PART 22: DPM’S NATURAL ADAPTATION TECHNIQUE (DNA TECH)!

<< Previous Here are the steps involved in DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique (DNA Tech):

Step 1. Setup a DPM Type Natural Fishbowl. I shall discuss about DPM Type Natural Fishbowl | Aquarium and DPM Natural Method, in detail, in another section.

Step 2. In this step, you have multiple options. And, you may just exercise one of those. Here are your four options:

     A. Get a couple of healthy, young and not-so-big female pregnant livebearer fishes. Platies are my favorite for this purpose.

     B. Get three healthy, young, sexually matured and not-so-big livebearer fishes. This pack of three should include one male and two females. Platies, again, are my favorite for this purpose.

     C. Get a couple of healthy, young and not-so-big female pregnant egg-layer fishes. Zebra Danios could be a very good choice for this purpose.

     D. Get four healthy, young, sexually matured and not-so-big egg-layer fishes. This pack of four should include two males and two females. The males should not be much bigger than the females.

Step 3. Keep your new fishes in a quarantine tank under observation for a couple of weeks to ensure that they are not infected with any disease or parasite. Take good care of those fishes when they are in your quarantine tank. Maintain good water-quality and get them good quality food. It is all about quality, care and quality of your care! If you do not have a quarantine tank, you may introduce your new fishes into your DPM Type Natural Fishbowl, directly.

Step 4. Let your fishes (the First Generation) breed and bring the next generation to this world. Do not worry about separating the babies | eggs from the parents. That is the beauty of a DPM Type Natural Fishbowl. You just have to let it happen naturally and you need not intervene at all.

Step 5. Once the babies (the Second Generation) are born, you may just let the parents stay in the DPM Type Natural Fishbowl, with the babies | eggs. All the babies are not going to survive and that is natural. The good ones are going to survive. It’s about the survival of the fittest!

Step 6. If none of the babies survive because they all get eaten up by the adults, you may let your fishes breed again to bring the next (Second) generation to this world. This time around, when the babies | eggs show up, you may move the adult fishes to another tank. But, actually, in a DPM Type Natural Fishbowl, this will seldom be required to be done. So, you may never have to perform this step.

Step 7. Once the babies (the Second Generation) grow bigger over the next couple of weeks and you do not notice any abnormality in them, you may consider giving the parents (the adult fishes) away to a friend or a Fish Shop. Because, in this process, after this step, you do not really need those adult fishes. However, it is completely optional and is absolutely a matter of your choice. I would personally love to keep my adult fishes, instead of giving them away. But, it will be wiser, as far as this process is concerned, to shift the adult-fishes (the First Generation) to another tank | fishbowl, before the Second Generation attains sexual-maturity. This will ensure the purity of the targeted adaptability and evolution.

Step 8. Take good care of your fishes. And, wait till the Second Generation attains sexual maturity. Let the Second Generation breed and bring the next (Third) generation to this world. This Third Generation is your Ultimate Bowl Fish!

Here is the logic. The First Generation was born somewhere else and spent part of their life somewhere else, and not in your fishbowl. So, they did not get a fair share of their chance to develop that adaptability in question. They did not get an opportunity to evolve for a Bowl-Living at an early age (early and more ideal stage of their life). The Second Generation was born in a Fishbowl. It got a fair chance to adapt itself to the environment of a Fishbowl since the day it came to this world. It got a good opportunity to evolve through the entire course of its life to make itself more suitable for a Bowl-Living. However, it stood a fair chance of carrying some Non Fishbowl Compatible Traits (NFCTs) from its parents. The Third Generation was born in a Fishbowl. It got a fair chance to adapt itself to the environment of a Fishbowl since the day it came to this world. It got a good opportunity to evolve through the entire course of its life to make itself more suitable for a Bowl-Living. And, it stood a very small chance of carrying any Non Fishbowl Compatible Traits (NFCTs) from its parents (Because, its parents, too, were born in a Fishbowl and lived in a fishbowl). And, that was the deal breaker! That made the Third Generation a winner!

As you see here, if things go fine, you are never going to run out of fishes for your Fishbowl! DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique (DNA Tech) is not too complicated to implement. It just takes a few months to create your winning team of Ultimate Bowl Fishes. The Bowl Fishes so created are going to be really happy and comfortable living in a Fishbowl. However, I would always recommend using a Fishbowl big enough to accommodate about 15 Liters of water, for the best results. Let’s talk about something interesting next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 22: DPM’S NATURAL ADAPTATION TECHNIQUE (DNA TECH)! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 21: CREATING THE ULTIMATE BOWL FISH!

<< Previous I am not a creator, anyway, in this context. I am just a keeper, a facilitator and a researcher to a certain extent. When I decided to get started with my Fish-Keeping hobby again, I evaluated my infrastructure. I learnt that I did not have enough space and a good stand | table to support a full-sized | regular-sized aquarium (Minimum gross capacity: 40 Liters). So, I wanted to go ahead with a more compact and inexpensive alternative. The alternative was a Fishbowl. I went for a Fishbowl and then, another. Later, I realized that it was not a great decision.

