time and the filtration takes care of this. Attila used to filter the prepp'ed water through peat, but he gave up on it as the fish didn't like it nearly as much as the pure RO. (I had the same observation re Xingús and peat.)
The parent fish arrived in early March 2009 as semi-adult fish, since then they have been in the same tank that's located in a corner of the kitchen, right next to a door, so there has always been relatively heavy traffic around the tank, which they seem to have gotten used to. They are fed primarily on a variety of frozen foods, discus granules and occasionally on fruits. What they accept and enjoy of the latter is very much mood (or season, flavour, etc.?) dependant. (Again, the same as with my Xingús.)

Approx. 36 hours after spawning, more than 90% percent of the eggs look nice and viable, the odd fungussed ones the parents pick out. There are about 100 eggs as we speak. More pics to follow tomorrow.

Nandi

ps.: Temp: 29C.

What types of fruit are used to feed them?

[illumnae]

Thank you very much for the sharing. All this while I've been keeping my Heckels and other extreme blackwater fish in pure RO. I, too,gave up on peat and cattapa leaf filtering. My fish have been thriving with no visible ill effects, but there has always been an underlying fear that I am harming my fish as people tell me that I must reconstitute the RO water or my fish will lack essential nutrients. I spent the last 2 weeks experimenting with water in a spare tank due to this. I am really so glad that your friend not only raises his fish healthily in water parameters almost identical to mine, he has had the resounding success of breeding them too!

[NanDiscus]

How soon after the extended vacation did they lay eggs? Just curious.......Were they fed during this vacation?

They did get fed, not loads, but enough to keep them in shape. They laid eggs a couple of weeks after Attila's return from the states. So, the theory of more frequent w/c's with soft water to trigger spawning does seem to work.

Jim,

A 9:1 ratio of RO and tap water resulting in 35ms says to me that your tap water is relatively soft. (By our standards at least.) I don't have totally accurate information about how exactly Attila mixes his water, but according to what he told me over the phone today, he uses plain RO for the w/c's which obviously contains nothing to stabilise the pH. According to him and two another friends who have been keeping wild Heckels (Rio Negros and Nhamundas) for a long time, plus according to my own experiences the trick of maintaining low pH in water with a very low conductivity lies in three things: water volume, stocking density and the method of filtration. All four of us ventured near the levels of 20-30mS and we found that with slow filtration (Just a reminder: I had a single filter on my 260-gallon-tank with a total volume of about 16 gallons and a flow of 100gpd. 100, not 1000.), relatively few fish in a tank (the most densely stocked tank is in fact the one Attila has with about 14 gallons/fish, I had about 35+ gallons/fish), and well-thought out w/c's with pure RO-water it is not only possible, but is fairly simple to maintain the pH-level steady around 4.0. Originally I did not intend the pH in the Xingú's tank to drop to such low levels, however the decrease from about 6.5 to 3.9 took place over a period of over three weeks and did not hurt my fish. They did not really enjoy this, but the same does not apply for the Heckels. The water Attila uses is aged, but not too long and since it's pure RO-water, it does not take too long before the pH stabilises in the holding tank and can be used for w/c's. In my experience, if the tank's water is acidic and you use pure RO with no buffering capacity, the pH does not swing too much. If you add tap water or minerals to it, even in very small amounts, the pH will swing, peak quite high then drop back down again. If this is too frequent, the fish will suffer from it. Bottom line is: if you have Heckels and wish to maintain low EC and rather low pH, it's easy. If you have Greens and wish to maintain relatively low EC (50-150mS) and a pH of around 6-6.5, it's a pain in the behind. Water that does contain buffers will be difficult to keep steady and you have to prepare the water used for changes very precisely not to cause stress with the w/c's. Lastly... If you have Xingús, you can have low EC (30-60) and pH around 7, which is fairly easy to achieve: daily w/c's with very thin mix of RO and tap water.

Bill,
Bananas, mainly, veggies in the form of spinach and spirulina flakes, plus attemps with all sorts of seasonal fruits that are easy to get or grow here (apricot, raspberries, mulberries -the Xingús favourite- and anything that falls to hand).


Illumnae,
According to H. Bleher's Vol.1., the EC in the Heckel habitats can be as low as 7! There can't be too many trace minerals in those waters. Despite this fact, the wild fish don't seem to be suffering from it.
One of my Heckel-keeper buddies does add trace elements into the RO-water: liquid plant fertiliser for his Echinodorus, bringing the EC up to about 40-50mS. PH: 4-ish all the time.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Nandi