After just observing these beautiful fish for the last 18 months I decided it was time to set them up for spawning.  I picked these guys up from Pete Mang on AquaBid back in 2009 as just some un-identified Danios that came along with the Hikari Danios being auctioned.  For quite some time, I thought they were the stripped version of Danio kyathit, but after looking through Pete Cottle's "Danios & Devarios" book I thought they might be Danio sp. Red Fin.  Using a photo of one of my breeders, Pete thought they could be Red Fin.  However after looking at photos of the F1 fry it was determined that they are indeed Danio sp. kyathit.

These are really beautiful fish and I must thank Glenn Axt for allowing me to use his photo above.  In the right light the rich blue velvet color is high-lighted by the red on the fins.  The males seem to have the best color, but the females are very close behind.

I bought myself a Christmas present this year.  It's a copy of Pete Cottle's "Danios and Devarios".

It's a fantastic reference if you're interested in these fish.  For more info, or to purchase a copy of your own here's the link to Pete's site...

http://www.danios.info/content/book.aspx

Cheers,
Dennis 

What a great day!  I spent the best part of today over in Columbus at Swiss Tropicals.  It's owned by my friend Stephan Tanner, what an asset he is to the aquarium hobby!

Stephan is the US distributor for the Poret® Brand Filter Foam & Jetlifter lift tubes.  That was part of the reason for the trip over.  I bought enough foam to put dividers in two 55's and a 75.  The cool thing about using foam is that it works as a filter as well as being a tank divider.

I'm planning on using the tanks for grow-out tanks for fry and this looks like a great option to get more bang for my buck when it comes to maximizing tank space.

Cheers,
Dennis 

I love DIY projects and sponge filters make for a perfect project.  I don't think you can go wrong when it comes to making your own sponge filters.  I've made them with lots of different materials and in many different ways over the years.  Here's how I build my latest version.

To get started we need the following list of materials...

1. Air line tubing
2. Airline Holders
3. 1/2" rigid air line tubing
4. 5/16" rigid air line tubing
5. Plastic wire ties
6. Poret filter foam

Wow, what a great time I had at the CAFE, (Columbus Area Fish Enthusiasts), Convention today.  I went with my daughter Darcy, and my 8 week old grandson Chris, (he's on the home page looking at the turtle).

They had some great speakers.  Ted Judy talked about a collection trip to Africa.  Rusty Wessel spoke about livebearers and auctioned some very cool swordtails. Brian Zimmerman had a great presentation on native american fish.

My friend Stephan tried to get me hooked up with some very cool Danio tinwini.  I even got to meet Dave Hale from Something Fishy up in Cleveland.  Check him out on the Blue Zoo.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3khuSIjoE&feature=related

We had a tasty lunch and purchased some very nice plants for Darcy's tank too!

Cheers,
Dennis