Eventually, I wanted to, kind of, reverse-engineer my decision. I went for a Fishbowl, and not a regular-sized aquarium, because it (a Fishbowl) was a suitable option as far as my infrastructural parameters were concerned! However, a Fishbowl was never a great piece of infrastructure for many kinds of fishes and many sizes of fish population, I realized later. The natural next on my part was thinking through the story from the other end of it. Given that I had a couple of Fishbowls, what kind of fish and what size of their population would be the most suitable for a Fishbowl was the question in my mind. I did some reading and research. And, I could eventually identify the fishes (types | varieties) suitable or ideal for a Fishbowl. It was not that difficult a task.

However, there were a few constraints | concerns.

1. Most of those ideal fish-varieties were not available in the local fish-stores.

2. Many of those ideal fish-varieties I did not really like based on the following factors:

            A. Size (The smaller, the better!)

            B. Appearance (It must be beautiful, as per my definition of beauty!)

            C. Activity | Energy Level (How active is that kind of fish?)

            D. Usual dwelling-level in the aquarium (Top | Middle – I liked | Bottom)

            E. Livebearer or Not (I really wanted Livebearers)

            F. Cold Tolerance Level (I wanted those that could tolerate cold water well)

            G. Aggression Level (How good is the fish-type for a community tank?)

            H. Required care-level (How easy it is to care for the fish-type?)

            I. My knowledge-level (How much do I know about that fish-type?)

            J. Ease of Availability and Replacement (How easily the fish type is found?)

            K. Hardiness (A wanted a hardy fish-variety.)

            L. Diet of the fish-type (The more varieties of food it is compatible with, the better!)

            M. Ease of breeding (To make my Fishbowl truly sustainable!)
            N. Its ability to live on Green-algae (It must be one that loves eating Green-algae)

Based on all the factors | constraints mentioned above, I chose Platy to create my Ultimate Bowl Fish with.

Here is my theory of “How to create the ultimate Bowl Fish?”.  This theory aims at addressing the process of creating a fish-population that is really suitable for a Fishbowl. The very first question here is: Is it really possible to create a fish-population that is indeed suitable for a Fishbowl? And, my answer to that question is a BIG YES! And, how do we go about doing it? As I admitted earlier, I am not really a CREATOR, anyway, in this context. So, I cannot really create a new species. I can only facilitate the creation of a new generation of an existing species that is truly suitable for a Fishbowl environment.

I am not an expert in the area of Fish Genetics. However, I believe, the varieties of fishes usually available in the aquarium trade carry a large portion of the genes that they (their ancestors) carried many generations back when they were in nature and were not exposed to selective breeding in captivity. Fishes, over many generations, like many other animals, continuously evolve and make themselves more adaptable to their environment. However, that evolution and adaptation does not happen overnight. It takes a few generations for those adaptions and instances of evolution to surface. With this set of assumptions and beliefs, I theorized a simple process to create the ultimate Bowl Fish. I named the process DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique (DNA Tech). The steps involved in DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique are discussed next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 21: CREATING THE ULTIMATE BOWL FISH! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 20: OLD HABITS DIE HARD!

<< Previous Old habits die hard. And, so does love! When the process of transformation was on and the Wagtail was slowly turning into a male, the Red Male did not stop chasing it. The Red Male found it too difficult to understand why the Wagtail did not cooperate. However, the Red Male did not really want to give up on the chase. It wanted to achieve its goal at any cost. The chase was on. And, the Wagtail turned into a male! The Red Male either could not accept that change or it could not give up on its habit of chasing the Wagtail mistaken for a female.

After the Wagtail became a male, the Red Male did not stop chasing it. And, that resulted in frequent fights between the two males. Both of them fought equally hard. But, the Wagtail was bigger and more powerful. The Red Male was, somehow, reluctant to accept the fact that the Wagtail was not a female anymore! Out of habit or out of its reluctance to accept the fact, it kept chasing the Wagtail. It went on over a couple of weeks. And, eventually, the Red Male stopped chasing the Wagtail with ‘that’ intension in its mind. It was indeed a very interesting chapter in my aquarium and fish experience. And, that was not it. We were scheduled to come across more interesting events next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 20: OLD HABITS DIE HARD! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 19: WHAT? IT’S NOT A GIRL!

<< Previous Platies, like many other creatures, usually have a natural instinct to grow their population. Platies are prolific breeders. But, it was not happening in that line and I did not quite get it. But, wait. Things did not happen because of a reason. And, the reason was really interesting. Over the next few days, the Wagtail started showing the signs of it turning into a male. It was not a case of gender-change or gender-transformation. It was naturally scheduled to become a male and that process had just got started. I, finally, came to know that the Wagtail was not a female, actually. And, that was why the chemistry between the Red Male and the Wagtail never reached a good state. That Wagtail saw its male organ developing slowly over the next few days. And, it was very much conscious, and probably really happy, about the change that happened. It least, it appeared so on the basis of the way it behaved. It looked like as if it was the newly acquired gender-based identity that the fish really liked.

The Wagtail, eventually, became a ‘fully functional’ male. But, it continued concentrating on eating and growing. Unlike, the Red Male, the Wagtail spent most of its time looking for food and eating. The Wagtail became a male bigger than the first official male of the group. During the initial phase after it became a male, unlike the Red Male, it did not show much interest in females. I thought, probably, it was not a real male! And, that thought was not too encouraging. I really wanted to see the next generation. And, I could not wait. Something really interesting happened next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 19: WHAT? IT’S NOT A GIRL! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 18: LOVE IS IN THE AIR!

