More tank pics, updated

Deadeye

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You can try breaking up the cubes before putting them in the tank - it will keep too much from going in at once.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Jazz continues to slim down a bit. Her tube is now retracted. She's still refusing all food except blackworms...I broke up a couple and rubbed them so single worms were loose. Everyone grabbed some but Jazz seemed a bit frustrated and once again refused pellets. So she still alternates between vertical/45 degrees/regular swimming. I hate guessing what's going on. The only thing I know for sure is that when she stuffs on cubes the floaty swimming gets worse and her tube pokes out. When she doesn't eat them her swimming improves and the tube goes down. She still has interest in food just not what I'm offering.

I'm thinking any of these possibilities:

Impaction
Infection
Injury
Stress / trauma from the garbage disposal

I'm going to give it a few more days before attempting treatment. This whole situation is weird.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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I've made some overall observations about my Honduran Redpoints. Some may be accurate, others not as I'm no geneticist. Because the breeding line has a lot of moving parts, bear with me.

We start off with the OGs: Pip/Mongo/Slade. Mongo and Slade are two Calico Pink siblings. Pip is slate blue-gray/striped and unrelated. In full breeding dress Pip has electric blue fins and pink body spangles. Her lips are bright blue.

Pip and Mongo have one branch of generations. Slade has the other branch from Pip/Mongo offspring.

1. Body type appears to be tied to color. All of the tall body bulky males are striped. The pinks are elongated and thick. There are no tall bulky males that are pink so far. Both variants have males with nuchal humps.

2. Pip's body type and color (striped, tall body) dominates the 2nd generation. (100% blue-gray gene).

Mongo (100% pink gene). their offspring 80% striped blue-gray, 20% blue silver blanks with faded pink areas (no stripes). These are 50/50 pink-blue gray gene.

Of the blanks some had faded out stripes or faded calico spots. Two males from this group (Dusty, Scooter) have red top fins. Dusty and sibling Mote are the only stripeless ones into adulthood. The other blanks developed stripes as they matured.

3. All of the giant males are from the second generation and so far, and none have produced fry. They are also the least aggressive overall and somewhat skittish. They are more agressive with their siblings.

4. When given a choice the females (either striped or pink) gravitate toward the pink males first.

5. 4th generation has Slade emerge as the dominant male breeder. He has fry with his 'niece' Speck (50/50 pink/blue-gray gene). Speck has a brighter, higher contast gray with her stripes and a large red belly spot. Speck becomes the dominant female breeder with 3 sets of fry.

6. The offspring of Speck/Slade have 75/25 pink/blue gray gene. The pink gene is now dominant but the blue-gray gene is persistent. The ratio of Speck's fry is 50/50 pink vs striped. Underlying variations of recessive dna are now showing. The striped fry are almost bright silver in background color with red bellies. The pink fry have red bellies as well. Red top fins are now appearing.

7. 5th generation has siblings Dotty and Blackbeard with fry. Both are pink Calicos out of Speck/Slade. Pink gene is now 88/12 pink dominant. All fry are pink calico in appearance.

8. 5th generation Flash and Squiggy, siblings of Dotty and blackbeard. Flash is a silver striped sister of Calico pink Dotty. Squiggy is a pink calico like his brother Blackbeard.The fry from Flash/Squiggy are 60/40 pink and striped. So immediately the stripes make a return in the same generation in this batch.

9. 5th generation Mongo and Blaze. Blaze is his granddaughter and the daughter of Slade. Blaze is striped and has no red belly blotch like most of her siblings. They have new fry too small to identify. New fry are 75/25 pink/striped gene. Blaze has high contrast body color almost white silver with stripes..

Some conclusions, right or wrong:

The giant variant may be sterile or primarily sub-dom. This variant is connected to the blue-gray/stripe gene. Body type of this variation very tall and thick. So far there are no tall giant pink calicos.

Stripes are the most dominant trait. Darker body color second. When one parent has stripes the ratio hovers 50/50 even if the pink gene is dominant and body color lightens.

Body color in striped fry shifts from steel blue to silver once the pink gene is stronger.

