New Additions: Black Widow Tetra

20 Black Widow Tetras, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi were added to the 360 litre community tank.

This is a fish that I have overlooked, and I guess that I am not alone. Maybe this is because they often seem quite pale in the local fish shops or maybe that they rarely are displayed in large numbers.

The fish have settled in very well and really look well together with the Cardinal Tetras. The Black Widows school separately at a high level in the tank while the Cardinals most often stay at lower levels and therefor the two species complement each other very well.

1 year of algae growth

Here is a quick update of my fathers tank, 30+ years running (more about this tank under Archived Posts).

The bottom photo is from last Christmas 2012 and the upper photo is from today, 2013.

As you can see black beard algae has taken over the tank during the year. I do like it for some reason, but it will have to go.

Videos: Pelvicachromis taeniatus Nigerian Red and Ancistrus red & black

Got my hands on a video camera and thought I would share my first two aquarium videos, there will hopefully be more of this in the future.


First of is my young pair of Pelvicachromis taeniatus Nigerian Red interacting, it does look like they have paired up. These two will be interesting to follow.

Secondly, here's a horde of Ancistrus red & black from my latest batch. 

Corydoras schultzei black, photos

I have started to add additional categories of photographs, this will be a slow process but I do have plenty of shots so eventually I think it will be worth it to divide the gallery up in sections.

First of is the black form of Corydoras schultzei who have gotten its own page starting with the pictures below:

Corydoras schultzei black, first spawn!

I had a pleasant surprise today, my group of Corydoras schultzei "black form" spawned for the first time.

The group consists of two males and two females, approximately 12 months old, however only one female participated this time.

I was so delighted when I saw it and completely forgot to take pictures of the eggs, too busy collecting them I suppose.

There was no other trigger than weekly 20% water changes and regular feeding of catfish pellets, waffers and blood worms. In fact I had actually not done this week’s water changes yet. A possible trigger could have been the C. panda’s regular breeding behaviour.

Having these two species breeding in the same tank is slightly worrying as the last thing i want is hybrids. As I was monitoring the spawning today there was no interaction between the two species but I do need to move the C. schultzei group to their own tank.

Two males and one female took part in the typical cory T-position and the eggs were scattered on the front glass of the tank, right in the current of a wavemaker.

The egg count seems to be somewhere between 40 and 50, sadly at first glance many seem to be infertile but I hope the ratio will improve as the fish gain experience. They are now being kept in a breeding net in the same tank as the parents, hopefully everything will go well and there will be a positive update soon.


Readings:
Temperature: 24.5 °C
pH: 7