<< Previous Boys will be boys. The official male, the Red Male Platy, started picking small fights with the smaller fishes. It developed, however, a special interest in the good-looking Wagtail Platy. The Red Male tried all the tricks to impress the Wagtail female. The male kept following the Wagtail while maintaining some physical distance. The Red Male tried to behave as if it was not really following the Wagtail and it was only coincidentally it was found close to the Wagtail. Whenever the Red Male came closer and was noticed by the Wagtail, it (the Red Male) behaved as if it was there to get some food or just to explore that part of its environment. Believe it or not, it was SO exciting to get an opportunity to witness this kind of behavior in my fishes.

The Red Male kept an eye on the Wagtail constantly and tried coming closer to trigger the beginning of courtship. However, the Wagtail, bigger and stronger than the Red Male Platy, did not want to fall in love and the courtship to begin. And, the Red Male was not in a good position to influence the Wagtail’s decision. Neither was the Red Male in a position to apply force to seek an agreement. For, the Wagtail Female was bigger, stronger and always ready for a fight. Love was in the air (water?). But, no love-making could ever happen. I was worried about the way it went. Any possibility of breeding was fading away. Whenever the Red Male came too close to the Wagtail, the wagtail used to launch an attack to repel the Red Male! In that situation, I wondered, whether the next generation of those platies would ever come to this world! The Red Male was not keenly interested in the official Red Female. And, that was obvious. The Wagtail was just too gorgeous to allow the Red Male’s attention to get diverted to the Red Female. There was a very interesting discovery awaiting us next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 18: LOVE IS IN THE AIR! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 17: THERE IS A GIRL TOO!

<< Previous Out of the three grownups, one registered itself as a male - the very first official male in the group. Besides the other tiny fishes, there were two apparently grownup females – a Red Platy and a Wagtail Platy. The Red Platy started to see its female features developing. Eventually, it got a rounder belly and a more female-like shape (in fish terms!). I was really apprehensive. The memory of the first discussed Red Platy becoming a male was still fresh in my mind. I did not really want another male in the group. Another male would result in frequent fights and aggression.

So, I kept a close eye on the Red Platy and its development. After a few days, I did not notice any signs of the Red Platy turning into a Male! So, I was assured that the Red Platy was not going to become a male. Usually, it is better balanced and more harmonious if there are fewer males and more females in a Platy population. Keeping the tiny fishes aside, the ratio was good. I had one male and two females. The female Red Platy was relatively timid. But, the Wagtail Platy was very energetic and a good fighter. It used to fight like a male. It concentrated a lot on eating and growing. It kept on eating. It grew bigger, and better looking, than the rest. Then, this story took an interesting turn next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 17: THERE IS A GIRL TOO! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 16: IT’S A BOY!

<< Previous As those three platies grew and moved slowly, but steadily, toward their physical maturity, I was getting restless. The seer thought of those platies breeding and bringing the next generation to this world was so exciting for me. Non-commercial Fish-Breeding is always a very interesting subject for any aquarist. There are a few special points in case of fish breeding in your aquarium or fishbowl! The new generation resembles their parents, in many cases. You liked their parents and that’s why you had them in your aquarium or fishbowl. So, you tend to like the next generation, as well. More of good things are always a better deal, anyway.

In many other cases, the babies do not resemble there parents, at all. That is an interesting case too. You get new varieties. Besides these two extreme ends of the cases, there are cases where the babies carry some attributes of their parents and some visible attributes not carried by their parents. And, that too is not less interesting a deal. You, still, get new varieties. There is one more advantage. When you get new fishes from pet-shop or fish-shop, there is always a danger of introducing new diseases and parasites to your fish-tank | aquarium | fishbowl. In case of your fish breeding and bringing another generation to this world, you get new fishes that do not usually carry diseases and parasites new to your fish-tank | aquarium | fishbowl. Is not that a great deal?

Within the next few days, one of the bigger Red Platies started showing the signs of it turning into a male. It was not a case of gender-change or gender-transformation. It was naturally going to be a male and that process just had got started. All the platies are female at their birth. Going ahead, some of those become males and some become females, based on certain complex parameters. The group, kind of, decides which one becomes a male or how many of them become males and how many of them become real females. This decision is made in the interest of expanding their population and avoiding the possibility of going extinct. That’s so beautiful a natural mechanism.

That Red Platy saw its male-organ developing slowly over the next few days. And, it was very much conscious, and probably really happy, about the change that happened. It least, it appeared so on the basis of the way it behaved. Eventually, the group got its first official male member. There were interesting events awaiting us next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 16: IT’S A BOY! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 15: HOME, SWEET HOME!

<< Previous Done with our vacation, refreshed and tired, we arrived at our sweet home. We were so happy and relieved to be back at home. The sweetness, however, vanished as soon as I took a look at the fishbowl housing the platy-babies! The water was cloudy and there were dead bodies. Immediately, I started working on it. I changed the water, took the rotten uneaten food and the bodies of the dead baby-fishes out of the fishbowl. I counted and found out that 12 of the fish-babies were dead. The goldfishes were fine in their bowl. I changed the water and cleaned their bowl, too.

