MTV-Kribs

[Wookii]

How long does it take your grindal worms to eat the oats? I've only ever fed mine cat biscuits (on @Simon Cole 's recommendation) which disappear completely in 48 hours (feeding 4 or so at a time). Touch wood, I've had no 'crashing' in the last 18 months, I just feed one or two times a week, and stir the coconut coir to loosen it, every 4-5 months.

 

[ScareCrow]

How long does it take your grindal worms to eat the oats? I've only ever fed mine cat biscuits (on @Simon Cole 's recommendation) which disappear completely in 48 hours (feeding 4 or so at a time). Touch wood, I've had no 'crashing' in the last 18 months, I just feed one or two times a week, and stir the coconut coir to loosen it, every 4-5 months.

I've not had any luck with oats unfortunately. @dw1305 uses them though.
I feed 8 medium Hikari cichlid gold pellets twice a day. I'm trying to culture as many grindals as I can at the moment. Normally I'd only feed every couple of days.

 

[ScareCrow]

Overall I'm pretty happy with how things are going. I still want to fill in the top left corner but I don't think bolbitis is particularly fond of my water. Still waiting to see what happens but have some other ideas, should it not work out.

I like the mossy textures although I should have maybe just stuck to 2 or 3 varieties as in places it looks messier than I'd like. It's no problem pulling out the odd look bit's though so just a case of refining as things grow in.
Most of the buce at the bottom are being held there temporarily while I work out where to put them. Again I have ideas, just need to find the time. Now that I'm happy with how things are progressing I'm of course considering upgrading the tank. I have the 100l version of this tank sat in my garage and have been considering modifying the cabinet to accommodate it. I don't really enjoy setting up new tanks as I much prefer them when they're grown in, so I'm a bit conflicted as this tank is doing well by my standards (no algae, a leaf a week from the buce, nothing struggling to the point it's barely holding on to life etc). However, it will give me more space for more buce!
Last thing, just wanted to say thanks to @Gill again for helping me workout how to use band. I was able to get a couple of buces I've been looking for. These aren't them but it is one of my favourite views through the tank.

 

[shangman]

It's looking great!! Lovely and thick, looking forward to seeing what you do with the new buces too. Eventually 2 or 3 mosses probably will take over and dominate, in mine the fissidens just went WHOOSH at one point and took over everything else.

I now what you mean about rescapes, a fully grown-in tank is really the best, but when you've got loads of lovely plants like this it's not too bad at all, I'm sure it would grow in in no time.

 

[ScareCrow]

I think I've made the decision to move over to the bigger tank. So I've ordered another bag of black sand and started going through a few ideas of what to do in the additional space. Just need to set aside some time to make the bits to extend the stand.

I'm very pleased with the progress in the grow out tank. Definitely have some males now, possibly more than I'd want but I do have a plastic box I can move some into if things get a bit too aggressive. Also have some shops interested and various avenues to advertise through so hopefully when they are large enough to move on, they won't be stuck here for too long.
Really pleased with the colours they're developing already. The top and middle foreground are males. Bottom left and middle background are possibly females.

 

[ScareCrow]

They're now three months old and have started practicing the kribensis interpretation of a bait ball. This was the best shot I could get but it got a lot more chaotic (think Black Friday sale levels of chaos) and this was after they'd been fed.

 

[ScareCrow]

Quick update. I finished extending the stand and the tank is now in place. Even remembered to put a background on this time!
Quite happy with how the stand turned out, it's pretty close to the original. Not sure about the door inserts at the moment though. I got fed up with cutting down wood so that it kept the aesthetic of the original stand. So the inserts are a quick fix for now.

It's been a bit of a rush as some of the plants were starting to suffer in their temporary accommodation. So everything has been dumped in until I have more time.
One thing that has worked well are these plant holders for the riparium plants. I made them from some stiff wire I had. They create a spring clip, so clipping it to the tank makes the holder grip the plant and when in place you don't really see them. So far they seem really secure and have the benefit of being able to move plants around easily.

 

[ScareCrow]

Final update on the baby kribs. They're now 4½ months. I'm taking them to a shop tomorrow. My intension was to give some away to members of the forum. However, it looks like I've got almost entirely males so don't really want to pass that problem on to someone else. I've made the shop aware of this so they can get females to balance out the numbers.
Maybe pure rainwater wasn't such a good idea. I may start adding some tap water to my rainwater and then try breeding them again in the future.

