anewbie
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Posts posted by anewbie
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On 4/5/2024 at 3:18 PM, AtomicSunfish said:
So, it turns out that the blue acara and the guppy are not only sympatric (co-occurring) in Trinidad, but the blue acara is also one of the guppy's natural predators. They are not as specialized for guppy predation as the pike cichlid (Crenicichla alta) or certain characins, but they do hunt and eat them. Not only that, but like the pike cichlid, they have a preference for more colorful male guppies as their prey. I'm looking forward to seeing how the blue acara starts controlling my guppy population. Here is the reference:
Jean-Guy J. Godin, Heather E. McDonough, Predator preference for brightly colored males in the guppy: a viability cost for a sexually selected trait, Behavioral Ecology, Volume 14, Issue 2, March 2003, Pages 194–200, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/14.2.194
Let us know how it turns out. It is true that those guppies that hit the bottom will be more likely to be targeted. Also be aware that our domestic guppies are larger than those typically found in the wild. Still it might work out exactly as you wish - one never knows for sure ...
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A true blue acara might be interesting; hard to say if they will hunt the guppies which are surface fishes. Angles probably will; but if you get two angels there are all sort of dynamics depending on if they are m/f m/m f/f - also fundamentally guppies are a hardwater fish and sa fishes (angels, acara, ...) are soft water fishes. There are some other issues - if you are thinking of keeping together acara, angelfishes, sevrum, blue grouamis well it is too much.
Be aware that severum eat plants so if you have a lot of plants and get a severum say bye to the plants. kribs are west african and should not be mixed with sa fishes (esp the acara); fishes indicate territory and aggression before actual conflict and sa and west african fishes never learned each other language so they get very confused when trying to talk to each other creating more vicious attacks.
A 55 is shape wise is kind of a lousy tank - it is tall and narrow and what you really want is a lot of floor space so things can spread out. I think a blue acara and 2 angles might work depending on the angel behavior (which depend on both their eventual sex and individual fish behavior) but beyond that it will get crowded fast. The acara is a lower level fish and the angels will be in the upper middle with the guppies at the top.
If you get the red tail shark drop the acara.
It isn't a great fit but if you get rid the acara and angelfishes you could probably try a severum - it would work better if the tank was less tall and wider a 50, 65 or 75 but you have a 55. In the worse case when the severum is full grown you could trade it for something else. Also be aware the the actual size of the fish will depend on the sex. I guess what i'm saying is no i don't recommend a severum in a 55 but as long as you are prepared to trade it in if it gets too large there is no harm in trying one and see how it goes.
If you have live plants don't consider the severum.
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Flower ! Yes you can grow Bucephalandra without throwing them in a bucket of water.
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On 4/2/2024 at 4:51 PM, macdaddy36 said:
My panduro has even attacked pencilfishes
That is not surprising - my a. lineta snaps at the pencil fishes; what make pencil fishes a good option is they don't eat frys - though i think n. beckfordi (sp) might eat frys.
If the tank is sufficiently tall and the dither stays near the top then they are less likely to get attacked as the territory tends to be in the lower region.
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Now i'm going to have to wait till my festivum poop to get it back.
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No for many reasons:
Not temp compatible with the gourami, swordtail and platy.
Tank is too small (top to bottom).
Discus is not water compatible with the platy and swordtail (soft vs hard)
Discus require very very clean water and the current tank inhabitants suggest that will not be the case
Discus should be kept in a group and the tank isn't even large enough for one
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I guess that is enough reasons.
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The one thing she said that might have some truth to it is that pygmy are a very shy fish and if by themselves they might feel insecure; there are a lot of factors here and it is not a given but having a schooling dither fish like kubotai rasbora might make them feel a bit more comfortable. I have some pygmy in a 180 and it is a crap shoot if i see them as they frequently hide in the very back. Of course my orange laser do the same thing and i have around 15 of them.... they do come out when i toss food in - sometime but for months i thought all my pygmy died until one day i saw 20 in some plants looking for scrapes of food.