After I was done with the cleaning and water-change, I felt better. And, my fishes felt much better. It was a lesson I learnt the hard way. It was not a good idea to leave the platy fry without any human attention. But, I did not have another choice. I went back to my routine of frequent water-changes in the fishbowl that housed the baby-Platies. It all went fine. However, despite my best attempts to provide the best possible care, the platy-baby population continued to shrink. It came to a point where, I started worrying about it; but, continued with whatever I was doing to care for them. I thought, it was natural that all of them were not going to survive to see their adulthood. I stopped keeping count of the Platy-babies. The babies continued to grow in their Fishbowl home. Their growth was slow. But, they appeared healthy. Few of the babies grew better and faster than their sibling.

Three of those Platy-babies, especially, grew faster and bigger. Two of them were Plain Red Platies and one was a Wagtail Platy. At their birth, all of them appeared to be females. And, they continued to appear so over the next several weeks and months. I was hopeful that those three would help the platy-population in my Fishbowl grow again. The biggest among those special three was the Sunset | Light Orange Wagtail platy. There was something interesting that happened NEXT. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 15: HOME, SWEET HOME! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 14: NATURE. THE BEST TEACHER!

<< Previous What more would an aquarist expect to come across? During my October 2011 Goa visit, I had been to Anjuna Beach. I was raised in a coastal city (Puri, Odisha). So, beaches are not new to me. However, this one (Anjuna Beach) was really very special and different. Beaches are either sandy or rocky or muddy, usually. This one was a combination of a massive (partially algae-clad) rock-bed and golden sand. I had not seen something like this earlier. The part that was sandy did not have any rocks. It was just pristine sandy. And, the sea here was relatively very calm! I have been an 'aquarium and fish enthusiast' since my school days. I have always found it absolutely interesting to step into water-bodies to get a glimpse of fishes and other aquatic animals. However, accomplishment of that mission has generally been difficult and challenging. Once I step in, the fishes become frightened and go away to disappear in the depths of the water-body in question. 

At Anjuna, I was delighted and surprised to find that there were tiny waterholes on the rocky surface and those had many varieties of fishes in them! Those were, in fact, small and complete self-sustaining ecosystems. At least, those appeared to be so. Those tiny natural water-holes inspired me to think seriously about making my aquariums more self-sustained in the true sense of the term. I spent some quality time watching those fishes in those waterholes. It was so wonderful an experience. It felt as if I went back to my school days and that boy in me became curious to explore the interesting stuff around. There were beautiful pebbles decorating those waterholes. I could not resist my temptation to collect a few of those pebbles for my aquarium. I was a bit scared initially to put my hands into those waterholes. I knew, there could be many dangerous elements in those seemingly innocent waterholes with crystal-clear water. However, the boy in me overpowered the judgmental (logical) adult in me. I collected some beautiful pebbles. I did not try to catch any fish, though! Not only did I collect some pebbles, I took some pictures and came back with beautiful memories. Another beach that I really liked and collected some pebbles from was Sinquerim Beach near Fort Aguada. After three wonderful days in Goa, I headed home. However, something unfortunate was awaiting us NEXT! NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 14: NATURE. THE BEST TEACHER! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 13: HOME ALONE!

<< Previous Within a couple of weeks, I was going to go on a vacation with my family for three days to Goa, leaving our fishes alone at home! And, the question flashed in my mind. Who was going to take care of the fishes? I considered multiple options. I thought of Food | Feed Blocks, Automatic Feeders, letting a friend feed my fishes, handing the fishes over to a neighbor for three days etc. I, personally, had a not-so-good opinion about the Feeder Blocks and Automatic Feeders because of their obvious side effects. Feeder Blocks have a very bad reputation. Those usually negatively affect the water quality. And many a times, fishes do not like those as food. Automatic Feeders can result in overfeeding in some cases. And, that in turn may deteriorate the water quality. The other options could not pass my sustainability-test. I was reluctant to bother someone just for the sake of my hobby! I wanted to find a way that was more natural and sustainable. I thought, it was just a matter of three days and it would not be hard to find a solution.

A couple of days before going on our vacation, I thought, the tiny fishes would not need much food to stay alive for three days. And, I created a plan accordingly. Just before leaving the fishes alone, I changed the water. I kept a couple of shelled and a couple of non-shelled green peas and a few slices of cucumber for the goldfishes in their container. I placed a small piece cut out of a hard-boiled egg-white and a slice of cucumber for the baby-platies in their Fishbowl. This was the idea. Goldfishes would eat the shelled peas (Green Peas without the transparent inner cover) first. Eventually, the cucumber slices would become softer for the goldfishes to munch on. And, after that, the non-shelled peas would be soft enough for the goldfishes to try and eat. I wanted to make usable (suitable) food available in phases for the fishes in an automatic fashion, to avoid overfeeding. The case was not much different for the platy-babies. They, I thought, would take small bites off the cucumber slice and the small piece of boiled egg-white. When I introduced the cucumber slice and the boiled egg-white to the baby-platies, they got into action and started nibbling. I found this arrangement quite satisfactory. And, we started for our vacation with a belief that when we got back home, we would find all our fishes healthy and happy. This was what happened NEXT! NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 13: HOME ALONE! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 12: THE BABIES GET A NEW HOME!

