Setting up a 300-gallon cichlid breeding vat ••• Copadichromis borleyi ••• from Lake Malawi
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- Charles selects breeders for our Copadichromis borleyi, a species of cichlid from African's Lake Malawi. He shows how we set up a 300-gallon cichlid breeding vat. He also discusses polyculturing snails, plants, and livebearers with the cichlids. As usual with Charles, there are numerous digressions as he "chases rabbits" that pop up.
Goliad Farms Tropical Fish Hatchery
Charles, you are refreshing! It is so nice to see a video where the main person isn't trying to "play" vlogger! You are just simply you and it is the best part of the video for me! THANK YOU for posting and sharing the info that you do!
Thank you for watching. Our videos certainly aren't scripted. You get to see my natural behavior (except I refrain from cursing which is exceedingly difficult to do) in my natural habitat, the greenhouses.
Charles
This was a real treat! Love these longer videos where we get to see the greenhouses and listen to Charles wisdom ❤
We plan some longer videos. We just filmed one wherein I broke down a cichlid breeding vat for processing. It's long and probably boring.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I guarantee it's not boring! I love that kind of stuff
@@goliadfarms7029 Definitely not boring, I love watching these above all, beyond some of the sump vids. Appreciate all you do!
@@AndrewAHynd Thank you. We'll be doing some sump and floor gutters videos soon.
Charles
This is like a feature film compared to the usual vid length 😀👍
Some people have been asking for longer, more detailed videos. We try to accommodate those wishes.
Charles
I really enjoyed these types of videos that you did after the winter storm. Fascinating to see how you set it up and there are always little tit bits of information for the hobbyist.
@@shaunneal9981 We are planning some greenhouse walk-through videos.
Charles
I'm waiting for Swords, Mollies, and Hornwort.. Oh My!! 😅 👍🏻
Love all your beauties Charles. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
We'll do those soon! In fact, we just processed a cichlid breeding vat in which we are polyculturing cichlids, mollies, swords, maculatus, and variatus. There were some interesting results. I don't know when that video will post. Carl is still working through a backlog.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I'll be watching and waiting!! 👍🏻
Thanks Charles and team. Amazing stuff. Your videos are filled with information. I love the plants and how you use them to clean the water. Your the best out there doing this type of setup.
Thank you for your kind comments. I learn something new every day about fishkeeping, some of it by mistakes.
Charles
Thanks so much for the update. Have a great week.👍💚
Thanks for watching. We have more on the way. Carl just took a bunch of underwater footage in the Greenhouse 1 sump. There are some very interesting fish there.
Charles
I always appreciate your videos. A great use of space it the aquaponics. Good luck with that! I love fresh basil.
I'm currently rooting cuttings from a fig tree my great grandfather planted in our yard in 1908. I'm using the same Styrofoam platform and floating it in a 300-gallon vat. I discovered that rooting success is higher this way than with sand or potting soil.
Charles
Hey Charles. And your gang. Great to see your video again. Love it❤😊
Thank you for watching. More videos on the way. We plan to avoid any long gaps like the last one.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I am looking forward to them. But take it in your own time. No reasson to make youtubevideos giving you stress. Take good care of yourself and being true to yourself is the most important to me, even if that means less or non videos. 😊 Take good care. 👋
Thank you for this longer video. I really enjoy seeing you set the vats up. 😊
Thank you for watching. We just filmed a similar one showing me breaking down a 300-gallon breeding vat.
Charles
One of my favourite Malawi cichlids
They are a nice fish, and the females have some color. That's a bonus.
Charles
love watching you work and explain stuff. SOOOOO relaxing. Wish i had a lawn chair set up in there to just look and enjoy. I could sit in there for hours. Thanx 4 taking us along !
Thank you for watching. I pretend y'all are sitting there watching and that we are having a conversation. I'll talk to Carl about the feasibility of doing live sessions maybe via Zoom to allow actual conversations.