 

[ScareCrow]

I decided against taking all of them to the shop and kept 3 back for myself. There used to be a video on YouTube of a tank housing a group of taeniatus and I thought it looked brilliant. I've not been able to recreate that as I don't have a big enough tank or enough females but I've kept a trio.
Some males also managed to evade capture so I have a few that are still growing out, that I need to find homes for.
Apologies for the worse than normal pic, I need to clean the glass. Here's the male and one female I kept back. They're now 5 months old.

 

[ScareCrow]

I've start getting diatoms, I think this is caused by two things. The first being that although the substrate, wood and plants were established and came over from my previous setup. The substrate was left in a bucket for a couple of weeks. Because of that I thought it best to wash it through rather than leave things to breakdown when added back in to tank.
I've been slowly(ish) increasing the light intensity. It's been running at 40% for a few months as there's not much floating plant cover. However, I started to get a bit impatient with growth being slow so bumped it up to 60% over about 6 weeks. I've dropped it back to 40% now and started dosing 2ml of glute as I had half a bottle left. I'll keep up with water changes and dosing to hopefully get the diatoms under control.
In more exciting news I added 12 kuhli loaches. I'm thinking of going back to get another 6 and also pick up the rosy loaches I regret not buying.

 

[ScareCrow]

The kuhli loaches seem to like their new home and aren't shy at all, which I'm really pleased about. They get fed twice a day and seem to have picked up on the filter turning off means food is coming. I turn the filter off and a few minutes later they've massed at the front of the tank waiting. Of the foods I have, banana worms seem to be the kuhli loach food of choice. I think grindal worms are a bit too big for them at the moment but they've definitely put on some weight since I brought them home.
Just as a record for myself, I've tried turning the lights up to 50%. As the diatoms seem to be reducing slowly.

 

[shangman]

Omg look at that!!! I'm green with envy, usually only see 1 big kuhli a day if I'm lucky 😩

 

[ScareCrow]

Omg look at that!!! I'm green with envy, usually only see 1 big kuhli a day if I'm lucky 😩

I'm not sure what's going on. I was a little worried about getting them as I know they can be quite elusive. I like to be able to do a head count regularly to make sure no one has disappeared, which might cause water quality problems and thought this might be a problem with kuhlis. They do have a lot of cover but I think the dark substrate might be the main influence. I don't have any evidence but I'm planning to rescape as I don't like how the tank looks at the moment. This time I'm going to try a proper 'scape' but the idea I have will mean fewer plants at the front (if I can control myself). So we'll see if they're still happy to venture out. If they do hide more I'll just have to add more plants, what a shame
I'd recommend adding some coconut shells. I don't know if these help make them feel more comfortable but there's nothing funnier than when they suddenly pop out of one of the eye holes.

 

[ScareCrow]

The kuhlis seem to be getting quite boisterous. They swarm food to the point where the kribs just look on, not sure what to do. It's funny when the kribs gently move the kuhlis out the way to get at the food underneath the mass of loaches. It doesn't seem to bother the kuhlis as they just carry on eating and aren't at all bothered by the kribs being near them.
Here's a truly terrible pic of a kuhli swarm and a krib confused at where the food went. I think there are 10 kuhlis in the pic. Just in case you wan to play count the kuhli, as I do most evenings

 

[shangman]

Great photo, feeling even more jealous!! The krib seems totally miffed 😂

I've never seen more than 2 of my 6 big kuhlis it and about (small ones do come out a lot more tho). I'd be worried that they're dead (also like to headcount regularly), except I never saw them out in the old smaller tank either, and when I drained it there they all were!

Now you just need some kubotai rasboras to kontinue the theme of fish with a k!!

 

[ScareCrow]

Great photo, feeling even more jealous!! The krib seems totally miffed 😂

I've never seen more than 2 of my 6 big kuhlis it and about (small ones do come out a lot more tho). I'd be worried that they're dead (also like to headcount regularly), except I never saw them out in the old smaller tank either, and when I drained it there they all were!

Now you just need some kubotai rasboras to kontinue the theme of fish with a k!!

