The photo is a brown tree frog sitting on my hand. The farm is home to a host of amphibians. With the recent rains we hear a cacophony of lustful toads and frogs singing all night. Among the most commonly seen amphibians are the tree frogs because they roost under house eaves and on tree trunks ... Read More
Blog
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Blue Iridescent Swordtail
Photo: An early male Blue Iridescent Swordtail used in the development of the strain. We raise a variety of commercial swordtails. While these fish closely resemble the shape of the wild swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii, they are hybrid strains with genes from other Xiphophorus species such as X. ... Read More
Plant Filtration
Photo: Red Mangrove tree in the plant filter. One aspect of our hatchery systems we use to raise fish that always seems to fascinate hobbyists when I speak at fish clubs is our plant filtration system. Goliad Farms exclusively uses plant filtration designed by us through trial and error. We have ... Read More
Cyphotilapia frontosa
Photo: Juvenile Cyphotilapia frontosa This week we processed once again our “breeding colony” of Cyphotilapia frontosa. I put breeding colony in quotes since up until now they hadn’t bred at all. This is a large cichlid from Africa’s Lake Tanganyika. Mature males grow to over a foot in length. ... Read More
Winter in South Texas
Photo: Geranium (actually genus Pelargonium) after winter in South Texas. Winter in our area continues to become milder. When I was a child, several decades ago, we had winters with real freezes, several of them a year. (By the way, when did we quit capitalizing seasons and directions?) A typical ... Read More
Life and Death on the Farm via a Squirrel
Photo: Me up a tree next to a squirrel nest. No, I’m not the squirrel! One recent afternoon Susie, my wife, and I were sitting in the living room reading and doing Sudoku puzzles (we’re real party animals!) when the dogs jumped up and rushed outside. Simultaneously, a hawk began screeching in ... Read More
Feeding Fish Tips
Photo shows juvenile mollies in a vat ready to eat. Fish tip, How to Feed Your Fish: This tip was first published in our Newsletter No. 1, August 2013. I’m reposting it as a blog so that it can be searched for on our website and in my blogs. Here it is: Get plastic fish; they require no ... Read More
Fire Ants
Guess, in the photo above, what the dark brown mat is on the water in the ditch after a two inch rain. In case you don't know, it's a floating mat of fire ants. The most common ant on the farm is the Imported Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta). This species is not native to North America but is ... Read More
Acclimation Procedures
Photo is a young male Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid in a shipping bag. Acclimation Recommendations The principals of Goliad Farms, Inc., after decades of collecting, raising, shipping, transporting and importing tropical fish, have developed methods of acclimation tropical fish. Some of these ... Read More
Sunset Variatus
Photo: Male Sunset Variatus I’ve recently begun blogging about the Variatus-type Platies we raise. For a discussion about the meaning of “Variatus-type,” check out an earlier blog I wrote about our Redtail Blue Variatus. This blog concerns our Sunset Variatus strain, which we developed ... Read More