Charles
Love these longer videos
We plan to do more of them. There is a video showing me breaking down a 300-gallon breeding vat. It should post sometime soon. I hope to do a walk-through video of the greenhouses discussing the systems, sump and gutter fish, breeding vats, plant filtration, etc.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 can’t wait
No artificial ingredientes, this is awesome!
We try to keep things as natural as possible.
Charles
What an awesome video. I’ve missed these. If you make ‘em, I’ll watch ‘em!!
We are filming again. Carl is posting videos we made last year. We just filmed changing out a 300-gallon breeding vat today. It was the Aulonocara hansbaenschi vat and had some bad cracks. That vat also used to polyculture Cherry Shrimp and Gold Mystery Snails with the cichlids. It was successful and yielded a lot of snails and shrimp. The cichlid breeding colony was small; we had only recently gotten some breeders from a customer (Fish Gallery Houston). The breeding colony is now up to almost full strength with 4 males and 42 females.
Charles
I wonder if mint would do better than the basil since it seems to out compete a lot of other plants? But I have no idea if it would like "wet feet". I really enjoy the harmony of your system. Thank you for sharing this.
Mint grows like a weed here outside of the greenhouses. I'll have to try it inside. We have two problems here with mint. One is that a very aggressive ornamental plant outcompetes it if we don't keep it out of the beds. I'll have to show that plant and remember what it is. The other problem is grasshopper infestation. In years that grasshoppers do well, they devour the mint to the roots.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 very interesting! I had no idea about the grasshoppers. I haven't grown mint in the last 5 years or so since it grows like a weed up here in North Texas, too. Last year, the grasshoppers were everywhere up here, but my veggie and herb garden did fine aside from the drought last summer. 10-20% of the trees around here were looking really sad by the end of summer, and a few are late in leafing out this year.
@@VirginiaBronson I don't like our periodic droughts at all. We've even lost some very old liveoak trees in the recent droughts.
We had a very large mint bed that the grasshoppers ate down to the roots a few years back. The plants didn't recover. I'm starting some seeds now. I might have to get some guinea fowl or game chickens to do grasshopper control. Regular chickens won't work because our dogs consider them easy to get food. Guineas and game chickens are adept at predator evasion.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I'm sorry about the trees. It's sad when old trees die. Great idea about the chickens. The years I've kept them, i didn't have to relocate scorpions out of my house in the spring and fall, and that was super nice. The dog i have now isn't territorial at all and wouldn't chase off any neighborhood dogs, and so the chickens wouldn't fare well. Consequently, I haven't kept them lately, either. Good luck with the mint and chickens and pups!
@@VirginiaBronson Thanks. I'll keep y'all posted on dogs, mints, and chickens.
Charles
Awesome, been watching for a long time. On the system with the basil that very similar to the kraky system and the yellow on the leaves means iron deficiency 👍
Iron deficiency causes yellowing but so does nitrogen deficiency. Our well water has sufficient iron, but it's very possible the other plants strip it out of system water.
Charles
Basil! Love it! Are we gonna see any cooking videos next? Fresh basil is amazing on home made pizza!
Cooking? I'm only allowed in the kitchen to do the dishes. Susie is an expert at creating dirty dishes. She blames me, the dogs agree with me that she is source of dirty dishes.
I am getting ready to set up some mint beds. As long as we don't have a plague of grasshoppers, mint grows like a weed here.
Charles
So nice that Farm, and the Videos! I still dont understand how these frycages exactly work! I guess the fry is just hiding there, and hopefully they will stay there inside.. am i right?
Yes, the fry treat the cages as cover, and big fish can't get to them. I have noticed that when mouthbrooding female cichlids are preparing to release their fry, they often sidle up against the fry cages to release them. Their fry get head starts on avoiding becoming dinner.
Charles
Excellent video. Thanks. Can we see the horses one day?
Hi stormy!
