Setting up propogation tank?

I don't know about penny wort, but I can tell you that wisteria grows more quickly when planted in the substrate, so if you are going for quick propagation, plant it. It will send out runner-like stems and fill the substrate, then grow up out of that horizontal stem. I just took two basketballs worth out of my 29 that it took over. You won't be hurting for any of that stuff! Throw some "dirty" fish like guppies that make a bunch of waste and some snails in, and you will be good to go! I am about to acquire a bunch of mutt guppies if you want me to ship you some.

Mutt guppies?! I have guppies, mollies and platties. Should be enough fertilizer haha
 
what I do with my 10 that is a grow out for fish and plants, is I just have it being filtered via sponge filters, run two t8 bulbs on it (medium light) have a ton of floaters, and have a dirted substrate that I plant whatever I need to propagate into.

its moderately useful and it works, just wish I didn't let it get so overtaken by duckweed though :P
 
Yep... MUTTS! The person who gave them to me just let the guppies run wild, so they are a real mixed bag! Recently, she tragically lost her son and asked me to take the remainder of the guppies. I am going to do so and just sex and separate them. I'll have plenty to share around I'm 100% sure. I'm glad you have plenty though :) I'll pick through them and keep the prettiest ones and share the others as food for bigger fish. I have a friend who breeds angels that is interested in feeders.

Anyway... back to your thread! :)
 
Yep... MUTTS! The person who gave them to me just let the guppies run wild, so they are a real mixed bag! Recently, she tragically lost her son and asked me to take the remainder of the guppies. I am going to do so and just sex and separate them. I'll have plenty to share around I'm 100% sure. I'm glad you have plenty though :) I'll pick through them and keep the prettiest ones and share the others as food for bigger fish. I have a friend who breeds angels that is interested in feeders.

Anyway... back to your thread! :)

I was actually thinking about doing that in my 75. I don't breed but a good source of fresh food. Do littler fish like tetras eat the fry too? I am taking a bunch of clippings to the office. Along with some snails i pulled from the 75. Oh, and your question about how the look, they look like underwater celery! Haha
 
I was actually thinking about doing that in my 75. I don't breed but a good source of fresh food. Do littler fish like tetras eat the fry too? I am taking a bunch of clippings to the office. Along with some snails i pulled from the 75. Oh, and your question about how the look, they look like underwater celery! Haha

A number of eminent sources recommend not feeding live fish. And I don't mean just "feeder goldfish" which can often introduce disease, I mean your own fry. I've never considered doing this, so I haven't looked into the issue thoroughly to see the reasoning, but when people like Neale Monks pan something as being ill advised I tend to take notice.

Aside from that, I am certain you could never really control fry populations as no fish load can eat the hundreds of fry that would eventually be appearing.
 
A number of eminent sources recommend not feeding live fish. And I don't mean just "feeder goldfish" which can often introduce disease, I mean your own fry. I've never considered doing this, so I haven't looked into the issue thoroughly to see the reasoning, but when people like Neale Monks pan something as being ill advised I tend to take notice.

Aside from that, I am certain you could never really control fry populations as no fish load can eat the hundreds of fry that would eventually be appearing.

I do find this to defy logic because it defies nature... Big fish eats little fish in the wild. My thought is that in the wild, fish aren't likely to eat as often as we feed them in our aquariums, and over-eating can cause some digestion issues like infected swim bladders. Raising fry for the feeder fish role kinda makes more sense than buying "feeders" that could introduce disease as you said, Byron. I'd be interested in hearing the reason(s) behind the recommendations.

As for fry numbers vs. eaters, you are certainly correct. Some fry will indeed survive if given hiding places, but it's survival of the fittest, so natural selection will likely tell you which fry are keepers using this method :) I know from a friend's setup that a single angel in with guppies can keep the new population pretty low! It just depends on how big the eater fish is compared to the fry.
 
A number of eminent sources recommend not feeding live fish. And I don't mean just "feeder goldfish" which can often introduce disease, I mean your own fry. I've never considered doing this, so I haven't looked into the issue thoroughly to see the reasoning, but when people like Neale Monks pan something as being ill advised I tend to take notice.

Aside from that, I am certain you could never really control fry populations as no fish load can eat the hundreds of fry that would eventually be appearing.

A god reason to not feed fish the fry is because there is something within the fish that deplets vitamin B. This lowers the immune defenses and causes the fish to become more prone to illness.

Obviously not all fish contains the thing( i dont know the name of it) that deplets vitamin B but you shouldnt risk it. Once in a while its fine to feed live feeders but not to often
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I am heading out on an errand, so here is something I just grabbed to respond. The first "no" concerns the disease issue, but what follows is along the lines of what Kyle mentioned, nutritional issues:

A second disadvantage is nutritional imbalance. Goldfish in particular are fatty and are not a healthy staple diet for most piscivorous fish. In the wild, piscivorous fishes will take a wide range of species, some herbivorous, others smaller predators. This means that the piscivorous fish will be able to obtain a correspondingly wide range of nutrients. Simply feeding one species of feeder fish is both unnatural and very likely unhealthy. This problem can, to a degree, be mitigated by "gut loading" feeder fish. By contrast, flake and pellet foods have been carefully formulated to provide a perfect diet for fish. While it might seem monotonous to us, these prepared foods are actually the best all-round diet for most fish.

A third disadvantage is that some feeder fish (notably goldfish and rosy-red minnows) contain large amounts of the enzyme thiaminase. This breaks down thiamin (vitamin B1) and over time this will lead to serious health problems.

Back to Dave's observation on this being "natural" in the wild. The fact is, that it is anything but natural for most of our aquarium fish to eat other fish. The prime foods taken by characins, cyprinids, catfish and so on are crustaceans, insect larvae, worms, insects on the surface, and plant matter in some cases. Fish-predators are usually the much larger fish, and here they do not stay with one species. And as it mentions above, not all fish are made the same so there is variety.

On the angelfish, it is true that it is an opportunistic predator, meaning, it will predate small fish if given the opportunity, but this is not "normal diet" in its habitat. Wild angelfish rarely eat other fish.

Byron.
 
You know, I believe I made a statement I can't back up. I guess I always assumed that non-herbivore fish all eat creatures smaller than them (i.e. other fish), but I did not think about the type fish that we keep not really fitting that mold... They are small, and there aren't many fish that are small enough to fit in their little mouths in the wild. Eating worms and larvae and other small creatures makes much more sense than going after the much bigger, less plentiful, and faster other fish. Sure a fish will usually eat what's available that fits in their mouth, but so will a human toddler. Looks like I learned something today :) Thanks to Kyle and Byron for that!


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