Friday, January 4, 2008
You, the breeder, is also an obstetrician at the time your shih tzu is pregnant. To help her pregnancy and delivery you need to keep her in peak condition physically and emotionally. If she is not use to much exercise at all, you definitely need to tone her up during her pregnancy. Even a mild exercise routine will improve the health of your pregnant shih tzu. Beginning and maintaining a regular exercise routine is not hard or expensive. The ideal time, however, is before your shih tzu becomes pregnant. A mild program of exercise may be safely continued to the seventh week of pregnancy. The best exercise is simply daily walks. And remember moderation is the best approach.
Small dogs, like the shih tzu, may be toned with a half mile daily. However, you may want to work up to a mile depending on the weather and both your physical conditions. Beyond building and toning your shih tzu's physique, the sharing of a common recreation is good for her emotional health as well.
Start your daily walks during the cooler hours of the warmer months, the warmer hours of the colder months. Each time of year has its own special dangers for your shih tzu. Begin your walks half-mile, one-quarter mile out, one-quarter mile back. Increase the distance the following week to a half mile out and a half mile back. Once you reach the half-mile level you can jog with your pregnant shih tzu if you desire, a few minutes at a time, but walking is highly recommended. Continue on this program until you are walking at least one mile daily if you desire.
In hot weather, the shih tzu's body is closer to heat reflected from paved surfaces. Care must be given to exercising during any periods of hot weather. Dogs sweat through their pads and tongue. If your dog is breathing heavily with glazed eyes and a hanging out tongue, she could be in serious danger. Take along plenty of water and watch her for signs of "getting too hot." You don't want her to get over-heated at all. If she plops down or has minor tremors the moment she stop walking, get her to an emergency vet clinic as soon as possible. These are signs of heat exhaustion. So be careful about this.
In cold weather, never leave a warm house and begin jogging right away. Muscles need to be stretched and warmed up to prevent injury, lameness or soreness. Winter months in areas of snow can be dangerous. Aside from slipping and falling, certain areas are often spread with slip retardants such as sand, salt or other chemicals. The salt and chemicals are harmful to the shih tzu's footpads. If you have no choice during the winter of exercising in areas free from chemicals, purchase water/chemical-proof booties, and rinse your shih tzu's feet thoroughly after returning home.
In either hot or cold weather, check your shih tzu's feet daily. Check the pads and the soft-tissue areas between the pads for damage such as rawness, swelling, splitting or discoloration. Keep the nails trimmed.
There is no reason for a normally active and healthy pregnant shih tzu to have her physical activities restricted. Such restrictions could be harmful to her during delivery through lack of muscle tone. Restriction from normal activity can also promote an emotionally discontent pregnant shih tzu. Her attitude can affect her puppies in utero and then later after whelping as well.
If your shih tzu is used to playing with children, let her continue to do so at her own will and pace. Explain to your children to be extra careful with your pregnant shih tzu and avoid roughhouse play. Tell the children in terms they can easily understand, such as: Fetch is fine. Wrestling is out.
Always comfort your pregnant shih tzu and let her know of your devotion to her with words and actions she is familiar with. Soon the little rascals will arrive and everyone will be soooo happy!
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Breeding Clownfish
Thanks to Disney's Motion Picture 'Finding Nemo,' almost everybody is familiar with clownfish.
Clownfish, or Anemonefishes, from the family Pomacentridae, are one of the easiest tropical marine aquarium fish to breed. Clownfish regularly lay eggs in aquariums. They have quite large eggs and larvae, and since the larvae easily eat cultured live foods, raising them is somewhat simpler than it is with many other marine species.
You need to get a pair if you want to breed clownfish, and that's quite interesting - believe it or not, clownfish are all born as males! When they are adults, the largest and the most dominant fish of the group will undergo a sex change and become a female. The second largest usually becomes the breeding male, while all the other fish remain juveniles and gender-neutral. If the breeding female disappears, the breeding male will change to a female, and so on. Buying an established pair may be a reasonable way to go, but it is often better to have a group of juveniles growing up together. If you choose to buy a pair you should look for a pair that goes around together. Sometimes you can be lucky enough to get a pair already spawning. Anyhow, establishing an adult pair can be a little tricky; and you need to keep your eyes on them to make sure that the female doesn't kill the male.
