Pigeonduck

A retired friend of mine is still into wildlife photography and videos (it used to be his job) and his latest video is of wildlife in a mangrove forest in Malaysia. Near the start there are fiddler crabs and then a section with two species of mudskipper. Smaller blue ones and giant mudskippers that want to eat the smaller ones. I don't remember seeing the exact behaviours on any wildlife documentary so I thought that people might find it interesting. It's also a handy look at the habitat for people like me who want to one day keep mudskippers. He doesn't make any money from YouTube so I hope it's ok to share.

Finally I have something to update. Earlier in the year we got a bigger custom aquarium made and moved out all of the fish into that, apart from the snakehead pair. We took out the tree log and some of the plants and then left it to go swampy with no water changes to mimic summer in their natural habitat. Earlier in winter they had temperatures down to 18C and big water changes in spring. We saw them courting but no eggs or fry showed up. They're not supposed to need a cave but we thought that they liked the tree stump cave before so put in some black sponge leaning against the side to make a basic cave. It's the same sponge used to baffle the filter intake. They seemed to have been waiting for a cave. Just over 2 weeks ago, Big Boy, the male had disappeared into the sponge cave and after a day or so we spotted a couple of tiny fry when he popped his head out. They were at the 2mm long, translucent white blob with a tiny tail stage. The female has been staying near. She lays eggs for them to eat and guards them. By 6 days old, the fry were about 4mm long and darker in colour. We could occasionally see a few bouncing about on the sand/gravel. By 8 days they were about 5-6mm and their dad had moved them out to a patch of floor near the outside edge of the sponge "wall". They were better at bouncing around with some small stretches of actual swimming. If they got too far then he would pick them up in his mouth and bring them back. They pop out of his gills. By 12 days they were about 6-7mm. Able to swim properly. Dad had taken them to a spot near the surface. They can be seen picking at plants and sponge, eating tiny inverts I assume. We have been adding a bit of hikari fry dust and a smidge of baby brine shrimp too. They have fat tummies at all times. Interestingly the female also picks them up and takes them back to Dad. I have never noticed this mentioned in other breeding accounts. The fry surf over and sit on both parents. They also peck at them, maybe eating slime coat? By 13 days the biggest is about 7mm. You can see their little pectoral fins frantically flapping. Here is a fry facing forward. Sorry about the poor quality. They are about 14 days old today. Hopefully they will keep on growing with no problems. I can't tell how many there are. We've only seen 5 at once so maybe they lost a lot of them while they were tiny.

Nice video. I'm very envious of your rainbow darters.

They can go overnight or a few hours in the day without food so they don't need a constant supply but very regular feeding is required because like seahorses, they have no fat reserves. They do actually eat frozen cyclops which is handy as a backup food. They're definitely on the high maintenance end with their food needs. It will be nerve wracking trying to keep the fry fed if they do ever breed.

The blue dream shrimp ride them occasionally! They do. Often they sit in the plants in a vertical position and hold on with their tail.

I thought that maybe some people might be interested to see my freshwater pipefish Doryichthys martensii. I'd also be interested to hear from anyone keeping these or similar species. Has anyone bred them? Apparently it's not too difficult with some species. They're like sea horses so the male takes the eggs from the female and holds them in a pouch until they hatch. These guys are also known as long shouted Pipefish and they come from Southeast Asia. They're true freshwater fish unlike many that are estuarine or fully saltwater. I have 5 in a 50l tank because they enjoy company. They're not quite full grown yet (assuming 15cm full size) so I might upgrade them but for now the tank works well because they don't move much or fast and they require mostly live small foods. The smaller tank size makes it easier to get the food to them. I have neocaridina shrimp and amano shrimp with them as an extra food source. They will pick eggs straight off the amano shrimp, it's quite funny to see. Here's a video of them being useless at hunting daphnia. I like how they move their eyes. It reminds me of puffer fish.

Changing the substrate should not hurt your beneficial bacteria population very much. I saw a study that showed that the vast majority of them are found in the filter. You can always feed a bit more lightly for a few days after you change it if you're worried. As for how to change it, that depends on your tank setup. There should be some helpful videos on YouTube to give you some ideas.

I would put at least 20 CPDs in that tank. I just checked the size of my 45l in US gallons (why can't you people use normal gallons or litres? 😜) It's just under 12 US gallons and I have 16 CPDs in there plus a few other fish, 4 horned nerites, 5 amano shrimp that I am growing out and a blue dream shrimp colony. Heavily planted and I do a small water change every 3-4 weeks with no nitrate problems. I started off with 8 CPDs but they're much happier now there are more. I agree with the others that you probably want to reduce the oto count.

I have a leopard frog plec with 3 Gastromyzon ctenocephalus in one 105l tank and a red bristlenose plec with 2 Sewellia lineolata in a 210l. Never had any problems in either thank.

I had seen Americans mentioning three spines sticklebacks but I hadn't looked up to see if it's the same species as we get in Europe. Turns out it is! I love watching these in the wild and have always wanted to keep some in an aquarium but there supposed to be quite tricky to keep.

Maybe they're not as reclusive as people make out. I think that it's the Hikari wafers that I use. I often break them up before dropping them in. He can worry a soft whole one enough to eat it now but pieces are easier.

From what I have read about them, I think that mine might be a weirdo. When he (or she) first arrived it was only about 7cm long and maybe 1cm wide. It was in quarantine with the Rhinogobius gobies that I got at the same time so I would put in live daphnia for all of them and after a couple of days got the eel to eat live and then frozen bloodworms from tongs. It was so tiny and slow that I don't think it could compete with the gobies. Now he's bigger he'll swim out to the middle of the tank and eat with all the others. He'll eat frozen bloodworms, frozen krill flakes, tetra crisps and sinking carnivore pellets. I don't think that it's normal for them to be so out and about. It's not like mine couldn't stay buried in the sand or hide in the plants if it wanted to though. If yours is a bit slow then getting them to feed from the tongs or your fingers is a good idea to make sure that they get fed. Another thing that some people do is put food in a container that only the eel can reach into but I am not sure that would work with your tank mates. I hope that your little guy thrives 😊

"Eclectic stocking" is a great name for it. 😁 As long as they all get along it's all good. Macrognathus eels are such great little characters. The wiggly nose thing makes them so silly. They're like muppets.

The fry were very good at survival. I protected some in a breeder net but others stayed in the main tank and hid in the plants. I don't think that any got eaten. The eel named Tiny Eel is a Lesser spiny Eel, he's growing out in there before moving on to a bigger tank. I also have a female T bar cichlid, 6 Pseudomugil luminatus, a few small gobies, hillstream loaches, otos, a banjo catfish and a leopard frog plec. I am terrible at doing the one centerpiece fish and a shoal of something smaller thing! 😆 The C. lateralis adults do well with everything. Their fry once they got to about 3cm were nippy little devils.

They're critically endangered in the wild which is sad. They're easy enough to breed but still quite rare in the hobby, in the UK at least. I was considering trying to get a proper breeding project going with them but none of my local fish shops are interested in taking any so I have to sell privately which is a pain in the bum.