I've been watching your videos again and again because I seem to learn something new each time I watch. Something that stood out to me today is how different the nature noises are from your first video to your most recent. It is like we can hear nature waking up from the winter and coming alive. I'm in Canada where it is still cold... hearing the bugs, frogs and birds in your videos makes me excited for spring to get here!
Thanks again for sharing! Just got a group of orange ines for our balcony. They are so peaceful to watch. You did a great job explaining your thoughts on green water, I couldn't have done better, and im a zookeeper!
Something I don't understand... I have an indoor tub with orange/white medaka, a tub with shimmering platinum medaka and a 20 gallon tank with solid orange and white medaka. All the same temperature, water quality and food. I'm giving them 13 hours of direct light and some additional ambient light. My orange/white medaka are producing eggs every day like clockwork, but no fish in my other containers are showing eggs. All fish purchased at the same time, at the same physical size and with equal numbers of males/females. Why is one group producing eggs and not the others? Any tips for getting them going? Thanks.
I'm not at all surprised. From my eggs in mid-winter video you can see that my white medaka produced eggs at about 18 degC but no eggs from the orange and redcaps. My guess (and these temperatures are only very approx) is that my white medaka start to produce eggs at 18-20 degC; orange and redcaps 22-25 degC; yozakura and nishiki 26-28 degC. I'm not an expert on either medaka or dogs but maybe dogs are a good analogy ..... a mixed breed dog with a diverse gene pool may breed more easily and produce a higher number of puppies than a pure breed dog. So, similar to dogs, you can't expect that all medaka breeds are the same in all respects. For example, platinum medaka may need higher temperatures to start the breeding process. But there may be other reasons. As just one example, I've heard that too many males in the same tub may spend all their time fighting over territory and never settle down enough to encourage a female to produce eggs. Maybe you could get a 5 gallon bucket and see if you get more success with a breeding trio of 1 male to 2 females. Sometimes a major water change will initiate the breeding process.
In my opinion, healthy water for Medaka for fry isn't sterile water. Healthy water is a balanced, self-sustaining ecosystem. How I achieved this is heat & filtered natural light (via greenhouse), 3-4 ft high pot w/ thick but low plants @ floor to release oxygen (I prefer vallisneria, cabomba, weighted hornwort ... anything that doesn't require CO2 and much light but will release oxygen), a few floaters, I use water hyacinths), various micro fauna (seed shrimp, micro worms, tubifex & black worms, moina, etc.), & cycled green water to feed the micro fauna. Once this has found a balance in a month (use an airstone or fine mesh to avoid mosquito larvae when no fry), add fry. Remove any airstone or cover. You won't need to feed them (maybe a light sprinkle once in a while "just in case"). To check if you did this right, take a sample of water from top (a fast scoop of about half a cup ... i use a soup ladle). You should see various moving micro fauna. If floor vegetation is reaching top of water or floating plants get too thick, they may block the light and clear the water, you need sunlight at surface to keep water green for micro fauna. Mosquitos will start laying eggs but fry will eat them as they get bigger. Add low voltage fountain pump covered with filter floss near lower middle of pot and pointed at floor vegetation (this will release naturally occurring airbubbles on leaves) if fry are too small to control mosquitos.
Wow, I'm sure you get excellent results with that system and I can see how it might be interesting to set up and run.. However, my experiences with the natural eco route of green water, micro-organisms, etc has resulted in very variable results. Personally I think I don't have enough patience to set up and properly maintain a natural system like that. For my more valued medaka I'm happier with my simple, controlled, clean water/powdered fry food system that, for me, produces consistent results. For my basic medaka that produce lots of eggs, I'll often just throw a spawning mop with eggs into a bucket of pond water with floating plants and see what I get a few weeks later.
I love your content. These are the rice fish tutorials we need!
The floating ruler... brilliant!
I've been watching your videos again and again because I seem to learn something new each time I watch. Something that stood out to me today is how different the nature noises are from your first video to your most recent. It is like we can hear nature waking up from the winter and coming alive. I'm in Canada where it is still cold... hearing the bugs, frogs and birds in your videos makes me excited for spring to get here!
Loving your videos. I’m in my third year of medaka tubbing
Thanks again for sharing! Just got a group of orange ines for our balcony. They are so peaceful to watch. You did a great job explaining your thoughts on green water, I couldn't have done better, and im a zookeeper!
Wow, thanks for the compliment.
Something I don't understand... I have an indoor tub with orange/white medaka, a tub with shimmering platinum medaka and a 20 gallon tank with solid orange and white medaka. All the same temperature, water quality and food. I'm giving them 13 hours of direct light and some additional ambient light. My orange/white medaka are producing eggs every day like clockwork, but no fish in my other containers are showing eggs. All fish purchased at the same time, at the same physical size and with equal numbers of males/females. Why is one group producing eggs and not the others? Any tips for getting them going? Thanks.
I'm not at all surprised. From my eggs in mid-winter video you can see that my white medaka produced eggs at about 18 degC but no eggs from the orange and redcaps. My guess (and these temperatures are only very approx) is that my white medaka start to produce eggs at 18-20 degC; orange and redcaps 22-25 degC; yozakura and nishiki 26-28 degC. I'm not an expert on either medaka or dogs but maybe dogs are a good analogy ..... a mixed breed dog with a diverse gene pool may breed more easily and produce a higher number of puppies than a pure breed dog. So, similar to dogs, you can't expect that all medaka breeds are the same in all respects. For example, platinum medaka may need higher temperatures to start the breeding process.
But there may be other reasons. As just one example, I've heard that too many males in the same tub may spend all their time fighting over territory and never settle down enough to encourage a female to produce eggs. Maybe you could get a 5 gallon bucket and see if you get more success with a breeding trio of 1 male to 2 females. Sometimes a major water change will initiate the breeding process.
In my opinion, healthy water for Medaka for fry isn't sterile water. Healthy water is a balanced, self-sustaining ecosystem.
How I achieved this is heat & filtered natural light (via greenhouse), 3-4 ft high pot w/ thick but low plants @ floor to release oxygen (I prefer vallisneria, cabomba, weighted hornwort ... anything that doesn't require CO2 and much light but will release oxygen), a few floaters, I use water hyacinths), various micro fauna (seed shrimp, micro worms, tubifex & black worms, moina, etc.), & cycled green water to feed the micro fauna.
Once this has found a balance in a month (use an airstone or fine mesh to avoid mosquito larvae when no fry), add fry. Remove any airstone or cover. You won't need to feed them (maybe a light sprinkle once in a while "just in case"). To check if you did this right, take a sample of water from top (a fast scoop of about half a cup ... i use a soup ladle). You should see various moving micro fauna. If floor vegetation is reaching top of water or floating plants get too thick, they may block the light and clear the water, you need sunlight at surface to keep water green for micro fauna. Mosquitos will start laying eggs but fry will eat them as they get bigger. Add low voltage fountain pump covered with filter floss near lower middle of pot and pointed at floor vegetation (this will release naturally occurring airbubbles on leaves) if fry are too small to control mosquitos.
Wow, I'm sure you get excellent results with that system and I can see how it might be interesting to set up and run.. However, my experiences with the natural eco route of green water, micro-organisms, etc has resulted in very variable results. Personally I think I don't have enough patience to set up and properly maintain a natural system like that.
For my more valued medaka I'm happier with my simple, controlled, clean water/powdered fry food system that, for me, produces consistent results. For my basic medaka that produce lots of eggs, I'll often just throw a spawning mop with eggs into a bucket of pond water with floating plants and see what I get a few weeks later.