Thank you. Yes, I'll video the equines (I call them eq-whiners because they complain if I'm seconds late with oats). Stormy after working for us over three years has moved on to her dream job: fireman. She has been hired by the Victoria Texas Fire Department. They are paying for her fire training. I'll do an update on personnel and livestock changes in the last few months soon.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 omg! Go stormy!!! 😊
@@laurag1076 She will make an awesome fire fighter.
Charles
Do y'all have problems with dragon fly nymphs of other large larvae? Or is that something the plecos take care of?
We get some damselfly nymphs in the scud vats, but only a few. We do get an occasional dragonfly larva, but I suspect they mostly become cichlid food long before getting large enough to cause problems. Adult dragonflies don't thrive in the greenhouses. They seem confused by the film covers and batter themselves to death. Ashley rescued a newly eclosed adult in Greenhouse 2 yesterday and released it outside. The plecos seem best at controlling floating pellets. They swim upside down to vacuum the pellets up.
Charles
Awesome
Thank you for watching. We have a video showing me breaking down 300-gallon breeding vat coming up someday.
Charles
Hey uncle Charles, beautiful explanation and setup. I hope you are doing fine, you look like you lost quite a bit of weight (don’t get me wrong, you are looking good). Just want to make sure your health is “A” okay 😊
Thank you. My health is good so far. The weight loss just takes me back down to my college weight.
Charles
Wishing you luck with growing the colony out some more and hoping the young males colour up nicely! Do you know if lack of sand impacts breeding at all? I have my Borleyi from namalenje island (Males have a yellow anal fin) in a 1700 gallon pond with limestone rock (sandless) and was worried they would no longer breed as the male would always gather sand and cover rocks in my 125 before spawning.
Our C. borleyi, in fact all our Lake Malawi cichlids, breed just fine without sand in the 300-gallon vats. Maybe our mulm is a sand substitute?
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Quite possible, would be interesting to see whether they use the mulm or simply forgo making a mock 'sand' bower. I've ordered some underwater cameras so I hope I can see what's going on in my pond
Nice
Thank you and thanks for watching.
Charles
Great video. What barrel you use? Look like 55 galon. And what spices you keep inside ?
We buy used food grade 55-gallon white plastic barrels. They work great for us. We keep all the varieties and species of fish we raise in the barrels (we call them "vats" because that seems a bit more technical sounding).
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thanks a lot for your answer👍 your ideas are amazing ! I will use it. I wish prosperity to you and your business 🤝
@@tarasostapiuk8096 Thank you.
Charles
Lovely to see your fish and greenhouses, all life and eco systems! Now, I'm having a bit of a problem hearing you? I'll try to explain but I don't know if I'll succeed. I'll try. Your voice kind of warps/ morph and sounds a bit metallic, I guess? Maybe the background water noises also compete just a little bit to much with you. Your lovley wife's voice is easier to hear, but has also a metallic quality to it. I'm so sorry for this, I really like your videos. It would be lovely to hear all you have to tell us about your farm. Thank You.
I noticed that also when I had to force myself to watch a video in order to answer a question (I hate listening to myself). Susie claims I'm too soft spoken. I will make an effort to speak louder to see if that helps. Susie and I use the same mikes, but maybe the one I use is failing. We'll work on that. Carl is looking into better mikes and receivers.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I'm looking forward to hearing you better. Maybe your mikes react and corrode due to the humid conditions? Or, maybe that's a to analogue thing to impact on modern equipment, I don't know. I hope for many more Goliad Farm's videos in the near future. Thank you.
I only use water movement and plants to filter my water, it just a lot easier to let an ecosystem mostly take care of itself than to agonize over filtration. I also find that a large number of popular aquarium plants grow faster with their leaves out of the water or touching the surface which means the plants are no longer limited by CO2 in the water. I actually have Leptochilus pteropus (java fern) growing entirely out of the water in a terrarium and it grows very well in such an environment. Knowing all of this I can keep my water quality super high with very little work so long as I keep the plants trimmed and therefore growing. Some people will even add pathos or other plants to their filters to suck up nitrogen in aquariums where the fish would destroy plants.
