Talk about the upcoming meeting here. maybe brainstorm some questions for Gary here. Let's begin the discussion here. I think he's also bringing in eggs.
Is it possible to find out if he has any rhadinocentrus ornatus, either seary creek or teewah creek, eggs or fish for purchase? Thank you.
Hi HAAS members. I’m starting the long process of getting rainbowfish eggs ready for the meeting. It takes about 40 hours or more to get things ready. First off up the feeding schedule. More live blackworms , more frozen bloodworms as well as their normal frozen brine shrimp and flake foods. Then massive water changes on all of the breeder tanks. 50-60% water changes. Rainbowfish crossbreed so each has to be kept in a separate aquarium to keep them pure. So then I’ll pick maybe a thousand eggs of from 12-18 species. I then put them in a light solution of methylene blue for 24 hours. Infertile eggs or eggs that die in the picking process turn blue and are removed. Live eggs exclude the dye. Then they are vialed and labeled. Eggs that are highly developed and almost ready to hatched are excluded. If they happened to hatch in the vial and die they would spoil the water and kill all of the other eggs. 50-70 eggs are usually put in each vial. That gives you a really good chance of having a nice group of rainbowfish.
To get ready I would suggest setting up bare 5.5 or 10 gallon tanks. One for each vial you win. Bows grow at different speeds and one group almost always out competes another and you end up with only one species anyway. Get a heater set on an accurate 80-82F. Add a sponge filter on low flow. High flow will kill the fry swimming at the very top of the surface.
I don’t have any idea what eggs I’ll be bringing it depends on the fish. I’m pretty sure Melanotaenia species “Kali Tawa” and M. mairasi will be producing. My boesemani from Lake Uter are usually good producers also.
Maybe some of these: boesemani Uter, M duboulayi Kangaroo creek, Kali Tawa
Looks like the parva are throwing eggs too. What do you think of these guys? In a bare tank too
One of the two “Most Amazing Rainbowfish”, Melanotaenia mairasi, is also throwing lots of eggs. We were the first collectors to bring these back alive. This is a short video I took of my collecting partner’s fish when I was in the Netherlands last year. In a planted tank they really show off.
Many years ago at the 1989 ICC I was able to bring the godfather of rainbowfish, Dr. Gerry Allen to the conference to speak. It was written up in the TFH issue a few months later. A few months after that I got a letter(yes a letter cause back in 1989 there weren’t many people using email) from Yapen Island (New Guinea). A missionary named David Price had read the TFH article and was keen to get hold of Gerry. He was sure he found a new species of rainbowfish. Sure enough he had and Dr.Allen named it for him, Chilatherina pricei. In our later correspondence I asked him if he ever found another one don’t give it to Allen but find another fish doc to write it up and name it for Allen. You see you really can’t name a fish for yourself, an unwritten rule. So a few years later he found a pretty remarkable fish and named it after the good doctor. In 2012 I was able to go and bring back fish from both known locations of Chilatherina alleni. The latter location, up the Wapoga river drainage being an especially nice looking variety.
Today I picked a bunch of eggs from the fish pictured in the video. They are a bit more brightly colored than the originals but not by much. Pictures and videos really haven’t captured their true beauty though. If the eggs turn out to be viable then you will see an egg kit with them in the auction after my talk.
I like this fish too. Chilatherina species “Kali Web”. The alpha males get very orange red.