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RELAX AND LET IT HAPPEN
A BAP REPORT
By Ilene Alvis, KAS
You know how it is when you want something really really bad and you try and try but
you can't get it? Or when you work at something really really hard only you can't seem to
get it right? And then someone else does and you're really jealous because you know you
wanted it more? Do ya? Huh?
Well, I did but then I didn't, and then I was but then I wasn't because I'd relaxed and it
all sort of happened without me having to do anything at all.
I 'd better explain.
I've been lucky at breeding fish. Guppies and Mollies, Swords and Platies, Killies and
Gourmies, Barbs and Catfish and all kinds of Cichlids have been induced to reproduce in my
hatchery. All that was left were the Tetras. But I can do this. I have soft water. I have
soft, acid water. I have warm, soft, acid water. Bring on the Tetras, I can do this.
Black Skirt Tetras are suppose to be easy. I had an entire school of mature Black Skirt
Tetras. I can do this.
I set up a twelve gallon show tank with warm, soft, acid water. Sponge filter, Java Moss,
divider with a male Black Skirt Tetra on one side and a nice fat female Black Skirt Tetra
on the other. (That's how I sexed them, one fat, one not.) One week of feeding both
mosquito larvae and then out comes the divider and I wait with baited breath for the
spawning to begin.
Well, they danced, and paraded, and flounced and glittered with fins all atwitter and
proud. And that was all. I did this twice and then finally just left the two of them
together for a week. After I removed them I waited and examined the tank every day for a
another week for the expected fry to appear. They never did. They didn't spawn and all my
magic tricks couldn't make them spawn.
Okay, okay, I'm not always successful on the first try. Tear down, clean out, set up again
with Diamond Tetras. Same set up, twelve gallon tank, sponge filter, Java Moss, warm,
soft, acid water, mosquito larvae, divider. Same result which is to say nothing happened.
(But they were sure pretty.)
Okay, I've got more Tetras. How about Silver Tips? How about more than one pair at a time?
How about cooling them off? Or warming them up? Serpaes. I've got mature Serpae Tetras.
I'm going to try those. Didn't work? That's okay. I've got Bleeding Hearts. Didn't work
either? That's fine, I'll do Pencil fish instead. They sure got pretty. And fat on all
those mosquito larvae. But my husband is yelling at me because I've got nine containers
full of mosquito larvas all over the back yard and he's getting eaten alive by the ones I
miss.
What's wrong here? I can't do this! I've done hard fish and easy fish and rare fish. I've
done big fish, Synspilums, and small fish, Dwarf Livebearers and Angelfish by the
thousands and Bettas by the hundreds and I can't do Tetras!!! But, another member of our
club did Tetras. He successfully BAPed Black Skirts, and got Glowlight eggs several times.
This is good. This is very good. Now I know that it can be done. It's just ME that can't
do it! That's okay, really, it is. You can just back off with that straight jacket because
I'm just fine. Thank you. Fine. Just fine.
Deep breath. Portland club members have had wonderful success with Emperor Tetras. They're
using them for dither fish, for pete's sake and we're paying $12.00 a pair for them here?
So I buy a pair of Emperor Tetras. But now I'm really busy. My husband retires, my sister
sells her house and needs help and my mother moves in with us until her apartment is
finished and we go on vacation to Florida and then my sister gets a new house and needs
help and my daughter has surgery and needs help and then we decide to sell my fish
business and now we have to dismantle a fifteen year old hatchery. Oh boy! Am I busy!
And in the meantime, I had tossed the Emperor Tetras in a five gallon Betta tank, you
know, one of those long narrow things that you slid the glass dividers into? I had also
thrown in five or six yarn spawning mops as the tank was in the closet and didn't have
much light. At first I fed them very well on flake food as it's the middle of winter and
there are no mosquitos. And then after a while I only saw the male and figured the female
had died or jumped or something. The tank had a sponge filter that worked sometimes, when
I remembered to replace the evaporated water, and I actually remember doing a couple water
changes on it during the six months I had them. And I remembered to feed them, sometimes.
I would put some baby brine shrimp in there once or twice a week, no flake as it never
seemed to get eaten, and there was only one fish in there. Or so I thought.
Picture this: I'm in the middle of tearing down the hatchery. And this makes me very sad.
Most of the fish have already gone to their new home, empty tanks sit dark and forlorn,
spilled gravel crunches underfoot, and I'm on the top of my ladder preparing to catch the
remaining Emperor. I reach in and grab a hand full of spawning mops and slop them into a
bucket. Amid the swirling debris I see movement. "HEY!" I exclaim loudly.
"Hey hey! I got fry!" (Okay, I also have poor English skills) "Yeah,
so?" my husband asked, he being very use to my having fry.
"Tetra fry!" I crow. "I have tetra fry!"
So I did. In the very neglected tank, the fish I really wanted quietly and without
fanfare, spawned, and then eggs hatched, and the fry grew. The water was warm, 84 degrees,
soft and acid, 5.3 pH. There was a sponge filter that didn't always work because I let the
water level get too low. I did very few water changes. Mum piled up on the bottom, the
tank was dark and I fed it maybe three time a week. And from this I removed one very large
and beautiful male Emperor Tetra, a small but fat female, and eight fry about a quarter of
an inch long and recognizably Tetras. I did it. Okay; I didn't do it. They did it despite
me.
And, for the moment, this is my swan song. The hatchery is gone. I have six tanks where I
use to have seventy. And I really miss them. But it's time to do something else a little
less confining. We have a motor home, and a grandson and there's a whole lot of places to
go and things to do. I've kept a few small tanks in case I find a killie or two I'd like
to try. And those dwarf cichlids should be okay in one. And, did you see the fish on the
cover of........
Happy fishing.
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Revised: September 13, 1999.