The babies were happy and healthy in the bucket-nursery. However, a few of them died eventually. I thought, that was natural. And, anyway, I did not expect that all the 50+ babies were going to survive to see their adulthood. Their population was going to be substantially smaller eventually, naturally. I wanted to take them out of the bucket-nursery to a new home. I thought, the ‘water processing and stabilization’ unit would be a great choice for the purpose. That was a 15-Litre all-glass fishbowl. When it comes to aquariums, I like it all-glass, always! We were going to celebrate my daughter Aditi’s 3rd birthday in a couple of days. I thought, it would be a good idea to make the new fishbowl ready with the baby-platies in it. I guessed that Aditi’s guests would certainly be pleasantly surprised to see the smallest live fish they had ever witnessed in their lives. With that thought in mind, I started my work.

I did not have to do much for the purpose. The fishbowl was already clean and I just had to add a little more water. I thought, it would be better to just have a few babies transferred to the fishbowl. In that way, I would be in a position to monitor their health and take a decision on transferring the rest of the babies to the fishbowl. I transferred 8 baby-platies to the fishbowl. On the day of Aditi’s birthday celebration, not only the invited children, but also their parents were so happy to see so tiny beautiful fishes in the newly setup fishbowl. Most of the children just wanted to stay near that fishbowl to watch those tiny fishes. I told them that there were 8 babies and they might try to locate each of them. There were ample number of hiding places in that fishbowl and it was a real challenge to locate each of the 8 babies! After a couple of days, I was sure that there was nothing in the fishbowl that could negatively affect the babies. With that thought, I transferred the rest of the baby-platies into the fishbowl. I understood that naturally only a few of them were going to survive to see their adulthood. Life went on fine for the babies in their new home. And, I was going to come across a very interesting experience NEXT!

PART 12: THE BABIES GET A NEW HOME! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 11: AWAY FROM HOME!

Over the next few weeks, there were no fatalities in the baby-fish nursery. I felt so happy about that. It was probably because of the frequent water changes, great water quality and the special food-formulation, the babies stayed healthy and happy. I thought, it was probably just a myth that most of the babies from a brood did not live long to see their adulthood. The very fact that I did not lose any of those babies kept my level of enthusiasm high. I did not get tired of caring for the babies. One day, I came to know that I had to travel to another state regarding some business I was required to get done with. And, that would need me to be away from home over five days! I wondered how could the babies get appropriate care during my absence? Maintaining the water quality in the baby-fish nursery was the challenge. My wife said she would feed the fishes when I was away from home. But, she would find it really difficult to change the water so frequently without accidentally causing any harm to the acutely tiny creatures. I had my own methods and procedures to get done with that task. This was one of the deep rooted old questions. What if I am not around (Who would care for my fishes)?

I came up with an idea. I thought, the goldfishes would just do fine over 5 days with just one huge water change. And, I planned to do that on the day I was going to start my journey. Then I thought about the nursery. I understood that if I could increase the volume of water substantially in the nursery, a water-change would not be required, so much, for those 5 days. But, the size of the nursery was too small for the purpose. So, I brought a 20-Litre plastic bucket for the purpose. I knew that a plastic bucket was not a great choice. Plastic is potentially toxic for fishes. I picked the best one possible after considering a few parameters. I prepared around 15 litres of water for the purpose. Once the water in that new bucket was ready, I transferred just 3 of the baby platies into the bucket. It was an experiment to see if the health of those 3 babies was adversely affected in the new environment (home). I thought, if the babies survived for 5 days in that bucket, I would be able to consider that one safe for the babies. And, they did survive and did not demonstrate any signs of stress or sickness after 5 days. I felt so happy about the result of the experimentation. Without any delay, I transferred the remaining 50+ platy-babies to the bucket. I wanted to keep the bucket-nursery under observation over a couple of days to see how the babies did there.

I prepared water for a huge water-change in the bucket-nursery on the day I was scheduled to start my journey. I explained the feeding routine and other required details to my wife. Finally, it was that day and I changed water of the goldfish-bowl and the bucket-nursery in the morning. I started my journey, got done with my business and returned home after 5 days. While I was away, I kept calling my wife up to check the status of the bucket-nursery over phone! On my arrival at home, I quickly took a close look at the bucket nursery. The water was a little cloudy. I thought, it was probably because of overfeeding. I changed the water. And, I noticed that 3 baby-platies had died. I separated the dead from the alive. I was not sure whether it was the bucket, bad water-quality or just nature that was responsible for the deaths. I changed the water in the goldfish bowl, as well. I thought, the bucket could not be the cause. Had that been so, many more would have died. It was probably just natural. I really wanted to keep the babies in the bucket-nursery. It gave the babies more space to move, play around and grow. I knew that Platies, like many other fishes, released some kind of chemical into the water they lived in.

That is a beautiful mechanism they deploy to bring in a harmony among their environment | habitat, physical size and population. This is how the mechanism works. Those fishes cannot really measure precisely the size of their environment (The size of the water body they live in | the volume of water they live in). Platies are pre-programmed by nature to deploy this magnificent mechanism. The assumption in this case is that the quantity of food available is directly proportional to the size of the environment. Platies (babies | Fry) release some kind of chemical (growth-inhibiting substance) into their habitat (water-body | aquarium | fishbowl) and keep sensing the density of the chemical in their water. If it feels dense, they kind of know that their environment is really small and relatively lesser amount of food and space are available for their living. And, their physical growth gets regulated accordingly. If they feel that the released chemical is really thinly available in their water, they tend to kind of believe that they are in a relatively bigger environment with a lot of food to eat and a lot of space to grow in. They grow relatively bigger physically with the knowledge that they have a lot of space to move around and a lot of food to eat. In this mechanism, this is what usually happens and I have personally witnessed that. A few of the babies grow really fast to attain their natural adult size and the growth of the rest in a brood gets stunted. And, that actually happened in my context, as well. We had a few more interesting events awaiting us NEXT!

