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H.K.Luterman

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Everything posted by H.K.Luterman

  1. H.K.Luterman
    P is for Polypterus senegalus!
  2. H.K.Luterman
    Gorgeous tank, that red plant in the back is so striking! Welcome to the forum!
  3. H.K.Luterman
    I have three senegal bichirs, a male, a female, and a juvenile I can't sex yet. I have no experience breeding them however, though my male is rarin' to go! (he does this when he gets overly excited) He does head butt and flirt with my female a lot, but she's either not sexually mature yet (I think she's still under 2 years old) or Dragon just has terminal cooties. I have read about breeding senegals. Basically when you see the courting and spawning behavior (the two of them will butt wiggle together like above) you can put in a spawning mop and then pull the eggs: they're egg scatterers. I think the trickiest part is getting the babies to live. Oddball Aquatics on Youtube has successfully hatched some senegals, but I don't think she's managed to raise any past a certain age. And of course this is all senegal info. I don't know how the other species differ.
  4. H.K.Luterman
    They can top out at 10 inches, but it seems like most get around 7 to 8 inches. They get chunky though! They're categorized as "semi-aggressive," but from what I've read and seen online, they're just spunky. They're categorized as a community safe cichlid, but still may eat really tiny fish. There's ton of space in my 75 and I will be adding a cave just for him so hopefully everyone will have their own spot and be happy together.
  5. H.K.Luterman
    Absolutely adorable.
  6. H.K.Luterman
  7. H.K.Luterman
    Picked up a little blood parrot on Monday. I had gone out to pick up root tabs, and did my usual peek at what livestock they had. I've thought about getting one for over a year now; I'm very cautious and careful about deciding what to add to my tanks, especially Dragon's since bichirs can be tricky. But blood parrots are known to make fine tank mates for both senegal bichirs and ctenopomas, and I've heard nothing but great things about them from people who have kept them, so I finally made the plunge. He's in quarantine, and is a shy little guy, as I read he would be. I've been quietly sitting by the tank now and then to try to help him get used to me. I'm thinking of naming him Igor. He really is so cute. Dinky Do the albino senegal is now in the 75; Pyewacket had been added at roughly the same size with no problems so I decided to go ahead and add her. Senegal bichirs are not known to be cannibals, and Dragon was a good boy last time I did this. So far so good. The baby is getting settled in, and I've seen her swimming around with the other two. Dragon and Pyewacket both have been completely ignoring her. I'll probably get some video in the evening, since during the day the 75 is full of glare.
  8. H.K.Luterman
    I don't know, I kind of like the big blob monster look. X3
  9. H.K.Luterman
    I have a silver one, but I totally want a green one now. I got to use mine for the first time bringing a little blood parrot home a few days ago!
  10. H.K.Luterman
    Welcome to the forum!
  11. H.K.Luterman
    Welcome to the forum! What an interesting mix you have. I'd love to see some pics of your hoplo cats; been wanting some of my own but for now I have to live vicariously through other people's pictures.
  12. H.K.Luterman
    I would love to keep a giant land snail. I think they're banned in all 50 states though. Boooo.
  13. H.K.Luterman
    I've done this. Just take a sheet of paper towel, and plop it on the water's surface. When it's soaked, remove it. Some of the film should be taken away with it.
  14. H.K.Luterman
    That is absolutely adorable. Your two sound like a lot of fun. Lovely tank! Yeah the one thing I see popping up a lot in my research is the changing black when stressed. Good to know that it can be triggered by lots of finicky little things.
  15. H.K.Luterman
    I bought the largest vase decor on Amazon I could find. I figure I can buy something bigger and maybe a bit nicer looking if he turns into a chonker (and he probably will, given how I tend to make chonker fish). Edit: Also, glad to hear the playing dead thing is him being a dorkus and not something strange.