The next thing is to set up the tank. The tank should be large enough, approximately 200 liters for the breeding pair. It is better to keep a pair alone in an aquarium when trying to spawn clownfish.
The aquarium should be furnished with a nice anemone, a few live rocks and other rocky substances with a vertical surface, a layer of coral sand on the bottom, bright lighting, good filtration, and a protein skimmer. Your clownfish should be stress free, which means no aggressive tank mates and good water quality. As for feeding, clownfish need a mixed diet of fresh raw seafood and vegetables. A good diet includes prawns, mussels, and squid. It is best to feed small bits at regular intervals.
Spanning can begin 1 to 12 months after the fish have settled into their new home. When the fish are ready to spawn, they become very aggressive. The male clownfish will dance up and down in front of the female (also known as "clownfish waggle"). They will also start to clean their selected rock by robustly biting it. The spawning itself usually occurs in the afternoon or early evening. Once the spawning is complete (within several hours) the male takes on responsibility for attending the eggs, whereas the female acts as protector of the eggs and supervisor of her male.
Spawning is likely to occur again at intervals of 12 to 18 days. The eggs should be left in the care of the parents and not removed, unless the parents are known to be egg eaters. At first the eggs are a bright orange colour, but after several days this diminishes and the eyes appear. Hatching usually takes from 6 to 15 days, depending on temperature.
The most critical stage of the fry is the first 10 days of their larvae span. If you can get your fry to survive this period the rest of their raising should be easier.
Article provided by AC Tropical Fish and a site about Clown loach fish
Clown Loaches
Scientific Name: Botia macracanthus
Other Scientific Name(s): Cobitis macracanthus, Botia macrocanthus
Common Name: Clown Loach
Clown loaches are very popular aquarium fish; however they are not always easy to keep successfully since they easily succumb to ick and are sensitive to poor water conditions. This article is intended to help new clown loach owners provide a good home for their loaches. Clown loaches are found in Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo), and almost all clown loaches in aquariums are wild caught and distributed around the world before being sold. This can put considerable stress on the fish, and a vital step in getting a healthy clown loach school in your aquarium is choosing healthy fish. But how to make sure that you get healthy fish?
- Check the general conditions in the fish store. Are there dead fish in the aquariums? Is the water clean? If some tanks are mistreated there is a good chance that there might be unfavourable conditions in others too. Only buy fish from stores that take good care of their aquariums.
- How do the clown loaches look? Clown loaches can give you an indication of their condition based on their coloration. A healthy clown loach shows clear distinct colours, while a stressed one loses its colours and becomes whiter. Only buy loaches that show their correct colours.
- Are the clown loaches well fed? Those that haven't been fed correctly are hard to nurse back to health, and it is more than likely you will end up with a dead fish if you buy one. Look at their bodies and see if they look well fed, and ask the shopkeepers how often and what the loaches are fed.
- Are the clown loaches active? Healthy clown loaches are very active and full of energy. A healthy clown loach should be hard to catch.
- Do the clown loaches have hiding places? Hiding places are very important to relieve stress in clown loaches, and you are likely to get higher quality fish from aquariums with hiding places.
- Don't buy clown loaches smaller than 2 inches/5 cm if you haven't kept clown loaches before, since they are much more sensitive when they are younger.
So ideally you should look for the most coloured, most active clown loaches you can find, and buy these to have the best starting point possible. You should also consider the water conditions in the store and try to find one that keeps their clown loaches in water condition similar to the water conditions in your aquarium, to reduce stress on the clown loaches. It should also be stated that clown loaches like resting on their sides, looking almost as if they were dead. However this is completely normal and should not be seen as a sign of poor quality in the fish but rather the opposite. When you have decided where to buy your clown loaches you should buy at least 3 (preferable 8-10). Clown loaches are schooling fish that should never be kept alone!!!
Once you get home with your new clown loaches you should let the bag float on the water surface for 10-15 minutes, and then slowly every 10 minutes add a little water from the aquarium (a coffee cup). Repeat this 4-5 times before you release the fish into their new home.
