Hey all,

Got my delivery from RW today. Nicely packaged in a foam box and very snug..

Out of the 100 I ordered, only 50 showed up so far (have a call into customer service). 2 were DOA and about 6 have the dread neon tetra disease........I culled the really bad ones and will hope for the best with the rest.

They are very tiny now +=1/4 and cannot go into the display for quite a while (8-12 weeks min I think) until they get some size or they will be gobbled up by the Bosemani.........

Nice thing is that if they do survive, will be around a long time.............I like having some juvies within the older residents. Makes it a little more natural...

I hope the other 50 come soon (whatever happened) so I can get them into quarantine with the others.......

Well, tomorrow I will try some different foods (live cut blackworms or scrambled eggs, tetras love em!) and see if they will eat as they will have been in their new ome for 24 hours at that time. Sooner I get their bellies full the better chance they have.......

I think at some point I will need to try breeding them..............Seems challenging but doable and the rewards (if any) should be great. At least I have potential breeding stock lol

Will know in about 2 weeks how many will make it and will post then........

Gerry,

Thanks for filling us in.

Question: I tried the scrambled eggs with my tetras with no luck. They go up to the pieces but then turn around. Is there some trick to getting them to take the pieces? Do you drop in bigger pieces and let them nibble? Or try to make the pieces really small? When I tried the eggs a while back, my tetras were very small -- maybe 1/2" or so -- perhaps they were too small for eggs.

Ted,

I usually try holding a larger bit in the water until it dissolves into various sizes. Wait until the fish are hungry, don't feed them for 24-36 hours before the eggs, and try again.

Use a little at a time so you can see if they are eating it. It breaks up fast and if they don't eat it you don't want to foul the tank. Snails will get it, but then you will have many snails.

Not all eat it at first, but enough do that the others start to mimic them. Eventually they all love it.

when they do like it, you can drop bigger pieces in and they will tear them apart. Easy to do for them and it gives a 'feeding frenzy' (of cardinals???) effect.

I keep the leftover in the fridge for about 3-4 days tops. Then I make a fresh batch if needed.

All my dwarf cichlids, tetras, corys, pencils, and rainbows eat this regularly and absolutely go nuts for it. It works well to get them fat and the dwarves always spawn within a day or two if I feed them this for 2-3 days straight.

I also feed this to juvie fish and it works well for them too. Rainbows, cichlids, and livebearers fryall have taken it readily.

I do use a splash of milk and a teeny bit of butter before frying, so maybe the fat attracts them? I think it is the smell at first.

It works well for small fish or small mouths (juvies, pencils) as the pieces are small when it dissolves and they can grab pieces of their liking....

Let me know if it works for you, as I swear by it, but hope that it is not one of those things that only work for my fish but none others lol

Later,

Woah. That sounds intense. But imagine if there was a super easy method to breed fish...ahhh but a dream.


Good Luck with the fish Gerry!

This might too late, but another good place for large quantities is BoxLotFish.com | We supply tropical aquarium fish like - Plecos, Tetras, Cichlids, Corys, Sting Ray, but no Piranha!.

Cardinals @ $.87

Hi,

Thanks for the link!

I purchased a few pencils from them a few years ago. They are local to me, so I will give them another shot.....

So, how'd that original batch of 50-100 cards do after all?

I bought 39 from a LFS here (Ocean Aquarium in San Francisco) about 9 months ago. Justin at OA is pretty reputable and quarantines his fish a week or two before selling them.

I'm happy to say until last week all lived. Out of the blue I found a dead one in my myrio forest, no indications why he died though I did see one of the older ones last week with a bit of cataract in one of his eyes. Now the whole school but that one have lasted through two minor ich outbreaks too. They are all over 1" now and just gorgeous.

Well they sent me 50 tiny and not so healthy (IMO) NEON TETRAS, so I was not that happy, and cancelled the rest of the order.

Worked out for the best as they were all were dead within 2 days..........

So, I had them send me a refund for the balance.

They were nice, apologetic, and prompt about it all, but left a bad taste in my mouth..........

My shoal is over 100, but not really sure anymore.

I have 25 on order from my LFS, so will go back to doing small batches at a time to build up the shoal, rather than buy 100 at a time...........

Oh man. That sucks. Good thing they only sent 50 so you could cancel the rest of the order. So important to find a good reliable supplier.

Man, I'm sorry to hear that. A few months back, I was looking for some cards myself. All the ones I found in various LFS either looked terrible, cost over 3 bucks apiece, or both! One of my fellow discus pals told me the best place he had found to get them was Drs.FosterSmith.com. I said you got to be kidding me, and he assured me he was not. So, I ordered 50. They cost about a buck something with the quantity discount. Shipping was fairly cheap too. They were small, about 3/4", but grew quickly in my quarantine tank eating frozen foods like daphnia and such. Only one arrived DOA, I considered that no big deal. Today, all are still alive, and looking good at about an inch to an inch and a half long in my planted 240 gal. discus tank.