PART 11: AWAY FROM HOME! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 10: THE TEAM GROWS BIGGER!

Just a day after the platy-babies came to this world, a question flashed in my mind. What about the other pregnant female platy? I was pretty sure that it was almost on the verge of giving birth to its babies. But, I was not sure about the date and the time. And, I did not want to take any risk. I thought, however, it was too much of work to compose a separate container again for this to-be platy-mom and its babies. For the sake of optimization and efficiency, I wanted to compose an arrangement inside the fishbowl itself. It offered a couple of advantages. I had less work to do; I did not have to stress the to-be mom by transferring it from the fishbowl. Since I was not sure after how many days exactly the babies are going to arrive, I did not want to confine the to-be mom to a smaller container. That would stress the fish and was not good for the unborn babies either. With the baby-safe arrangement done inside the fishbowl, I did not have to worry anymore about how many more days the to-be mom was going to take to deliver the babies. The baby-safe composition was in place to provide safety to the babies whenever they arrived. This method has one disadvantage. In this arrangement, separating the babies from the mom and other adults was going to be a bigger and more complex task. I thought, let that be the case. The advantages were big enough to make that disadvantage look so small. And, I thought, working for results was not better than working for results after actually obtaining the results! So, I wanted to put in hard work after seeing the babies.

Over that afternoon, when I came home for my lunch, I just rushed to the fishbowl and noticed that the swollen belly of the pregnant Wagtail platy had gone flat. It was the time to look for the babies. I took a closer look and could spot a few little creatures hidden in the bushy artificial plants. I wanted to forego my lunch and get into business. I brought a bucket of water. I transferred all the 10 adult fishes from the fishbowl to the bucket. I did not disturb the baby-safe arrangement anyway and took about 70% of the water out. I ensured that I did not take out any platy-baby with water. After decreasing the water-level considerably in the fishbowl, I started dismantling the baby-safe infrastructure. Once I was done, I had only a little water and the new-born platy babies in the fishbowl. It was time to transfer the babies to the container that already housed 20+ 1-day-old babies. I transferred the new-born babies along with that little water to a plastic container. Then, with the help of a tea-cup I transferred them into the platy-baby container (Nursery). I wanted to do the transfer in two stages to avoid passing the mess and dirt from the fishbowl to the nursery. I got a chance to count the babies while I did the transfer in batches. There were about 30+ babies from this mom! So, I got 50+ platy-babies in my nursery. Then, I restored the fishbowl and transferred back the 10 adults into it.

That nursery was a bare-bottom 4-Litre glass jar. I liked that better without any gravel and decoration. I was in a position to clearly see how each of the babies did. The new batch of babies did not take much time to get trained with their food. I kept the babies on finely crushed dry fish-food for about a couple of weeks. Then after some reading, research and experimentation, I formulated a new kind of fish food for the babies. I shall discuss about my fish-food formulation and experimentation in another section. I was so happy and contended to get 50+ platy babies. I knew that not all of them were going to survive. That was natural. Not all fish-babies do survive in the nature (wild). On a closer examination, I realized that some of the babies had deformities. And, those were the ones that were probably not going to stay long. To give the babies their best chance of survival, I changed up to 50% of the water and fed them thrice every day. With the nursery in place, I had to maintain three homes that housed my fishes - The goldfish bowl, the platy bowl and the nursery! That was a little too much work to do on a regular basis. But, my keen interest in my hobby could keep me away from getting tired of the chore. After all my adult platies died, I was careful not to use untreated tap-water, strait from the tap, in my goldfish bowl and baby-fish nursery. I followed a simple method. I brought a new 16-Litre bucket and stored tap-water in that for a span of 48 hours before using that in my goldfish bowl. However, I did not use that water directly in the nursery. 

I disinfected, thoroughly cleaned and restored the fishbowl that had accommodated the adult platies. I used this fishbowl as a little water-processing and stabilizing unit. This is how it worked. To initialize the unit, I filled that with water that had stayed for more than 48 hours in the bucket. Then, I added a little bit of relatively clean water from the nursery to the water in the stabilizing unit. After keeping the water in that unit for more than 24 hours, I added once again a little bit of relatively clean water from the nursery to the water in the stabilizing unit. Then, I took the required volume of water from the unit to use in my nursery. And, then, took the same volume of water (kept for more than 48 hours) from the bucket and added that to the water in the stabilizing unit. I continued this cycle to reduce the variance in water quality. Life went on fine for me and the platy-babies. But, there were couple of interesting events awaiting us NEXT!

PART 10: THE TEAM GROWS BIGGER! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 9: THE NEXT GENERATION ARRIVES!