Red belly blotch appears to be controlled by the pink gene and displays even when the fish aren't in breeding mode.

Red tails for males is consistent across morphs.

By the 3rd generation more elongated striped males appear as that body type starts to dominate. Whether they remain that way is unknown since they are only half grown.

The different body morph shapes seem to affect the males far more than females.

Pip's gold eye color appears recessive. Mongo and Slade's dark eye color is dominant. However Mongo has one solid black eye and one silver eye...none of his descendants show this feature so far. There are no pink calicos with gold eyes but there are striped grays with both gold and /or black eyes.

The dominant fish in each generation do all the breeding. One exception was when Stripey had fry with his mother Pip (these were donated) and every single fry was a miniature version of Pip! Stripey is not a breeder in the 125 at all.

Mongo and Slade (aka the bad brothers) have bred with various generations of females and aren't challenged by any of the big sons.

Pip is a truly dominant female. She's surrounded by 8 adult sons (half are giants or near) and there are no fry. Once he had a growth spurt Hulk tried to bully/nest with her but she attacked right back. The other sons either stay in another area or near her at a small distance. Stripey is the only son she had fry with. But they all give her space when she wants it. So either she's not interested in breeding, they don't appeal to her or they are sterile. Not that I'm complaining.

Red and blue color body/fin morphs reveal once the dominant dark genes no longer suppress them. The red bellies didn't show with consistency until Gen 3. Combination red/blue fins came later as well.

The stripe pattern is remarkably identical in numerous fry regardless of generation almost like a stamp. There is a broken half moon stripe on one side.

Blue lips seem to be connected to the blue-gray gene. No pink calicos have blue lips so far. The only outlier is Harlequin, a quad colored pink hrp with blue lips.The only other quad color sibling Neet has black lips.

There appears to be only one solid pink fry so far, a 3rd gen out of Slade and Speck. The calico markings appear to be as persistent as the stripes. Even this solid pink fry appears to have a tiny black mark over the tail stem.

The dominant genes contain hidden variations of color, pattern and shape. The recessive genes display these variations once no longer suppressed.

One pink calico male (Slade) has produced 2 four color offspring (Neet, Harlequin) with 2nd gen female Speck. More may be possible as Mongo (pink Calico, sibling to Slade) has fry with Speck's sister, Blaze. Will know more once the fry have enough size.

UPDATE: there is one fry that may have the one silver/black eye trait, a grandson of Mongo. Hard to tell if the black covers one whole eye as the fry is somewhat small right now.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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A happy turn of events for Jazz! It didn't start off that way. She refused food for 4 days and the epsom salt didn't help...she dropped like a rock and was nose down at the bottom vs the top. I even saw her tube moving like she was trying to push something out. I was losing hope, knowing that swim bladder issues sometimes are permanent. It was hard seeing her nose down constantly between bursts of swimming. In desperation I went online looking for any possible treatment. So this lady on YouTube had a goldfish with swim bladder she treated with Camomile tea and the fish recovered. Camomile and Peppermint tea are outstanding for gas, which is one of the symptoms I suspected Jazz had (I could kinda see the outline of her bladder on one side). I also suspected she might be developing an infection. She briefly improved during my last post but then got floaty again. Three days ago she was just hanging out at the top in exhaustion. She did eat a bit of pellets after refusing but started spitting them out.

So I hit it with everything. Into the bucket she went into high 80s temp water as a dip. Another round of salt. I drained that water and put in about 2 gallons of clean water with Camomile broth I steeped for an hour. The tea bags went in as well. Then I massaged her sides several times. I caught a brief whiff of gas? bacteria? odor. Several hours of (high dose) Metroplex was phase three. Put her back in the tank that night and she seemed worse, dropping like a rock and whirling/flashing at the bottom. At this point all I could do was wait it out. I was prepared to make a 'care' tank for her with her buddy Salt. Thought she might not get through the night. (Monday)

She did. Checked before I went to work and she was at the top again! But her fins were out and she was relaxed. Got back from work and she was moving around! Still doing the weird nose down/angle thing but definite improvement. Fast forward to today and there's more improvement. She still 'noses out' at times but is definitely swimming better and can navigate the tank without straining. Salt checks on her periodically then goes about his buisness. If she's at the top he stays nearby.

