RE: ram fry, sigh

["Yvan Alleau" <yalleau@coas.oregonstate.edu>]

hi Tom,
could you please contact me of-list?
thanks

 Yvan Alleau
712 N.W Kings Blvd
Corvallis, OR 97330
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
office (Burt 222) # 737-3649, to be used wisely!

PLEASE NOTE NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS:
yalleau@coas.oregonstate.edu

"When you're far from everything, you're getting closer to the essential"


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-apisto@admin.listbox.com
[mailto:owner-apisto@admin.listbox.com]On Behalf Of Thomas Wilkinson
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 7:09 PM
To: apisto@listbox.com
Subject: Re: ram fry, sigh



David
I thought I would chime in here about the natural biotope of  rams. I have
collected rams in Venezuela on two seperate trips. At one site I caught
large rams that were in a slow moving stream, light brown clear water and
about 2-3 ft deep. The stream came out of a green meadow land and was
entering a forested area. The first year the pH was 6.4 and the hardness 90
ppm. Two years later the same site had pH 6.7  hardness110 ppm and temp 30
C.
The other collection site could not have been more different. The site was
an isolated pond in the middle of the savannah. Water was cloudy and
"white". No current and only 6" to 1 ft deep. Lots of small but intensly
colored rams. At this site the pH was 5.8 , hardness 30 ppm and temp 33 C.
Tom

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Sanchez" <barbax2@yahoo.com>
To: <apisto@listbox.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: ram fry, sigh


> I am glad this is becoming more apparent to everyone.
> As I have been preaching for years it's all about the
> DOC's whether we are talking about eggs, fry, or even
> adults we just have to keep in mind the natural
> biotopes of our little fish. If we were to do a
> conductivity reading of the water of a Rams natural
> biotope you would get water with a Conductivity of
> almost 0. Come back the next day, the next and the
> next same reading. My point is the water is extremely
> pure and immaculately clean. We don't always think of
> such water as clean but if we look at this way we see
> that it is. If we compare this to a tank full of fry
> we are growing out we will be amazed. Take a reading
> of say a 10 or 20 gallon of some ram fry being fed
> heavily with bbs, microworms, infusoria etc and you
> will be amazed at how the conductivity goes up sharply
> just from morning to night much less the next day. I
> always laugh when people say there are secrets or
> tricks to breeding or raising certain fish. It's all
> about understanding the environment our fish come from
> and replicating that at home. In this case we simply
> need to maintain a very low level of DOC's and this is
> accomplished by doing water changes. If we look at
> many professional breeders especially those of Discus
> they clearly have already seen this and have their
> systems on a daily continual water change cycle. Take
> heart though Apistos are very forgiving and inspite of
> all this they will still breed, eggs hatch, and fry
> survive if we just maintain this at a tolerable level.
> My advice to all of you get a conductivity meter. In
> my opinion it is the most important tool a breeder
> should have. They have come down in price a ton and
> you can get a fair one these days for around $35-$50.
> The funny thing is once you have used your
> conductivity meter for a while and begin to see the
> cycle and patterns that develop you get an eye for it
> and no longer even need to check unless you want to
> confirm what you already know. To me the greatest
> value in conductivity meter is not in telling me how
> hard my water is but rather in telling me the water
> quality that I am maintaining for my fish.
>
> Dave Sanchez
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- mjacobs2@tampabay.rr.com wrote:
> > What Neil is saying folks brings up the real problem
> > with rams and ram fry and
> > why, I think, so many people have trouble at first
> > with ram fry and rams in
> > general.
> >
> > Rams, fry or adult, need good clean water.....to be
> > really successful and to
> > try and put a lot of artifical dry food (and some of
> > them are getting very
> > good) in with the ram fry is a double edged sword.
> > If you are not careful with
> > non-live food for ram fry you might just start
> > loosing them for no apparent
> > reason.  That's why I always cringe a bit when
> > people want to raise ram fry on
> > powdered food.  If that's all you have then fine,
> > but keep it clean.  Certainly
> > it can and has been done with dry foods but it needs
> > to be clean.....what ever
> > that means to you double it...the clean.....;-)
> >
> > Also I've seen folks adding enough live bbshrimp to
> > choke a horse......once the
> > rams are free swimming add some snails to keep the
> > bottom of the tank
> > clean....and like Neil said also........a fully
> > matured sponge filter can
> > sometimes save the day for some small crittes for
> > the fry to chew on while you
> > are not there.............change the water!!!!!
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> >
> > > I am new to the list, but not too long ago I saw a
> > presentation by Al Casrto,
> > > who broke down bbs. Apparently, there are 3 types
> > of bbs eggs. The largest is
> > > Utah, which is 3 times larger than San Francisco,
> > which is 3 times larger
> > > than Southern Hemisphere eggs (the smallest). He
> > was using these for tetra
> > > fry, which are, in general, pretty darn
> > small-mouthed. I don't have any
> > > suggestions where to come across them, but I
> > believe that they are pretty
> > > hard to find and expensive.
> > > I have found that Rams can usually take bbs of the
> > SF type right away, if you
> > > take care to harvest them in about 18 hours. In
> > addition to (the other
> > > suggestion) Java Moss and general infusoria from a
> > sponge filter that is
> > > already in the tank at mediocre levels, this can
> > usually support the food
> > > requirements of Ram fry during the crucial first
> > few days.    Neil
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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