Disclaimer: a lot of this post is off topic, so read at your own risk.
That's a great deal!
Normally you don't need to try very hard to breed guppies. Hornwort will work well to take nitrates out of the water. Frogbit is also great for that. How large is the guppy tank?
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The guppies are in a 75 gal tank. I have two more spares if necessary
though I'll need to clean those to use them
Is frogbit as invasive as duckweed, or is it the polar opposite? I'm pretty sure it's a floater, as I think I recognize the name, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
I've been watching this project silently along with others and Let me just say it seems like you know what you are doing and all bout these crabs! Great job! This is an awesome project!
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Cn
Thanks! I really appreciate it
I think the reason I know so much is because I literally spent 6 months researching these crabs before I was able to get them the first go around (like currently, they were out of stock for that time). During that first time, I made every mistake I think I possibly could've, and I've learned from it (or at least tried to).
This is primarily why I hold to the belief that if you thoroughly research a hard-to-breed species, whether it's never been bred before or is considered "expert", you'll do fine trying to breed it. Many of the fish and inverts I'll attempt to breed are those that have never been bred before due to the sheer difficulty of succeeding, so this is good practice. However, some, like the first species of shrimp I plan to breed simultaneously with these in separate aquariums (I'm currently doing the necessary research), will just breed when given optimal conditions as most shrimp do (as long as they don't have a pesky larval stage
).
As a prime example of breeding a species that's difficult to, I know for a fact I can breed the Denison's Barb, Sahyadria denisonii, but I can't afford it at this time. I've only shared the secret once on a different forum, but I doubt it's easy to find since most forums only show the most recent threads, and it's been several months since any activity on that thread. However, if someone had some and was willing to try, I'd be willing to give you my secrets, but only because it's way past time someone sold captive bred stock.
For most such species, just look into how they breed in the wild and you can do it; that's all I do. It does take me around six to eight months to fully figure it out though.
But besides those mentioned, there's only one more I'm definitively going to try to breed: the ropefish. This species has been bred accidentally once, but the fry are extremely difficult to keep alive (I think they managed eight to fourteen days???). There's many more I'm looking into, and a few I want to run some experiments on (primarily the Bala/Tricolor/Silver shark, if the commercial breeding with hormones has any affect with being able to breed them in captivity naturally, i.e. without the hormones), but that's a different thread for a different time.
That's just a taste of what I hope to accomplish for our hobby. Just the tip of the iceberg
First step is becoming a recognized and reputable breeder, which I'll accomplish with the shrimp and these crabs, followed by the barb, ropefish, and other fish & inverts (with accompanying profiles and threads, of course). And yes, this is why I'm getting my BS in Conservation Biology and Ecology, and am currently looking into PhD programs in Florida (most aquarium inhabitants come from similar climates as Florida, so that's why I chose it vs California or the upper east coast).
Stay tuned! And as always,
for the input and feedback! It helps motivate me to keep updating this thread, and motivates me to continue on my quest in helping our beloved hobby become more sustainable, or as I term it "more ecologically sound"
Also, for future reference, I'll try to not digress this much in the future, but all this really ties in nicely, don't you think?
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