The paradise was lost! But, it was not over. Nature was on my side. Two females out of my 4 Wagtail platies were pregnant when I brought them home. Their pregnancy was in an advanced stage. I was so curious to see the babies. It was an evening one month before the unfortunate happened to all my platies. I was at my study table. It was so refreshing to look intermittently at the fishbowl that housed my platies. The fishbowl, along with the fishbowl that housed my goldfishes, was placed on my table. Every time I looked at the fishbowl, a question flashed in my mind. When were the platy moms going to deliver their babies? I was so curious. I had never seen any fish giving birth to a baby-fish. I was kind of restless to witness that event. I was eagerly waiting for that special moment. I knew that it was really difficult to ascertain exactly when (date and time) the platy moms were going to deliver their babies. After some reading on the subject, I felt that the moment and the event were too far away. That made me still more restless and curious. I was not exactly looking at the fishbowl and suddenly, I felt as if something was dropped by a platy. I took a closer look and saw that it was a baby-platy delivered. Surprized and thrilled, I shouted aloud to inform my wife that one of our platies had delivered a baby. But, I did not know which one out of those two moms delivered that baby. Because, I did not see the baby coming out of its mother’s belly. The baby-platy tried to swim away and hide itself. However it was not quick enough to escape the jaws of the other platies that really liked a baby-platy snack. And, that unfortunate event happened and the baby vanished into the world of lost.

It was a real challenge. I did not have much time. I had two urgent tasks to do. I had to identify the mom that delivered the baby and to take that mom to a separate container where it would deliver its babies. A platy-mom usually gives birth to 5 to 35 babies in one go. She does that within a span of an hour or a couple of hours. I took a break from my book. And, I watched really carefully the two platy-moms. After about 5 minutes, I thought I had identified the one that delivered the baby. That one behaved a little differently and was restless. And, its birth canal was slightly more swollen compared to that of the other pregnant one. With the identification done, I had two more challenging tasks to perform. First, I needed to setup a separate container where the platy-mom was going to deliver its babies. Second, I was required to take that platy-mom out of the fishbowl as carefully and gently as possible. Pregnant platies get stresses so easily if an attempt is made to catch them and transport them to another place or container. When stressed, a pregnant platy may abort its babies. And, one in the process of delivering babies has a greater chance of getting stresses to death if appropriate care is not taken to catch and transport it. Many aquarists use a Breeder-Box (Breeding Box) to house a pregnant mom that is about to give birth to its babies. However, it is difficult to predict the exact date and time of delivery. So, usually, a pregnant platy-mom spends a couple of days in a Breeder-Box before it delivers it babies. Platies have a tendency to eat their own babies if the babies are not transferred to a separate container immediately after their birth. Breeder-Box, however, is stressful for a pregnant-platy. And, it was not a choice, of course, when it was about a fishbowl and not a fish-tank.

Quickly, I started working on preparing the container. It was a 4-Litre glass-jar. I used white aquarium pebbles (gravels) and a few artificial aquarium plants to design an arrangement. In that arrangement, there was a dedicated space for the platy-mom. There was a barrier that would not allow the mom to move to other areas in that container. The barrier however had tiny openings to allow the babies to escape through from the mom’s space to their hiding space. Their hiding space was built with pebbles and bushy artificial aquarium plants. Platy babies, just after their birth, are able to swim, hide themselves and move away from predators. That is the kind of inbuilt programming the platy-babies (Platy Fry!) are born with. It was about 12:00 AM and I was done with composing the container. Carefully, I transferred the platy-mom from the fishbowl to the composed container. It was stressed to an extent and was restless. I left some food for it in the container so that it would eat that when it would be hungry after giving birth to its babies. In that way, it would be less likely to eat the babies to satisfy its hunger. It was too late for me to wait for the event that was going to span over a couple of hours. My daughter Aditi found it all very interesting and expressed her reluctance to go to bed. I switched off the lights and went to bed. Aditi, too, fell asleep. I got up early and rushed to the container that housed the platy-mom.

The first thing I noticed was the swollen belly of the mom had gone flat. That indicated that it had released (delivered) its babies. Then I spotted a tiny platy-baby. I saw a few more hiding themselves in the bushy artificial plants and the pebbles. So, it was time to separate the mom and the babies. Carefully, again, I transferred the mom back to the fishbowl. I let the babies stay in that arrangement for a few more hours. Then, I took out the pebbles and plants out of the container. I was in a position to take a count. There were, believe it or not, more than 20 platy babies. They looked like tiny transparent pink mosquitos with relatively big pair of eyes! I was so excited to see the babies. Those babies were almost identical. Appearance wise, they had really minute variations which were apparent upon close verification. I served the babies some finely crushed fish-food. They took some time to identify that as food. Once they did so, they got started happily with their first meal. I changed the water partially to get rid of the small amount of mess created by the mom. Let me tell you, changing water was so huge a challenge. There was always a risk of losing a few babies with the outgoing water. I came up with a method. I used a thin transparent flexible hose to induce an outflow. And, I kept a close watch on the receiving end of the hose. If I noticed a baby sucked into the hose, I was ready to close the other end of the hose with my fingertip to stop the flow! And, then, I transferred the baby back to the container. In addition to this mechanism, I added one more layer of safety. I collected the water from the hose in a clean bucket. After the collection was over, each time, I used to check the water in the bucket for presence of platy-babies. In case I found one, I used to transfer that back to the container using a tea-cup. I had the choice of putting a fine net on the receiving end of the hose. But, I thought, that would be ineffective in cleaning the mess created by the babies. Well, it all went on fine and the babies did quite well in their new home. There was something interesting going to happen NEXT!

