By Rosario
Arijón
Growth = health +
environment + nutrition
If we talk about reproduction,
feeding, or any aspect of lebistes life, it
is taken for granted that we are referring
to animals able to properly perform their
vital functions.
The process of reproduction
is so easy that even a child would succeed
by following simple directions. If the new
borns are healthy they will survive no matter
the kind of food supplied. Lebistes
can be bred with little work, in large
numbers and within a short period of time.
Such ease is opposed to the
challenge of keeping a high quality.
Pursuing this aim we must achieve a maximum
growth which is tightly linked to genetics,
environment and feeding.
A right application of
breeding techniques provides a good chance
to get out of weak constitution and exhausted
animals. Healthy fish have good appetite,
compete, resist and get by.
Regarding the environment,
their capability of adaptation is remarkable.
As per my experience, they live in 7-8
pH as well as in acid water, or in marine
aquarias. The temperature runs
from 16º to more than 30º and determines a
slow or quick growth. Likewise,
under overcrowded conditions, growth may be
depressed beneath the potential typical of
the line.
The assorted food scale include
dry and frozen products, countless pastes
recipes, daphnia, mosquito larvaes, fruit
fly worms, tubifex, microworm, grindal, artemia.
Cultures of fruit fly worms, tubifex, microworms
and grindal are ineffective after determined
number of tanks. It takes time to keep,
harvest, and feed the cultures, and all the
stuff may get tedious. Learning
to balance the hobby and private life is a
matter that beginners should think over.
If they follow the advice of performing daily
water changes, feeding 6 to12 times a day,
or as many as the lebistes/guppy can
process, plus all what selective reproduction
involves, and diseases and expenses in addition,
then the fact is that there are true chances
where the beginner gets disappointed
and decides to leave the hobby.
If the hobby becomes too demanding
it will no longer be pleasant.
Personally, fish are a passion
that has run along with me since I can remember
and has fit the ups and downs of my
private life in order to survive and stay
firm. I have 120 tanks from
10 to 250 litters, with neither substrate
nor filters, simple aireation, no artificial
light, firewood heating, I feed
two to four times a day and I do water changes
once a week. Snails and Cryptocorynes
affinis rooted in marine stones contribute
to a good balance. This ordering is
simple and works for me.
References about artemia are
innumerable. It is the favorite food
and it is used to overfeed animals for contests.
Since the first time that I read about this
procedure, the idea of guppys swallowing artemia like
gluttons without a chance to refuse the food
considered number one in the hobby, is
associated in my mind to the geese overfed
to cause liver hypertrophy and consequent
paté de foi gras
Ricardo Tomas, from Córdoba,
Argentina, has been carrying out exhaustive
research and experiments regarding pollen
properties and he told me about his methods
to feed lebistes. Under Ricardo suggestion,
I performed a comparative test in two tanks
with equal physical and chemical conditions.
Each tank counted with the same number of
new born sibling fry. For 30 days I
fed one tank with pollen and the other one
with artemia. After the 30 days test
period and with results in front of my eyes,
I concluded that pollen is equal or superior
than artemia, provided the growth was the
same in both fry tanks, with the exception
that those young fish fed with pollen looked
thicker, showing a more vigorous physical
structure. Ricardo Tomas has published
an article
on the matter in the Club de Acuaristas de
Córdoba.
At the present time I do not
feed artemia, in its place I supply pollen
once a day and I complement the diet with
dry foods and beef heart pastes. Also cooked
potatoes mixed with spirulina powder, as per
Ricardo Tomas advice.
It is quite possible that feeding
pollen could be a decisive factor to recover
animals during the convalescent period because
of diseases and perhaps its nourishing values
may do wonders for those fish troubled by
weak constitution. Something to bear
in mind.