  16. H.K.Luterman
    Thanks so much for your post! I saw it while I was out shopping for more fish food so it came at just the right time. I got him to eat some Xtreme nano pellets this morning, but I picked up some NLS cichlid pellets (the 1mm ones) and some freeze dried krill. Tonight I will see if he'd like some frozen blood worms. He's extremely skittish, as I read they would be. He's been hiding behind the filter in the quarantine, and then "playing dead?" when I open the lid; he lies on his side, and then goes upright once more when I leave. I looked up on Google if this was a thing they do and I haven't seen anything. I did peek in the room when I got back from shopping and he's now moved from behind the filter into a little rock cave I made for him, which seems like an improvement. Good to hear yours aren't super destructive. My 75 has very long established crypts and jungle val in it, so I don't think he'll be able to uproot them. And everything else are rhizome plants that are secured to rocks and wood. Anyways, back to shopping for a nice big hide decor to add to the tank just for him. I do have a rock cave but my ctenopoma has claimed it, and I think I want to mix it up a bit with a vase or something (something other than a normal flower pot).
  17. H.K.Luterman
    You can gradually remove the old gravel and replace it with new over the course of a few months. It'll be messy, but it'll get done! Like remove some, replace with new, wait maybe two weeks, and then repeat until it's all replaced. Lets your bacteria colony keep up. I have done a 100% substrate replacement before, but it was only on long running, well established tanks (like a year or more old).
  18. H.K.Luterman
    Wood will get fungus and biofilm on it when it's first introduced to your tank. It will, in time, go away on it's own. But shrimp and snails love the stuff. It's harmless, it just looks gross. I had it growing on some spiderwood I put into my pea puffer tank, and since I couldn't add any snails in, I took it out and scrubbed it with a toothbrush under some tap water. That helped, and it soon went away after.
  19. H.K.Luterman
    Do you do anything to the duckweed before you put it into the mix? Or do you just strain it and it's set to go?
  20. H.K.Luterman
    I was today years old (ok well, more like it happened a month ago) when I discovered that mystery snails eat duckweed. And I was so mesmerized, I took video of it.
  21. H.K.Luterman
    Bolbitis heudelotii, or african water fern. Really slow growing rhizome plant and one of my favs!
  22. H.K.Luterman
    Awww they're cute!
  23. H.K.Luterman
    I have a 75 gallon that currently houses three senegal bichirs who all stay on the bottom for the most part, and a ctenopoma who likes to just hide in the plants. I've been wanting to add SOMETHING else for a long, long time, and my options are a bit limited since bichirs and ctenopoma are predatory. One of the recommended tank mates are blood parrots since they're too big to be a snack. I've been going back and forth and back and forth on getting one for over a year. I see them in pet shops all the time and I think they're adorable. I don't have a problem with the hybrid part, though their mouths kind of concern me. But I see so many positive stories from people who have kept them, and I do love me weird, charismatic water dog sort of fish. Well today I went out to get root tabs and came home with a blood parrot. I got to use my Aquarium Co-Op insulator thing! Little guy is in quarantine, chilling out with the lights off. He really is so dang cute, and he has a mouth that looks like he's doing this: 😄 So tell me about your experiences. Share photos. Show me your tank. What do you feed yours? Have you had any problems I should look out for? Have they dug up your plants? Some pics!
  24. H.K.Luterman
    So this weekend I randomly decided I needed to rearrange my 75, and proceeded to make a gigantic mess. I tore it all apart save for the jungle val, lily and crypts. I took all of the anubias and bolbitis off of the various wood they had been growing on, and took a sledge hammer to the large pieces of flagstone to reshape/resize them. Removing everything kicked up 2 years worth of mulm and dirt and made the tank crazy cloudy When it all settled, I had mulm drifts. This morning I couldn't take it anymore and did some vacuuming (I should be running errands but yay procrastination). It's looking better. The bichirs are still kicking up clouds of dirt when they swim around the bottom, so I'll do some more vacuuming this weekend.
  25. H.K.Luterman
    Nah, they're nothing to be concerned about. They just pop up from time to time.
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