Tank setup
Clown loaches can be kept in aquariums of 100 L / 20 G or more. Keep in mind that even though clown loaches grow very slowly they will get big eventually and need an aquarium of at least 540 L/ 125 G, and that should be considered a minimum.
Decorate your aquarium using a bottom substrate of sand or fine gravel that allows the clown loaches to dig . I recommend keeping your clown loaches in a planted aquarium, however the choice of plants differs greatly depending on whether you keep juvenile or adult clown loaches. Juvenile clown loaches can be kept with most plant species, while adults can be kept only with hardy plants such as Java fern and Anubias. All other plants will be destroyed and/or eaten by the adult clown loaches. I also recommend using floating plants to dim the lighting, which makes the loaches more active during the day.
Clown loaches want a setup with a lot of caves and other hiding places, preferably so narrow that they can just barely squeeze themselves into them. Don't be concerned if your clown loaches have squeezed themselves into caves they dug under rocks or aquarium equipment. Odds are they are not stuck - they just like it that way.
Hiding places can be created with rocks, roots, PVC pipes, flower pots, coconuts and different kinds of aquarium decorations. Sharp objects should not be used to decorate aquariums for clown loaches. You can not create too many hiding places and you should create several for each loach.
Clown loaches are sensitive to poor water quality, and they require good filtration. Higher water circulation is also appreciated since clown loaches live in currents in the wild.
Clown loaches are excellent jumpers, and you should make sure that your tank is properly sealed.
Health
As I said earlier, clown loaches are very sensitive towards poor water quality and are usually the first fish that get ill or die if the water quality drops. Water changes of at least 25% a week are recommended. Because of their low tolerance to poor water qualities they are sometimes called indicator fish, since their health indicates the status of the aquarium. Clown loaches are very sensitive to chlorine, and even small amounts can cause a mass death of loaches.
This species are very prone towards getting ick if the water quality isn't good enough, and are sensitive to most ick medicines and salts. So keep an eye on your clown loaches and only use half the recommended doses of medicine, otherwise you risk the medicine killing the loaches.
Food
Clown loaches are carnivores and only eat vegetables to complement their diet. It is therefore recommended that they are given food that reflects this. To get your clown loaches to grow, optimal feeding 3-5 times a day is recommended. (They still grow slowly). Their diet should contain a variety of foods, and can include almost any carnivorous food. A good base may be shrimps, different sinking wafers, different frozen foods, and as they grow older, fish slices. Clown loaches can make a clicking sound, and they will do this when they are content. Therefore you will soon find out what is your loaches' favourite food by them clicking when they receive it. Like most other fish, clown loaches might need some time to accept new foods, however once they do it might become a favourite. Clown loaches are one of the few fishes that eat and like snails, and can therefore be of good use in snail control.
Breeding
Clown loaches have been bred in aquariums, however it is very rare. Sexing clown loaches externally is hard, but possible by looking at the tail fin. The tail fin tips on the male are slightly bent inwards, making the fin look a little bit like a claw. The tail fin tips on the females aren't shaped like this.
Clown loaches have to be quite old and at least 7 inches / 17 cm before they are sexually mature. In the one good account of clown loaches spawning they spawned under the following conditions:
- Temp: 84F
- pH: 6.5
- Ammonia & Nitrite: 0
- Nitrate: < 25
Four large clown loaches (over 25 cm /10 inches) were kept together in a planted aquarium, and a few weeks before spawning they changed their behaviour and started eating live fish as their only accepted food. The females in the group grew very fast on this diet, and had doubled in girth by the time of spawning. The night during which the spawning took place, two clowns were swimming close beneath the surface entwined in each other and "clicking." The next morning, 450 eggs were found spread about the aquarium. Clown loaches eat their own eggs, so it is recommended moving the parents if you wish to succeed in spawning them.
The fry were fed liquid fry food for the first two weeks, after which they accepted crushed flakes. They grew relatively fast, to 2.5 cm/ 1 inch in 6 weeks. After that the growth rate slowed down.
It's suggested that older fish are essential for breeding since this fish might have to be quite old to be sexually mature. Clown loaches live to be about 50 years, so it is quite feasible that they may spawn later in life than many other species.
Article provide by a site devoted to Clown loaches and Cichlids and Betta fish
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