I think it is time to send out a public thank you to a guy named Chen, who gave me a 5 foot stand and tank setup at the end of last year.
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I grinded back the stand, removing rust and painted it yellow. Giving the tanks a clean and adding in plumbing.
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Next onto the sump, building this with the year 8 boys was a lot of fun. Teaching them tips that their dad's may not, in terms of gluing and joining pipes etc. We also made some DIY overflows in case of power outage.
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Then two lakes were identified and setup: Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. Originally put some Frontosa in the bottom two tanks, but these tanks were too shallow and not suitable with all the student traffic.
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Now they are filled with snake skin guppies. The boys have been collecting the fry each morning and placing in breeding baskets. A few boys have even taken pregnant mothers home, to start their own aquariums. It has been just the most awesome project and I have got so many boys into fresh water fish keeping!
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Only the best looking males get to go in the tank with females of age. Students' whose fry grow to maturity are allowed to borrow the stud males for good genetic lines to continue.
It has taken many generations to breed out the 5 or 6 fry max, that mothers would produce (and then die). And I wonder if this has something to do with original supplier overseas tampering with hormones to regulate/ control the market?? Just a thought... I have seen a few red grass and other expensive imported guppies die within months of arriving. And nothing is to with water quality or aquarium shops they have come from in Perth. I now regularly find 20-30 fry produced per female, sometimes up to 50, which I feel proves this statement above to hold some ground...