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Gold heterandria formosa

Started by Guest_EricaWieser_* , Nov 08 2012 08:59 PM

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#21 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 11 December 2012 - 08:06 PM

Current picture of the tank:
Posted Image

Edited by EricaWieser, 11 December 2012 - 08:06 PM.

#22 Guest_don212_*

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Posted 11 December 2012 - 09:25 PM

mine hide very well on the bottom the first few days.

#23 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 15 December 2012 - 07:25 PM

mine hide very well on the bottom the first few days.

I took your hint and pulled up a chair in front of the fish tank and just stared at the fry in the bottom of the tank for a while. And I found one! Officially, the heterandria formosa fry are surviving in this setup. Also, they're gold like their parents.

#24 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 31 December 2012 - 08:13 PM

I got back from vacation and the H. formosa are just as I left them. They didn't seem to suffer from spending a week with no food and the lights off. The baby H. formosa are still there, and have actually increased in size. Maybe they've been picking at detritus or something.

#25 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 January 2013 - 05:06 PM

Current tank photo:
Posted Image

http://gallery.nanfa...1_1_13.jpg.html

These Heterandria formosa are reassuringly easy fish to keep. I was looking for a native fish that would spawn and be happy in my tank. The last fish I kept, Elassoma gilberti, slowly dwindled down and down in population. It wasn't fun

But these H. formosa are living it up, increasing in number and swimming right alongside the guppies. They're friendly fish. It's a nice community tank.

#26 Guest_don212_*

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Posted 02 January 2013 - 08:42 PM

i love mine, they slowly grow in numbers, very calm little fish, i keep a few blue fin killies with them, your tank is beautifully planted

#27 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 23 January 2013 - 09:09 PM

Current video:

#28 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 06:28 PM

http://youtu.be/NqFdxx4HS40

Posted Image

http://gallery.nanfa...ormosa.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...ormosa.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...03_003.JPG.html
http://gallery.nanfa...03_003.JPG.html
http://gallery.nanfa...07_005.JPG.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 25 January 2013 - 06:29 PM.

#29 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 09 February 2013 - 09:19 PM

http://gallery.nanfa...05_004.JPG.html

#30 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 10 February 2013 - 11:15 AM

Actually, I think the fish in the first clip that was being followed was a female. I just now noticed that. She must be one of the fry that was born and grew up in my tank, because she's not fully grown yet.

*nods* That explains why that little bit of hunting on his part didn't end in him biting the fish he was following. You can actually see him go off and bite a different fish near the end of the first clip, and spread his fins to do a territorial display. The sudden change of target now makes sense, if the first fish he was following was female. *nods*

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 February 2013 - 11:17 AM.

#31 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 12 February 2013 - 09:51 PM

Can heterandria formosa and poecilia reticulata (guppies) hybridize? I'm sure the answer is no but I just figured I'd ask. The guppies came from crossing three different lines of fish, so it's very possible that that dorsal spot, although not present in any of the parent strains, came from a combination of them.

#32 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 15 February 2013 - 11:40 PM

Do you like this color morph compared to the common wild variety? From the pictures I feel like I would prefer the wild type.

#33 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 16 February 2013 - 10:17 AM

Do you like this color morph compared to the common wild variety? From the pictures I feel like I would prefer the wild type.

Yes, I am enjoying having the gold color morph. Elassoma gilberti are terrified by dark colored fish. If I ever again get Elassoma gilberti, the gold color morph of heterandria formosa might be more compatible with them than the dark wild type fish.

#34 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 19 March 2013 - 09:30 PM

It has been a month since I last updated this and I just wanted to post that the gold heterandria formosa are doing great. There are fish of all sizes: fry, juvenile, and adult, and they are all enjoying the tank and their tankmates. I'm pretty sure they're not interbreeding with the guppies and the heterandria-like guppy from the video I posted is a result of crossing guppy strains. It's just weird because those traits weren't in any of the founding lines. A uniquely pink guppy has also been born now so it's not just formosa-like colors that are popping up. I guess this is why an inbred mouse strain isn't considered truly its own strain until it's been sibling crossed for 20+ generations; these guppy 'strains' were considered true-breeding but were harboring some odd traits. So, yeah, not hybrids.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 March 2013 - 09:33 PM.

