February 20, 2012

A Visit to Rachel O’Leary’s

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Rachel O’Leary has earned the reputation of being an excellent source of hard to find freshwater fish and invertebrates.  She supplies mostly nano-fish species, Asian snails (such as fancy nerites), shrimp and crays.  All of her business is run out of her basement fish room, from which she ships dozens of boxes of livestock each week.  You can see what she has to offer here:  Rachel’s Website.

There are lots of cool things in Rachel’s room, but I want to specifically point out the welded iron racks that her husband Chris builds.  These racks are a functional work of art.  Someday I may have to pay for the O’Learys (and their welding equipment) to take a vacation in Wisconsin!

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February 16, 2012

MAAH and MAGC at WI Garden Expo

The Madison Area Aquatic Hobbyists set up a booth at the 2012 WI Garden Expo, held at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI, last weekend.  I took my 75-gallon planted tank in as out main display, and a smaller tank to hold some endangered livebearers (Zoogeneticus tequila).  This video is about that experience…

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February 15, 2012

New Livestock Page

I have removed the livestock from the automated shopping cart store.  The shipping charges were just too hard to work out accurately.  To order fish an plants we are going back to good ol’ email.  Send me a list of what you want with a shipping zip code, and I will email you back with shipping options.

If you live in WI, MN, IL, IA, NE, ND, SD or the greater St. Louis area of MO, I can ship overnight or second day using SpeeDee Delivery at a significantly lower cost.

Delivery to events I will be at is still the safest way to get fish to you… and the cheapest!

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February 8, 2012

A Visit to Jim Cormier’s Fish Room

Jim Cormier was my host when visiting the New England Cichlid Association in February, 2012.  We had plenty of time to kill between my arrival in town and the meeting, so im took me to see his fish room.  My assumption was that we were going to his house, but that was not the case.  Jim’s hatchery is located in rental space inside an old industrial mill.  I wish we had places like this in Wisconsin!  I would love to double the size of my room and have it ‘off site’.  Not that I dislike having my fish room in my basement (very convenient), but just think about how easy it would be to ‘get lost’ if the aquariums were on the other side of town!

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February 8, 2012

Repashy Superfoods Page

I added a page to provide more information and post videos about the new Repashy Superfoods.  If you have not checked them out, take a look at the page:  Repashy

Please look at my speaking schedule on the top of the left side bar.  If you will be near any of those events, please come support the club and see my presentation.  Allen Repashy will be sending a nice product package to each club, and I will also bring samples for everyone.  I can deliver food to the meetings as well, which will save on shipping!

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February 7, 2012

Linked with FaceBook….

At least I hope the blog is linked with FaceBook.  I really need an administrative assistant who is good at this technical stuff.  I will deal with the fish….

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February 1, 2012

Corydoras caudimaculatus… Afternoon Delight!

I have been working on conditioning this group of catfish for a few months.  When I got them they were thin, but not a single fish died.  I have always liked this species, but never had any success breeding them.  But neither have I ever had this many at one time.  I noticed breeding behavior for the first time a couple weeks ago, but the catfish shared the tank with some rainbow fish grow outs and a LOT of horn wort.  I got all that cleaned out over the weekend, did a big water change and added the yarn mops you will see in the video.  I noticed that the fish were spawning when I went into the fish room at about 5:00 this afternoon.

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January 30, 2012

Parananochromis gabonicus Defending Their Fry

Next month marks a year since the trip to Gabon to collect fish.  Here is a video of one of the cichlid species I brought back, Parananochromis gabonicus.  I had been keeping pairs in 20 gallon aquariums up until about two months ago.  The pairs were spawning, but in between spawns the males were very rough on the females.  Plus, the males were going to outgrow the tanks.  I moved all of the fish (two males and three females) into this 40-gallon breeder aquarium, added a big pile of wood for cover, a school of hardy tetras (Moenkhausia agnesae) and four or five well hidden breeding caves.  A few weeks ago the most dominant male and one of the females spawned, and chose the most observable cave to breed in.  Good fish!!!

When the pairs were spawning in the smaller tanks there were no target or dither fish in with them.  The female would turn her defensive attention on the only other fish in the tank… the male.  This led me to believe that the male of this species does not take an active role in caring for the fry… not true!  As this video documents….

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January 29, 2012

Congo Tetras Making Caviar!

I really need to pull a pair of these tetras and collect some eggs….

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January 29, 2012

Ted is Sponsored!!!!

I am very happy to announce that Repashy Superfoods and OddBallFish.com have offered to sponsor my trips to clubs to give presentations.  The product donations from these companies will help clubs recoup the expenses incurred in hosting me.

I have created a new page on the website that describes the sponsorships and has the information clubs need to know to have me come for a visit.  That page is under the ‘Club Info‘ link in the top menu bar.

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