Anetome Helena - Snail eating Snail to the Test!!!!

I wrote about this beauty of a snail a while ago - fight snails with snails  LOL

Anetome Helena Blog

Well here are one of mine

Kinda cute for a snail huh?   I have 5 of these guys and thought I would share my experiences with them...

They are very very active and FAST!  you see them constantly crawling around the glass, plants and substrate on the hunt.  On the first day I put them in I sat for about 45 minutes watching them just waiting for them to grab a snail and see them in action (I had purposely infested this tank with snails for them) but it was not to be on day one..disappointed I let the guys sleep for the night.

Day 2 - the light goes on and I notice all other snails in the tank are at the VERY top of the glass looking like they are ready to leave...evil me gave them a little push back into the tank <muhahahaha>  and then it happened the Helena grabbed one of the snails that had just fallen to it's doom and before I knew it 3 other Helena's came crawling over to enjoy the feast.  So far I have only caught them snacking on normal pond snails....

Day 3 - had to clean the tank today and to my shock I find loads of empty Malaysian Trumpet snail shells ...  wow these guys can even munch the toughest of the tough.

So without logging the days further it is more than apparent that the Helena's truly are snail eating snails and they do a very good job - it is now 1 week further and there are plenty of snails left in the tank for them to snack on so I wouldn't expect any miracles with these guys if you are needing a quick snail remedy.. but slowly and surely over time I am sure this tank is going to be completely snail free.

They are housed in my shrimp tank and I have not seen them go near any of the tiny little baby shrimp...

What?? Self Sustained aquarium in a condom???

Just when you think you have seen it all.... we know there are some really sick individuals in the world luckily most aren't too dumb to believe in this kind of crap...  still I would like to get this taken off Youtube just incase a mindless kid comes along and thinks it is a cool idea...

It could...  would not...and never will work...don't try this at home kids!!!

Working 9-5 with fish tank in the office

I hate the idea of sitting behind a desk and working all day long listening to customers complaints....until I saw this office... I would be working overtime  LOL

 

 

Pretty cool idea and very relaxing I bet....

How to euthanize a fish - by a fish biologist

A question often asked and answered I myself use clove oil and it works for me ...

            

So what does a fish biologist say:

"Fish can't feel pain, right?" It's usually phrased exactly that way, too—they aren't looking for an accurate answer, they're looking for a reassurance that casual brutality towards cold and slimy creatures is acceptable. The actual answer, though, is "Of course they can feel pain, you clueless boob! Mind if I put this barbed hook through your lip?"^* The fish cutaneous sensory network is intricate and exquisite, and they react vigorously to noxious stimuli. We often don't recognize their responses because fish faces are rather expressionless, but if you're in the know you learn to notice the signs. Zebrafish, for instance, blanch noticeably when they're stressed or fearful or in pain.

So how should one kill a fish? People recommend some incredibly brutal methods. Throw them in a blender, they say, it's quick—yeah, and I imagine that throwing cats in a woodchipper would be quick, too, but no one suggests that humane societies should adopt it. There's also the 'club them over the head' method, or 'pick them up by the tail and whack them hard against a table edge'. Those work, if the executioner is swift and sure, which most people aren't. In most cases you end up with a fish frantically flopping on the table, or a bleeding mess of an animal that's feebly twitching, so you have to whack it a few times. (This is how my father and I used to kill salmon, though: we had a heavily weighted club, and we were also very quick and confident.) I think plucking an aquatic animal out of its environment and swinging it through a hostile atmosphere also counts as inhumane.

Less nasty techniques are the freezer and alcohol strategies. I don't think putting a fish in a freezer is humane: they don't seem to react strongly to slowly freezing to death, but then they can't—their metabolism is shutting down. Fish tend to be very sensitive to cold, though, and seek out optimal temperatures and avoid the cold, and can respond to changes of a few degrees with shock, so I have my doubts that this is a good way for them to go. Putting them in water with a few percent alcohol might be OK; they do get drunk, pass out, and die, just like people can.

Here's the way I euthanize fish, though, and since I've killed many thousands, I can say it's the cleanest, least painful way to do it, for both me and the fish. It's an anesthetic used for frogs and fish that goes by various names: ms222, MESAB, 3-aminobenzoic acid ethyl ester, tricaine methanesulfonate, or, as most of the pet and aquaculture supply houses call it, Finquel. For routine anesthesia, I use a 0.2% solution of the stuff—let a fish swim in it for a few minutes, they lose consciousness, you can do various surgeries on them, and then put them in clean fresh water, and a few minutes later, they're awake and swimming around again. If I need to euthanize them, I use a 0.4% solution (or more crudely, I use my 0.2% stock and sprinkle a few extra crystals of the ms222 powder in the beaker), put the fish in it, they fall asleep…and after 3-5 minutes, their heart stops. It will kill them at lower doses, but simply takes longer.

http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/3153/5N57ybwk/

Well that was easy.. furcatus breeding

My new breeding challenge of breeding with Rainbows - Pseudomugil Furcatus has gone 10 times faster than I ever could have expected....

After first getting them home I put them in my cherry shrimp tank for a few days to give me time to prepare the 70 liter tank to breed with them and to start conditioning them.

They have now been happily swimming around in the larger tank and I was not planning on breeding yet until I had conditioned them to the best....

Yesterday I completely emptied the shrimp tank for a new re-scape so all plants were taken out as well as most of the shrimp ..today I go to feed the shrimp and low and behold I see a tiny little bright blue eye darting about at the top... what the $%^#$???    Have another look....more tiny little blue eyes swimming around...  then the penny drops... the furcatus!!!!   So they had bred without me even trying and by removing them to the larger tank the little ones could be born and grow in peace...I could cry when I think about the amount I probably lost due to emptying the tank the other day...  

The fry are tiny!  if you look reallllllly closely you can see two fry on the below picture.

But still a nice surprise...  I will 'intentionally' breed them soon and then it looks I am going to have to look for a new challenge ...  I am open to suggestions xxxx

Another piccy update of baby furcatus - now 6 weeks old

Been a while <oops>

It has been a while... my apologies... life just takes over sometimes....

I have a lot of new fish since last blogging but not had time to take foto's of all of them yet

The Shrimp tank had a revamp:

At the very front of the glass other than the annoying piece of paper I did not move for the pic - sheesh I am slacking - you can spot a snail.  One of the new inhabitants Helena Anetome.

Also in here are Boraras Maculata

               

Celestichthys marginatus

                 

Some Corydoras Pygmeus

                

And the usual 10,000 shrimp.....  ;)

In other tanks new fish are

Corydoras Punctatus

              

Nannostomus beckfordi

              

Poecilocharax weitzmani

             

And my fave new fish - Apistogramma Eremnopyge

 

             

What a load of colors ...  who said freshwater fish are dull compared to salt water??

Oops I forgot and Caridina japonica

        

They don't really count as new fish but my Angelfish have been in a breeding frenzy lately and I have so many fry that I have started removing the eggs.

Can you see why?  Look at the amount of eggs each time!!!!

One of the couple are wonderful parents - too good!!!  Even though they are in a community tank they manage to keep the eggs safe and bring up little ones

That's the update on fish so far ;) ;)