#35 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 April 2013 - 11:17 AM

I added a heater to this tank like a month ago and thought nothing of it. Guppies and Heterandria formosa are both tropical-esque fish. H. formosa is Florida based. And yes, the H. formosa do seem to like it in the heated tank. I still see some swimming around. But for some reason the ricciocarpus natans absolutely hated it. I just noticed right now that it's all disappeared. I don't see any in my unheated 10 gallon, either, which is a little strange. Huh. This is really not a good day as far as my aquariums are concerned; I killed all my seahorses on accident and now while I'm panicking and carefully examining my tanks I see the cute little floating plant has died, too.

#36 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 20 April 2013 - 01:17 PM

I've been trying to take pictures of the gold heterandria formosa but my camera (a Sanyo Xacti) is not very good. The fish are clear under a yellowish light on a beige/cream colored background, so it just hasn't been working out well. The pictures were terrible so I deleted them all.

I think if I changed the lighting, the pictures would come out better and the tank would look prettier. I'm posting a link to the light I'm thinking of buying here: http://www.aquatrade...-48-p/56284.htm
It's a moderately big purchase for me so I'm going to sit on it for a day and see if I still want to buy it tomorrow. The one downside to those Daylight Deluxe bulbs from Home Depot is they look really yellow, at least after two years they do. If I don't get this new 10,000K fixture I'll at least go out and spend $20 on new 6500K bulbs to replace these aged yellow ones.

Edit: I've been doing some research and apparently LEDs can burn out in under a year, and Aquatraders is reputed to have terrible customer service and not replace anything even if it arrives broken or the wrong product. That makes me not want to buy from them. I think I might just buy new Daylight Deluxe T8 bulbs. It's understandable that they're yellow; they're almost three years old. If I do get an LED it's going to be from a company with some sort of guarantee. There's no point in buying an $80 fixture that burns out in less than a year. *sighs* All I want to do is look at and be able to take photos of my fish.

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 April 2013 - 01:35 PM.

#37 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 20 April 2013 - 08:19 PM

I purchased this: http://www.ebay.com/...=item2575e11d03
It's $7.49 for a 100 cm long (four foot) 800 to 850 lumen blue LED strip. I already have a 12 V adapter on hand. This company has a 50 day claim policy if their product doesn't work. Hopefully once this is installed I can take some good photos of the heterandria formosa. It is ridiculously hard getting good photos of them currently, as my camera just sees the clear fish on a cream background under yellow light as being super-camouflaged. The whole screen goes pee yellow

#38 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 12:40 PM

The LED seems to have fixed the problem.
Video how-to for the LED:

New heterandria formosa pictures coming soon

Edited by EricaWieser, 01 May 2013 - 12:48 PM.

#39 Guest_gerald_*

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 04:26 PM

Attaching the LED strip under the front frame lip like you did ought to be great for lighting up fish with iridescent colors that top-down light just doesn't illuminate well - many shiners, sunfish, killies, etc. Let us know how well it works long-term. I've heard that some cheap LEDs dont last long - hopefully yours are not like that.

#40 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 May 2013 - 05:20 PM

Attaching the LED strip under the front frame lip like you did ought to be great for lighting up fish with iridescent colors that top-down light just doesn't illuminate well - many shiners, sunfish, killies, etc. Let us know how well it works long-term. I've heard that some cheap LEDs dont last long - hopefully yours are not like that.

I've heard that too, and I've heard that some of the $100+ LED light fixtures don't last long either. The benefit to this LED strip only being $7.50 is that if it burns out a year from now, it won't cost much to buy another one. Of course the last LED I bought from DealExtreme lasted a day, not a year. That was too short. If that happens I'm going to regret this purchase, yeah. But I had the adapter just sitting here, so I figured I'd try it first. Replacing the bulbs would have cost $20, so I tried the <$10 solution first.

Edited by EricaWieser, 01 May 2013 - 05:21 PM.