The very first test recirculating system with plant filtration that I set up used Pothos. It is a heavy, fast growing feeder on nitrogen. You are correct that emersed leaves more access to both oxygen and carbon dioxide and can therefore grow faster. My favorite is water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) but alas it is illegal to possess in Texas. When our hatchery was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we used water hyacinth for plant filtration. Its roots are also great for egg layers like rainbowfishes and killifishes.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Isn't water hyacinth already escaped in Texas? I sometimes feel like laws that make species illegal are a little strange. The box has already been opened as wide as it goes is the way I see it, so long as eradication is not possible anyway but at least it makes sense. Though my state made piranhas illegal for some reason, we border Canada yet because of movies a mostly harmless tropical fish was made illegal. I owned piranhas out of state once and they were actually quite boring fish, so its not even like I am annoyed about it because I want piranhas but because of the lapse in logic it takes to make that a law. The argument for being made illegal was that they could establish an invasive population and become a public safety concern which is hilarious to me since children in South America swim with them everyday, plus they cant live in 50 degree water.
@@Exquailibur Yes, water hyacinth is pretty much established everywhere it can survive in Texas. That horse is long out of the barn. The same thing applies to water lettuce (Pistia) which is also illegal in Texas.
Texas prohibited the possession of piranhas without a permit that is available only to zoo and research institutions. They grandfathered piranhas already in possession. I had one. I was told that when it finally died that it was the last of the grandfathered fish.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Texas prohibited them too? I find it strange that they are made illegal in so many places. Though I dont know much about the waterways in Texas so maybe there is some tiny amount of justification, but I have my doubts piranha could become a very problematic invasive in the United states when compared to their relatives. I hear Spain was making ball pythons and savanna monitors illegal for fear they would become invasive despite the fact they almost certainly couldn't, it can get frustrating that animals considered scary or gross can be made illegal so easily when even restricting animals that cause real harm like goldfish and house cats is very hard.
I find that many laws regarding wildlife management and the exotic pet trade rather frustrating since the wrong issues are focused on.
@@Exquailibur There are large some central Texas springs with constant water temperatures in the low 70sF where piranha could possibly survive. All other bodies of water get too cold for them. Texas has recently taken Mystery Snails (Pomacea bridgesii) and Peacock Bass (Cichla occellaris) off the restricted list, so they do make some revisions.
There was a disturbing bill in Congress last year that would have banned an exotic if it was potentially invasive anywhere in the US. So, anything potentially invasive in tropical Hawaii would have been banned nationwide. It also would have established a "white list" of allowed exotics. Only exotics specifically allowed could have been kept.
Charles
This feels like an episode of The Last of Us
I'm curious. In what way? By the way, I haven't watched any of that series but understand it is some sort of fungus apocalyptic event.
Charles
You could always put in a liner if that would fix it for a while.
I'm experimenting with methods short of welding to fix the leaks in those vats. I've gotten some good suggestions from viewers.
Charles
we need more videos
We started posting videos again today and hope to post a couple of week for now on.
Charles
Loctite poly eurethane roof and flashing caulking that will stick to any rubber and it's flexible
We just got a detailed description from a hobbyist in the Texas Valley on using caulking to repair these vats. Carl has reviewed the instructions, and we plan on trying it out. Also, I'm also currently testing boat repair tape. While it doesn't apply on wet surfaces as they claim, it does appear to work well on dry surfaces that are then submerged. It's held water for two weeks now. The test will come when we move its vat into the greenhouse to replace a leaker. If it holds up to that, I'll be happy. That said, I think the caulking process, if it works, will be a longer-term solution.
Charles
Why do you specialize in cichlids ?
We don't specialize in cichlids. It's just that our cichlids survived the Texas Winter Storm and its aftermath better than our catfish, barbs, and livebearers did.
Charles