119 replies to this topic

[Buccal]

I'm looking forward to seeing them. The other pix just frustrated me Hope they are what you want.


Buccal, sorry that happened. Surely it'd have to be a solvent or some other strong reagent rather than just copper, though. In my understanding, heavy metals are pretty slow acting.

Little known fact: Often the first sign of lead poisoning in humans is the loss/impairment of the ability to do mental arithmetic.

nb: this ability is hard to test in fish...

Yeah, must have been the flux like residue from the brazing to join the copper pipes, but at the time of poisoning, it was unbelievably fast.
The moliro tropheus turned yellow and the archer fish went solid black, electric yellows went deep orange brown and electric blues went olive color. Very, very weird.

[sydad]

Meh. Be interested in how heavy metals get in a fish tank in something more than homeopathic quantities.
I'd imagine that malachite type medications would far exceed in copper anything that came out of a pipe.
Not a great deal of mercury in thermometers these days.

Despite the malachite appellation, there is NO copper in malachite green, and to the best of my knowledge no formulation recommends the addition of copper salts to an already dangerously toxic (though admittedly useful) chemical.

As for mercury in thermometers, all mercury filled thermometers contain mercury, though these are not the recommended thermometers for aquaria.

Syd.

[bigjohnnofish]

copper is one of the most toxic metals to have in your fish tank...

kleinz you will find the heavy metals come in via your mains water... we all get them but to what extent we dont know... there are guidelines as to what is suitable for human consumption and what is not... most of these heavy metals are all around us and they will find their way into our dams and ground water......

and for the comment of heavy metals take a long time to kill is really off the mark.... drink a glass of mercury and see how long you last!!!! its all about how much quantity is present in your water and your fishes tolerance of these heavy metals....

one would assume with water changes your heavy metals go out and in and stay approx the same... Or do heavy metals accumulate and stay in your tank and over time - many years become high???

anyway i havent been caught on the copper pipe contamination yet... i always turn on all the taps and flush out for a good period of time after any copper work on our pipes... and thoroughly recommended for anybody else to do the same... very sad you had to learn this lesson the hard way buccai

[Buccal]

Yes, a hard lesson learnt.

[Kleinz]

Cmon Syd, you are being a bit obtuse here. When was the last time you saw a mercury thermometer in a fish tank or an LFS? They are pretty uncommon in domestic applications now. Everything is either alcohol or digital.
For malachite green to not contain copper, it would have to not contain malachite, which as you know is a cuprous mineral. Granted, it might not, but I guess it's a natural mistake if I have made it. I would have assumed something called malachite green might contain malachite. If I'm wrong, then mea culpa

Also, I think it could be supported that neither would kill fish in minutes and certainly not so dramatically.

kleinz you will find the heavy metals come in via your mains water... we all get them but to what extent we dont know... there are guidelines as to what is suitable for human consumption and what is not... most of these heavy metals are all around us and they will find their way into our dams and ground water......

and for the comment of heavy metals take a long time to kill is really off the mark.... drink a glass of mercury and see how long you last!!!! its all about how much quantity is present in your water and your fishes tolerance of these heavy metals....

Johnno, mercury was widely (mis)used in medicine for millennia. The king to whom that terracotta army belongs took it as a tonic. Isaac Newton used it. It was common to use it as a purgative or as a treatment for syphilis. I think it was taken for cholera. They drank it by the glass and lasted years. True, it did nasty things, but not overnight.

Sugar was really scarce in the Roman world so they used to put lead acetate, which has a sweet taste, in their wine. Prolly killed quite a few of them and sickened way more, but not quickly or they wouldn't have had time to , you know, build an empire and all that.

It's not quick. Really. It's not.

That's how fish manage to accumulate large enough amounts to be a danger to us eating them. In the tropics, you should be really careful about eating sharks, because the amount of mercury in them is huge.

As for tap water, it's treated and tested. It's not hard to find out what's in it. The acceptable levels of heavy metals are pretty low and I imagine if there was any more than a smidge of any of them the water board would chelate the hell out if it. Groundwater in a city is always suspect, and roof runoff would vary widely, but if scheme water was off we would see evidence in the health of the population by now.


Copper. Copper might be different. I'm not sure. It's certainly death for a lot of inverts. I think it would be less dangerous in an alkaline environment like a Rift Lake tank , but the acid flux might well have resulted in a lot of free copper at once. That's all I can think of. I don't know enough there. If they were gasping and it is copper, perhaps it affects blood or gills adversely. But given that Buccal had flushed extensively first and it was so quick... I dunno. You'd expect that kind of effect from a litre of bleach, but not a smidge of copper surely.



Anyway this is all academic and killing time until the main even which is when

HYPANHEAVEN PRODUCES THE AWESOME MUTANT FISH PIX WE ARE ALL HERE FOR!





ps. If you are epileptic: sorry about that...

Edited by Kleinz, 07 October 2012 - 08:26 AM.

[Buccal]

That's a funny way to end your speech and cap it off kleinz.
Being a lot of joins and bends the flux and residue that becomes solid from constant heating and joining on the inside of pipe may had not broken down and flushed away properly before use.
But after that I left it a bare minimum trickle almost dripping going straight into the waiste pipe. I let this go for over a month !
Obviously all was good after that.
But yeah as previously said, I'm intrigued with the clarification on numbers and appearances of these alb peps.
Usually different things seem to happen in America, Germany or Asia. But it's here.
As Johnno said, a couple of years wait for any one else to get them if hypan is successfull with the line continuation.
And doesn't over price LOL.