Of course if your tank has no place to hide they probably won't be hiding too much.
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Your luminious green looks a bit different than mine; it seems to have more pa-hang look which is another crypt that is somewhere between nurri rosen and luminious green.
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On 3/31/2024 at 5:59 PM, macdaddy36 said:
I've always wanted to keep dwarf gourami because of their beautiful colors but I haven't because of their potential aggression and the dreaded iridovirus.
Honey gourami do have more interesting personalities than a tetra or a danio, but mine were not bold or confident enough to eat out of my hand or chase my finger, but they would swim up to the glass when I would walk by the tank.
Dwarf cichlids like Apistogramma or rams might be bolder. My A. panduro will grab food out of my fingers but I wouldn't try that particular species since they will be aggressive towards those other fish in your tank. @anewbie has experience with a wider variety of dwarf cichlids so they would probably have better advice.
All this depends on your water parameters of course, although I have found my panduro to do good well outside of what would be considered ideal parameters. I have high pH but very soft water oddly, so that is probably a factor. I know that prime time aquatics keeps them in very hard Chicago water though. The honey gourami will probably been fine in anything from 6-8 pH, with my reasoning being that the parameters varies widely over the course of different seasons in their native habitat.
All dwarf cichild has the potential to be territorial but some are more likely to be passive than others. Borelli are one of the more passive species but i would only keep a male in a display aquarium. Also there are never any guarantees as each fish is unique. As to 'eating out of your hand' some species are less shy than others; but most of the bold species i have owned have also be a bit more on the aggressive side. Panduro can be very territorial.
The primary difference between dwarf cichild and many cichild (like angels) is the area of the tank they occupy; dwarf cichild tend to hang near the bottom while larger cichild tend to hang near the top; of course there are exceptions. My winkelfleck is everywhere but i'm not sure i would keep him in a community aquarium and it is one of those species that does better with soft acidic water. I will note that my male agassizii is moody and frequently snappy if another fish enters his space. So there are a couple of data points. I have a special love for blue rams but they do better in warmer temps around 82-84.
Also if your tank is structured right the other fishes won't enter the dwarf cichild territory. I mentioned panduro being aggressive but most pencil fishes; tetra, rasbora, ... stay middle to top. Of course you wouldn't want to keep cory with such as fish due to constant stress of the male (or female) chasing them out of their territory but people do it anyway. An particuarly aggressive panduro might well remove the eyes of the cory to put it bluntly. My kribs used to eat the tails off of cory. Yea i learned my lesson there.... so we all start with less knowledge than what we gain over time.
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To be honest they need to see some fishes out in the open to make sure it is safe; i use kubotai rasbora for this - my green neon (similar to cardinal) would hide 24x7 for a month and i finally got a group of 8 kubotai to keep them company and they stopped hiding. Now they all are out swimming every day. Probably having the honey gourami in the other aquarium help them.
Btw real plants are often preferred by fishes.
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On 3/30/2024 at 11:57 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
I do believe CA did tell the Intrepid Partner about this - they said something about the gluing only applying to salt water. I don't want to glue much if possible. I will definitely keep your post in mind.
To be clear it is the top piece the initial elbow will probably have to be glued but the piece that fits in on top should not and the elbow must be straight up. If they tilt then the piece on top (not sure what you call it; perhaps intake) will be crooked and the top grid will be more exposed making it easier for small fishes to get into the sump; of course if you cover this with fine netting that should help but then if the side holes get clogged you will have a big wet mess (there are pros and cons to everything - the best option would be if CA sold a top that had much finer holes).
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My guess is you can but females do have their own territories; usually smaller but they should understand that soon enough. However no promises 😉
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On 3/30/2024 at 11:42 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
Yea that was my concern too with larger tanks typically used for larger fish. Intrepid Partner DID discuss this with the builder and told them it was for small fish- they insisted this tank is set up for them. Since I've yet to be able to go through the whole setup this of course cannot be verified. I'm prepared to jimmy rig, but clearly Intrepid Partner is handy with this sort of thing too.
