Yellow tail Aceis

[johns51]

Must be something good in the water up here in Frederick. This past two days since a 30%water change on my 125 I now have two Afra Cobues, Two Yellow tail Aceis and while sitting down to type this saw my Yellow labs doing the shimmy shimmy cocoa pop dance.

Do yellow tail acei fry actually show yellow at all when they are released?
I have some fry in my tank right now that when I first saw them I thought where afra cobue but now I think they may be acei as the bodies are shaped more like an acei.

The fish I have holding right now are coming out of the 125 tomorrow and into two different 20 until they spit.

John

 

[Tony]

My white tail Ps. Acei did not start showing the color in their tails until they were 1/2"-3/4". I believe the yellow tails are the same way.

It's going to be tough to tell for a while if the fry are pure acei or acei/afra hybrids. Like you were planning, I'd pull them out and keep an eye on the for a while to confirm.

Congrats and good luck.

 

[johns51]

Thanks Tony,

Actually pulled all the rock work out of the 125 and went fishing today. Got the to afra cobues but not the aceis.

I also fished out abut a dozen 1/8 inch fry. One of them a yellow lab.

I have 4 petricolas in the tank and they make pretty quick work of any fry. Going to be keeping a closer watch on the acei's and see if I can get them right after I turn on the lights.

John

 

[Tony]

10-4. Good stuff, John.

Gotta love catching fish out of big tanks...

 

[johns51]

I have to use a 2 step stool so I can reach down in to the bottom, even then I feel like I am going to fall in and I'm 5'9"

Got the one cobue out just in time, she is actually back in the main tank because she spit and started chasing the fry around. She actually probably would have held a bit longer but the chasing and transfer probably stressed her.

Can't tell how many right now as they are in the rocks that I had in there for mom to hide in, will remove the rocks later and see what I have, get a photo and get them in to BAP. I'm green now so might as well work on the points.

John

 

[Tony]

A good trick for getting finicky holding mothers to not spit is to net them and then transfer them to one of those clear rectangular specimen cups under water in the tank. This doesn't stress them nearly as much as netting them out of the water.

 

[STATMATT]

Also for me it is easier to catch fish in a big tank if I siphon most of the water out of the tank first. With 3 inches of water, there are not many places for them to go. I then use that cross stich panel from Michaels to partition the tank and work my way across the bottom.

When fry are 1/8 to 1/4 inch and you are searching the bottom I use a flashlight and put piles of small round stones at various locations. This gives the fry a place to run for refuge from my net or sometimes I just siphon them out using a 1.25 inch vinyl hose.

Another problem that happens for me is when I remove all the rocks you find all the detritus that has been hiding from the filter intakes. This makes it almost impossible to find little fishies, especially when they are the same color as the sandy substrate, The only clue I've found here is the siphon these up where they settle and then check what came out to see if there are fry that were hiding in the detritus. I like to use a white sterlite container b/c it makes it easy to see if fry are swimming around