[Hypanheaven]

What's over price buccal? I'm thinking same price range as pure LeopoldI pairs? Hehehe jjks

[Buccal]

Never really had a figure in mind.
But it comes down to how many he can produce and more importantly how many he decides to make available.
To protect their value, (and I know some of you may hate me saying this), is to sell at high price here.
A few people here will buy, then the rest will think its to much. So the rest get posted interstate on the known pleco forums.
They will sell like hot cakes east.
If my opinion is wanted on a reasonable asking price to start. Well depending on the availability between $80-$120 each.
Having a go at trying higher prices may work east to begin with.
A lot of novices seem to think making fish cheap and affordable is what gets the fish out their. Very common bread and butter fish, yes it's true.
But rare fish and for sure the pleco world, it's the desire to own something of high value or reproducing of high value.
I scout a multitude of forums, I see it every time. Lots and lots of one species become abundant and price drops then there's a flood in the market because everyone jumps on the next boat for rarities. A couple of people here I won't name, take advantage of this by bringing the flooded fish here and selling for to cheap and fast forwarding the problem here.
These are my observations and I believe this is very true. It's not a five minute thought or statement.
I hope Johnno agrees with me, he seems to be well advanced in pleco's more than anyone here and is always many steps ahead with what's next with values.
It's a crazy, crazy world out there with unbelievable amounts of money for such small and low number of fish. Eg, $15000 for ten 4.5cm fish !!!!
The privileged of getting first dibs are the ones who flash the cash !!!!!

[werdna]

You may as well charge like a wounded bull for them.
In a couple of years they will be worth stuff all anyway!

To me the great thing about these fish is the contrast of black and white.
Why people pay more for a fish with all the colour bred out of them is something I will never understand.
But all the while there are people out there willing to spend their money on a fish that will look just like an albino bn, you may as well milk that cash cow.

This is my opinion on albino's, I am entitled to it. If you dont like my opinion, please go to this page
http://www.perthcich...onewhocares.php and lodge a complaint

[Hypanheaven]

Where's the love Andrew

[waxy]

To me the great thing about these fish is the contrast of black and white.
Why people pay more for a fish with all the colour bred out of them is something I will never understand.
But all the while there are people out there willing to spend their money on a fish that will look just like an albino bn, you may as well milk that cash cow.

Very true Werdna as cool as it is that there are albino peps now, I cant see it being an improvement in looks over a standard pep. But Im sure there are plenty of people who will buy at a high price.
On another forum not too long ago someone was selling an albino L333 for approx $2000 from memory which in my opinion looked no where near as nice as the common 333. And further back there was some albino adonis for sale too. The adonis was a nice looking fish tho in albino form.

[scottyhooton]

Nice link Andrew

[werdna]

Well if you cant have fun on the forum, whats the point?

[choombies]

Be better without the typo or something

[Hypanheaven]

It's funny how everyone is talking money, fair enough someone might pay good cash for them I'm just bloody stoked I bred my Peps, had the pricks for ages since they were 2.5cm even sold my biggest male because I thought he was useless seems I was right!!!! Just for everyone's info these are around 14-15 months old, have lived in every tank environment known from fully planted forest with co2 injection etc, to Then in my Malawi s which is full of aragonite and limestone to now where they bred which is inert rocks and play sand

Edited by Hypanheaven, 07 October 2012 - 11:40 AM.

[dazzabozza]

I agree don't worry about he money side at this stage. Focus on keeping them alive and get them into a breeding program first.

[Buccal]

I also agree personally that albinoism lessens the attractiveness in most cases.
There are some cases where they can look as good being albino in a alternative way.
P.nigripinnis the background obviously white cream or orange or yellow as albino makes the florescent pinky blue lines stand out.
D.comp albino with the body pearly white makes the unusual color of deep red and mauves vibrantly glow.(some males better than others)
Even quality albino bristlenose can have a glowing pumpkin orange look.
What if the markings on the alb peppy when they mature go a pinky color ?
But yes time will tell i guess.
If profit on fish is not of interest, well it's not of interest then.
But selling them to top dollar payers, breeders is the best way to get them out there.

[Kleinz]

I hear you Hypan. I have gotten my pepps to breed successfully precisely once. Tetchy buggers. The males are doing their part...

I did notice the fry were pale to start with. I'm with Werdna on albinos, but it'd still be cool.


You on that helicopter yet?

[bigjohnnofish]

when peppies first hit the scene years ago they were $90 each for 3cm fish....

price is whatever someone is willing to pay for them.... once the initial fad has worn off they will be worth less then normal pepps unfortunately...guessing 4-5 years down the track....

im interested to see if they have the white seem like normal pepps and if they keep it... and if its white spots will be visible against the albino body??? i suppose at the end of the day if may well look similar to a common albino b/n.....

as buccai said retaining fish value is important.... if the fish is worthless no-one will buy it... but because they are pepps and have longer grow up period before coming of breeding age the price will be steady for a long time... so whether or not you decide to hang onto them and breed them before selling any or not wont affect the overall price and its longevity...

average price for a lot of commonly bred plecos is around the $50 mark so i think somewhere between 50 and a 100 bucks a fish isnt out of the question....

you are gonna have around a 4 year wait before you can expect fry to be everywhere... approx 2 years to grow current fry up... then their fry once sold will take approx 2 years to breed so the fish value as i said before wont drop real quick...

all assumming theres no set backs and deaths....

waiting for some action... must be nearly photo time ??

[Hypanheaven]

dont hold your breath, i managed to find only a few fry and there plain old peppermints....my L066 has doubled in size though..... I still have a huge log in there (3foot long) that is hollow and can house probably 40 peppermint fry and me not be able to see them at all so when i get a chance i might try get that out, until then its put zuchini in and play a waiting game. I did find a few little fellas cactus in the canister, need to fly wire the strainer, didnt expect fry