Photo: A young breeder male Skyblue Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid. One of my favorite aquaculture activities is the development of new strains of fish with new colors, fins, shapes, etc. That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy maintaining wild-type fish and pure species as they appear in nature, but ... Read More
cichlids
Fish Growth Inhibition
Photo: A 55-gallon vat with 144 adult male cichlids 5+" long, showing that our system allows crowding without growth inhibition. See below for the possible reasons. Recently, a hobbyist messaged me: “I’ve heard that fish release a hormone that will slow the growth of other similar fish. Do you ... Read More
Gold OB Peacock
Photo: A breeder male Gold OB Peacock in a five-gallon bucket as he is being processed before being moved back into his breeding colony. WARNING!!! This is a rather long and geeky fish blog for my fishkeeping friends. I decided to kill two birds (or fish, whatever!) with one stone by 1) ... Read More
Teas, Fish, and Chickens
Photo: Greenhouses without their covers immediately after Hurricane Harvey. Note the trees in the background stripped of their leaves by the hurricane force winds. So, what do tea, fish, and chickens have in common? This blog will tie them together. Our farm and hatchery have had two ... Read More
Coleto Creek Collecting Trip – December 21, 2017.
Photo by Anne Rokyta: Coleto Creek at US Highway 77 with German Shepherds, Oso and Maya. December 21, 2017 was warm, an occurrence happening more and more frequently lately. The weather was sunny, and temperatures hovered around 80°F (~27°C). It was a perfect first day of winter for ... Read More
Tubifex Worms
Photo: A ball of Tubifex worms. Years ago in some of our vats I found clumps of Tubifex worms. I have no idea what species, but they thrive in the muck on the bottom of the vats, but only in vats where the fish don’t poke around in the muck. They do well with mollies and rainbowfishes. I was ... Read More
Labidochromis caeruleus ‘Gold’
Photo: A male Labidochromis caeruleus ‘Gold’ or ‘Lemon Yellow Lab.’ We raise a lot of African cichlids, especially those from Lake Malawi in East Africa. One of these is very popular with our aquarium maintenance customers due to its bright yellow coloration. This species is Labidochromis ... Read More
Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid Genetics
Photo: A mature male Red Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid. A while back I set up a cross between a Red Dragon Blood Cichlid male and some Protomelas taeniolatus ‘Sunshine’ females. That’s him in the photo above. By the way, the grid behind him is in inches, showing how large he is. The Sunshine ... Read More
Canary OB Peacock
Photo: A very young (about four months old) male Canary OB Peacock. By the way, while the grid behind him shows one-inch squares, he is not six inches long. He's at the front of the aquarium and the grid is at the back. He's actually only four inches long, barely large enough to reliably determine ... Read More
Orange OB Peacock
Photo: One of our two current male breeder Orange OB Peacock Cichlids. We just processed our Orange OB Peacock Cichlids. For a discussion of the development of this and other strains of peacock cichlids, see http://goliadfarms.com/our-peacock-cichlids/. I did a very tight selection on this ... Read More
