Firecracker 4th of July

[Keith Perkins]

The BJS symphony was enjoyable, the fireworks were nice, but been there done that. The grass fire caused by the fireworks that closed the north bound traffic sucked. Supertramp, take the long way home. But then came home to this.

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/100_3543.jpg

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/100_3539.jpg

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/100_3537.jpg

More fireworks in the basement than outside. First go on Barb's swirled cones that got to go to NADA when I didn't.

[Second Hand Pat]

WOW, that is a ton of eggs Keith. I can only imagine how you are feeling ATM :D

[Bill63SG]

Now THATS a spawn.Need to put a picture of that next to my melons.

[nc0gnet0]

That is alot of eggs, you sure its not two females?

[Keith Perkins]

Yes Rick, it's a very confirmed pair. He'd been pulled from the previous fry because they had eaten a thin strip at the base of his tail raw on both sides a couple weeks ago. So she hadn't laid in at least 2 1/2 - 3 weeks. A bit pent up. :)

[Trier20]

Dang kid that's a tons of eggs!

[Disgirl]

WOW! What a lot of eggs! Maybe because that cone was on my vendor table at NADA and has lots of "good vibes" from all the activity in that room for 5 days? Why is it out of water though? WC? Good luck with them!
Barb

[Carolina discus]

Keith,
Very nice my friend...huge clutch! Always nice to come home from some BS and see something that makes all the headaches go away...
Good luck with this spawn...

[Northwoods Discus]

Looking good Keith.

[shoveltrash]

wow!!!
those two were celebrating the fourth in style :D

[xxbenjamminxx]

Wow that is a ton of eggs! Lol... Might have to get some of them fry from you sometime. Too bad it wasnt a couple months ago, going to Wisconsin Dells in 2 weeks.....

[Keith Perkins]

Well apparently the male was watching the fireworks and not participating in any, all the eggs are white. And now he and the female are battling, and she's getting the worst of it. Thinking of tossing in some eggcrate and giving her a break.

[Second Hand Pat]

That sucks Keith about the eggs. Egg crate is a good idea ATM.

[Keith Perkins]

Egg crate is in place, though she doesn't look any too happy about being separated from the eggs. I'm guessing she'll try to push through, might even succeed.

[Second Hand Pat]

Put the eggs on her side of the crate. Any reason to keep the eggs Keith?

[Keith Perkins]

I was mostly curious what he would do with the eggs. He's spending more time bouncing his nose of the egg crate to try to chase her away than he is tending the eggs though. Okay, maybe it's 50/50.

[Trier20]

My male needs to work on his drive by too! lol

[Keith Perkins]

Here's a picture of their last batch. I stuck the picture in paintbrush and color coded the wigglers with four different colors in blocks of ten so I could count them. 190 in the last batch, of which they ate almost 170.

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/Count2.jpg

They spawned so fast after the previous spawn I didn't even have time to wipe the spawning tube off.

[Trier20]

Spawned again already!? Wow!

[Keith Perkins]

Maybe I should have said here's a picture of their prior batch.

[Trier20]

Lol I was gonna say

[Keith Perkins]

Okay, now they've spawned again. Well actually, they spawned again two days ago. Here's a couple pictures, the second dotted with colors to do a count (per Pat's request). Looks like just over 270 in this batch.

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/100_3551.jpg

http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x418/CozyKeith/711Count273.jpg

[Second Hand Pat]

Holy crap Keith, you missed a couple :p

[zimmjeff]

pretty eggs

[zimmjeff]

I must admit that I was drinking at the time of this post.

[Keith Perkins]

Holy crap Keith, you missed a couple :p

Yeah, a few more than we guessed last night.


I must admit that I was drinking at the time of this post.

After two hours of veggie garden weeding after posting those pics, I'm definitely having a couple now myself.

[Second Hand Pat]

A bunch more lol

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Good luck Keith on your new spawing cycles. I hope you get some good results.

[Keith Perkins]

Looks like their adhesion isn't very good, this morning the wrigglers are spread on a much bigger area of the cone and mom is busy reattaching them. Just over 60 hours into the process is way too early for that to be going on already.

[Disgirl]

Good luck with all those pretty eggs Keith!
Barb

[Keith Perkins]

Came home to find what I feared, only 20 still attached to the cone and all the rest either in the cone lip or on the tank bottom next to the base of the cone. :(

[Second Hand Pat]

Damn Keith, sorry to hear. The parents are not picking them up. :(

[Keith Perkins]

Mom has been trying, but they just aren't sticking to the cone right. Dad's been banished to the other half of the tank with some egg crate for spousal abuse. The cone is right at the edge of the egg crate and he's been standing by...we'll see what happens. With her laying as many eggs as she does and as often as she does I'm not overly concerned. I do wish I knew where this curve ball came from though.

[Keith Perkins]

Surprise of surprises, there are way more wigglers attached to the cone this morning than there were when I went to bed last night. Somehow mom reattached a pile of them overnight. Since the eggs weren't previously adhesive enough, she must have some amazingly sticky spit. :D

[Bill63SG]

Surprise of surprises, there are way more wigglers attached to the cone this morning than there were when I went to bed last night. Somehow mom reattached a pile of them overnight. Since the eggs weren't previously adhesive enough, she must have some amazingly sticky spit. :DMom spit is an amazing thing.Glues and cleans.

[Keith Perkins]

Well, it's been an odd 24 hours. Early in the day yesterday I discovered most of the fry were free swimming and attached to the sponge filter. I worked and worked with a couple of half full 5 gallon buckets of tank water and got all of them I could back into the tank which I had lowered the water level in to just an inch deeper than the parents are tall. A bit later I thought the parents had eaten them only to find they were all stuffed in the front right corner of the tank. Dad took to beating on mom again so the egg crate went back into the tank, I was hoping that wouldn't be necessary.

This morning I came down to the fishcave to turn on room lights and discovered all the fry gone and none attached to mom. :( I nearly posted all this before feeding time but I'm glad I didn't. Upon returning with food a bit later I discovered every single fry had moved to the opposite end of the tank and were either in that front corner or attached to dad. Currently they are split pretty evenly between the two parents. Still pretty touch and go in my mind with the remaining fry, but we'll see.

[Second Hand Pat]

Keith, how many are attached?

[Bill63SG]

Ah,the rollercoaster.

[Keith Perkins]

Yes indeed Bill.

There's only a small fraction of what I started with Pat. As Rick predicted, the time on the bottom of the tank took it's toll apparently.

[Second Hand Pat]

Bites :(...but at least you still have some.