I have to add in all this she never lost color, interest in food or clamped her fins. If it weren't for the tilting you'd never know there was a problem! I compare her now with the picture by the ruler and I now believe she was bloated a bit in that shot. I crushed some soldier fly larvae at the top hoping she eats some for roughage (chitin) as well as food. She won't touch peas ( only Boss took a swipe at one). None of my fish like peas.

In other news Brick has managed to scratch himself again. This time on the right. He usually gets a nick on the left. He's gone back to tearing out the tall plants and leaving floating stems.

Some of the young adult fry in the hrp growout are coloring up more! And it looks like there are two more quad color siblings of Harlequin and Neet! One's small, maybe female. Will grab a pic when I get a chance.

Spot the syno came out front looking like he fell in a bag of razors. Kong's strip light has inexplicably gone kablooey, so I'll have to get her another one.
 
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phreeflow

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Never heard of using chamomile. Your dedication to your fish is outstanding. Good luck.

I also have a pair of Shortbody HRPs that pop out a percentage of platinum ones and though the males get huge, all but one of the platinum males are sterile.
 
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FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Thanks. She's not normal but the main thing is she's not incapacitated. Interesting about the large hrps...I'm starting to think my giant striped ones are sterile.
 
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FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Small news and updates nothing major.

Jazz is in a treatment bucket. I want to see if her buoyancy issue is treatable. Right now she's getting API General Cure at 84 degrees. I'll follow up with Metro/pellet piquet mush tomorrow. My eyes may be playing tricks but it almost looks like eggs on the sand. Not sure! After about an hour she was up at the top gasping a bit so I added two more airstones. I turned off the heater as well.

Boss is kinda splotchy again and Kong is going piebald once more. Parrots and their goofy moods.

Speaking of which I moved Speck and Rerun. Turns out Rerun is male so I don't have to paint you a picture. The two hrps had bp Tango up at the top and they were clearly nesting so I broke that up. Speck is now in Kong's tank. Rerun went back into the growout with his siblings. Kong has no issues with Speck and I didn't expect any since Kong's aggression level is more than a match even for Speck. Speck stays mostly on the far side where her small log is although she goes in Kong's house at times. The parrot doesn't seem to mind. Speck follows the trend of the dominant females in the clan, keeping her full breeding dress color at all times. Sisters Flash and Blaze do this as well

Funny thing with Tango. he never really got along with Speck and Rerun and still chased them (up until they were gearing up for fry). But I put in two of the "pinkies" and he gets along with them fine from the jump. In with him now is Mica, another quad color hrp sibling of Harlequin and Neet. Mica is on the small side. The other is a pink calico named Mello. Mello has large chunks of black markings. Once I am certain of the sex I will probably add one of Speck's other daughters to Kong's tank.

Today was water change day for the 225! Here's Brick doing his imitation of a beached whale. He just lays there like a stump while I work around him. For added effect he curls up too.

Brick chilling.jpg
 
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FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Things happen fast with fish. Was heading out on some errands and noticed my male acara Rocky looked a little weird...a closer look revealed a swollen eye like he'd gone ten rounds with Tyson. Popeye. He was fine last night and I'm pretty sure it's from an injury as the fish in the 125 are aggressive eaters (except for severum Corn) they bang off each other and shoot all over the place. I ended up dismantling the 125 since Rocky didn't cooperate...I went slow because I didn't want him to bang that eye. It hadn't gotten worse during the course of the day so that much is good. Right now he's in a bucket with epsom salt and Lifeguard. He and Jazz have buckets next to each other. I placed another laundry mesh bag over his bucket because I don't trust him any more than I trust Jazz.

Jazz appears to be doing well and is no longer 'tipping'. She received her third API Cure treatment tonight and will get one more tomorrow. I have fresh Kanaplex and more API Cure if needed for Rocky.
 
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