Preparation

Just Remember... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
~ Trevor Myers

Photo at 7 days old - the single tails
grew the fastest compared to the fancy tails

What's wrong with the world today? Everything from the economy to morale values sucks! The weather sucks too - wackier than ever before, switching between extreme warm and humid to torrential rain. Such drastic weather posed a great challenge for outdoor fish keeping - within moments, I can be as charred as a camp fire log and then became as wet as a fish. Nevertheless, there was some window of opportunity in between cooler days to spawn my Pearlscales just before the weather becomes too warm and humid again.

The main reason to breed my Pearlscales at least twice a year is to ensure that I have fishes from different parent combinations and maturing at different periods to backup the breeding plan. The other reason is to get done with Pearlscale breeding so that I can wholly focus on the TVR breeding in the beginning of the new year.

9 days old

I had collected about 15,000 Pearlscale fries from 2 spawns. There is an urgency to push them very aggressively to grow so that I can cull them fast. However, due to the sheer number of fries, their growth rate becomes uneven as the supply of daphnia is erratic due to the drastic weather conditions. The fries which are the fastest to grab the food are the bigger ones and they are usually the single tails. These are also the runts and bullies that would nib the tails or even devour their smaller, albeit more regal siblings if they are not culled away as soon as possible.

Now that they are 1 month old and their numbers reduced to about 300 odd, I can take a slight breather since they are big enough to eat small pellets and tubiflex worms. Nonetheless, I still need to cull them fast as the Pearlscale is one of the most greedy varieties that can literally eat till you broke.

Month-old blue-brown
Dragon Eyes Pearlscales
approx. 4 cm

Next year in May would be the much anticipated biennial Aquarama International Ornamental Fish Show. I would be even busier in the Aquarama year as besides grooming the BBRs, I would be preparing my other fishes for show too. Goldfish, Betta or Guppy, 6 months is a good time to start breeding them or sourcing for some young potential fishes to groom for competition.