Haha, I'm after some Pseudomugil luminatus. I'm also considering rehoming the kribs but then I'd need to start a new journal as the name would no longer be relevant.
I'd really like to give breeding the kuhlis a proper go but with the kribs in there it will never happen. A couple of kuhlis have really swollen up since getting them, so there's definitely a mix of males and females.
I really need to have a proper go at scaping the tank before I do anything though, as it looks more like a plant holding tank than a display tank.
This is the sort of thing I'd like to recreate. The problem is I have no control with plants and scale goes out the window. What I'm hoping is that I'll have enough space to display all the plants I've a massed, while giving them room to grow and create a nice aesthetic. Opposed to the jumble I currently have.

 

[Onoma1]

Fantastic, lush looking 'jumble'!

 

[shangman]

Haha, I'm after some Pseudomugil luminatus. I'm also considering rehoming the kribs but then I'd need to start a new journal as the name would no longer be relevant.
I'd really like to give breeding the kuhlis a proper go but with the kribs in there it will never happen. A couple of kuhlis have really swollen up since getting them, so there's definitely a mix of males and females.
I really need to have a proper go at scaping the tank before I do anything though, as it looks more like a plant holding tank than a display tank.
This is the sort of thing I'd like to recreate. The problem is I have no control with plants and scale goes out the window. What I'm hoping is that I'll have enough space to display all the plants I've a massed, while giving them room to grow and create a nice aesthetic. Opposed to the jumble I currently have.
View attachment 177934

Restraint? With plants? Simply impossible!!
Though tbh I think that inspo is a good one because it looks like moss as a base with all sorts of other plants mixed in anyway. Simple but really effective, definitely worthy of a rescape! 😀

Pseudomugil luminatus are beautiful, such an amazing colour. I'd be really intrigued to see your kuhlis breeding, especially since they are clearly so comfortable in your tank it sounds like a great plan. Sad to rehome the kribs but you have done amazing with breeding them too!

 

[ScareCrow]

Restraint? With plants? Simply impossible!!

Haha, I get the theory of small leaved plants at the back and large leaved plants at the front to create a false sense of depth and those sorts of things but when it comes to buying plants I don't think of the overall aesthetic but instead "ooo this one has cool leaves" etc. So the end result is just a series of plants that I think are interesting.

I think that inspo is a good one because it looks like moss as a base with all sorts of other plants mixed in anyway. Simple but really effective, definitely worthy of a rescape! 😀

Yeah was dennerles first austrian aquascaping contest winner back in 2016

Pseudomugil luminatus are beautiful, such an amazing colour. I'd be really intrigued to see your kuhlis breeding, especially since they are clearly so comfortable in your tank it sounds like a great plan. Sad to rehome the kribs but you have done amazing with breeding them too!

The only relatively detailed breeding report I found makes it sound quite simple. Condition them, do a big water change and watch out for egg scattering in the morning. Fingers crossed it works.
I really wanted to breed that particular krib for a long time but having 70+ fry to grow out with very limited space was a bit of a challenge. I'm glad I was able to do it but now I think I want fish that I can breed in small numbers and allow to grow on in a community tank, without the need for grow out tanks.

 

[ScareCrow]

Hi all,

I recently got a group of psuedomugils luminatus. I've been trying to get these for a while, so when I got a call from the shop to say they were in I (in retrospect stupidly) went and got 6. I probably should've let them settle in longer/studied them more closely in the shop. The day after getting them a few showed signs of fungus and within a few days I was left with three (luckily a male and two females). Thankfully I put them in a tank I had setup for housing the adult kribs, which I moved out, so it was only them in the tank.

They're very small (less than 25mm) so I'm assuming they are very young but within 2 weeks they'd started spawning. They're spawning every morning, so I take the moss that they've spawned in and put it in a hang on breeding net. However, after about a day the eggs turn white and then a day or two later they fungus. I know that unfertilised eggs will go white and eventually fungus and that this might be the case if they're too young but are there any suggestions of things to do assuming the eggs are fertile? I've added alder cones, oak and beech leaves to add tannins for the antifungal properties.
It's still early days and I'm being impatient but I'd really like to boost the numbers of these back up.
They're not just using moss to spawn on (poor snail).