PART 9: THE NEXT GENERATION ARRIVES! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PART 8: PARADISE LOST!

The platies got their own home. And, the goldfishes did not have to share their home with anyone else! That very fact was a source of happiness for the goldfishes and the fishes that did not have to share their space with the goldfishes! The new fishbowl looked really good with so many beautiful and playful fishes in it. I kept spending a long time everyday watching the platies in their new home. The 15-Litre fishbowl was in no way big enough for 10 platies. Water in that bowl became dirty sooner than later. That required me to change the water once in every two days. To do absolute justice to the water quality in my platy-bowl, I continued to change about 90% of the water during each round of water change. My intention was to keep the bowl absolutely clean. My idea was simple. I thought, if the water looked really clean, the bowl was truly clean and comfortable for its inhabitants. And, it was not easy on my part to change the water so frequently. In an ideal case, an aquarist spends more time watching and enjoying its aquarium and fishes than cleaning the aquarium and changing the water. Despite the discomfort resulting from that routine, I continued changing the water that frequently. After the death of all of my mollies, I did not want to take any chance and leave any room for error. I was absolutely determined to provide the best possible environment to my fishes.

However, unfortunately, I was continuing to commit multiple serious mistakes. First, I had overstocked the fishbowl. 10 platies are a way bigger population than what was ideal for a fishbowl of that size. 4 could have been a good number. Well, I was the author of the problem! Second, I used untreated tap water in my fishbowl. That was very dangerous for the fishes. Most municipalities or local water companies add chemicals to the water to make it safe to drink (e.g., chlorine or chloramine to kill bacteria)! Chlorine and chloramine are two dangerous substances for fishes. Third, changing water too frequently was really very stressful for the fishes. Stressed fishes fall sick very easily. Fourth, during a water change, ideally not more than 30% of water is changed. And, I was doing 90% for the sake of cleanliness! On top of all these flaws, there was another serious mistake.  The fishbowl was not “cycled” before the platies got it as their new home. Let me tell you what is “cycling” in this context.

Fishes, like all living creatures, produce waste products (pee and poo). These nitrogenous waste products break down into Ammonia (NH3). Ammonia is highly toxic to most fishes. In nature, the volume of water per fish is extremely high and waste products, and the resultant Ammonia, become diluted to low concentrations. In aquariums and fishbowls, that is not the case. It can take as little as a few hours for ammonia concentrations to reach toxic levels enough to kill fishes. The nitrification 'cycle' is the biological process that converts ammonia into other relatively harmless nitrogen compounds. Fortunately, several species of bacteria do this conversion for us. Some species convert ammonia (NH3) to nitrite (NO2-), while others convert nitrite to nitrate (NO3-). Thus, cycling the tank refers to the process of establishing bacterial colonies in the aquarium or fishbowl that convert ammonia into nitrite, and nitrite into nitrate. The fish waste contains the ammonia on which the bacteria live. Usually a couple of hardy fishes are used to cycle a tank or fishbowl. A 100% (well, close to 100%) change of water, in case of a fishbowl without a filter and decorations, takes the helpful bacteria out the bowl in question. Without the bacteria, the automatic (natural) water treatment (purification) stops. That big a water change also leads to a great variation in the water temperature. And, that is not good for the fishes.

Eventually, the combined result of all these above mentioned mistakes took its toll on the fishes. My fishbowl got infested with a highly contagious parasitic infestation caused by the protozoan Ichthyophthirius Multifillis (Fish louse with many children). This is popularly known as the White Spot Disease | Ich | Ick. Although the disease is the equivalent of a skin infection, Ich can easily be fatal to a fish stressed by poor diet or habitat. And, it was! I tried to treat my fishes with Methylene Blue and Aquarium Salt. But, I was not so skilled and effective in executing the treatment. The treatment failed. The platies started falling flat one after another. One of the female Micky Mouse platies was pregnant. Before leaving for ever, it gave birth to a few babies that were not yet ready to come to this world. Those did not survive, either. The dark veil of death covered the fishbowl. It was really so painful a scene to witness. I was too powerless to take control of what was happening. Within a span of 36 hours, 9 out of 10 fishes died. The only one that remained was a relatively young Red Wagtail platy. It was the one least affected in the pack. I tried treating that one with Aquarium Salt, before transferring it to the quarantine tank. I was not sure whether the dose was wrong or the procedure was wrong. When I initiated the treatment it reacted as if it came in contact with high-voltage electricity. In less than 3 seconds, I could take it to a container filled with plain water. It just fell into the water like a stone. There were no signs of life in its body. After a few seconds, it woke up to swim a bit for a second in a strange fashion and fell to the bottom of the container. I was surprised and thought that was the end of it. It woke up again to swim a bit in that strange fashion. I was hopeful this time. Finally, it really recovered and started swimming normally. I thought, at last, at least one of them survived the death storm. I was wrong, unfortunately. I found that platy dead after a couple of hours. I still feel guilty. I think, probably, my wrong treatment killed that poor fish. That’s how I lost all my platies. However, there was something really interesting that was going to happen NEXT!

PART 8: PARADISE LOST! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.