Yes some sort of fiber-glass mesh over the top should fix the issue; just bringing it up that it is an issue that you might want to address before adding fishes.
Also you do not want to glue in the intake to the overflow box as there will be times you want to remove them to clean them; plant matter/algae will gum up the sides over time so they do need an occasional cleaning.
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One critical thing i forgot to mention is on the overflow boxes; small fishes can get sucked into your sump; certainly things as large as an otto can make their way down there. The problem isn't the side grid but the top grid is coarse enough to allow adult rasbora and otto into the sump if they get up there.
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Well the specs on them indicate they top out at around 1 inch and the males don't have super large tales which suggest they are tiny bit smaller than some typically availalbe guppies but i wouldn't exactly call them dwarf - but somewhere between endlers and typical fancy tail guppy.
Having said that no i have not owned them so i do not have first hand experience; but when i was a little kid and guppies were guppies they were a lot smaller than the guppies we buy now aday. Guess those fancy tails take up a lot of space.
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There are 100s of dwarf cichild and gourami that can work in a 29 so i think the real question is what are you looking for in a fish? Like all things there are no 'right' answer though there are fishes or combination of fishes that don't work well together.
I'd start by asking if your water is hard or soft and then go from there; for hard water there are some wonderful small central america cicihld; while less common they are really nice fishes and do well in harder water; of course gourami and sa cichild are soft water fishes. Then there is a question of what you want - a fish that looks pretty or one that has interesting behavior but maybe a bit less colourful. Do you want fishes that will breed or ones that will eat food from your hand and so forth.
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Sigh once again i've made a mistake and now have to do more work:
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On 3/29/2024 at 11:22 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
So even if I use the sump provided (I will have to for a while at least) if I can get it so that the return is below the water it will be less noisy? I'm not too worried about noise since I'm used to quite a bit of "white" noise in my house, however Intrepid Partner is a little more sensitive to it. Neither of us have ever used a sump (only a pump under his house). I understand the principals but this will be a learning experience for the both of us (more me he says lol). I've even yet to watch the video CA sent because by the time we get ready to set this up I'll have forgotten it all anyway! I have though watched several videos on youtube about how they work. It doesn't seem that difficult.
I'm already doing weekly maintenance but yeah this would be a pain when you're told that bigger tanks are easier to maintain and often do maintenance less often. Now of course you have a HEAVY load with that huge tank. Though this tank isn't small it's tiny in comparison to 600 gallons at a 1/3 of the size. At this point decently large schools of middle dwellers (Rasboras, Tetras) and some bottom dwellers (cory, otos, only a couple small species of pleco) and my SAE is all I plan to do at this point. I wouln't say it will be HEAVILY planted, we don't want a jungle but decently planted. Soo I'm wishing hard for once a month maintenance.
This stand is so tall I don't thing I'm worried about maintenance space, the only think I'm waiting to really see (hear) is how noisy it is and if Intrepid Partner will be able to handle it.
The noise is relative; i was able to get the 180s pretty quiet using the CA sump; but for some reason the 600 would never settle down; so the switch really helped. The trick is to play with sand pipe height (i find just above the flow in from teh tank) and to have it just trickle down the one with the valve (taller one) with most of the water going down the lower one (one without the valve) can remove most of the noise. You don't want the sand pipes too tall because that will raise the water level in the aquarium so there is some fine tuning there.
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It is specific to this 600; the 550 is not as painful and i have to clean the sock once every 3 or 4 weeks. There is something specific about this 600 which is causing a higher load - i think maybe some algae is growing in the water which is clogging the sock but not 100% sure. The problem is the socks were a pain to remove and re-install and the overall work load was too high overall (i have 5 aquariums with sump and doing a sock a week is fine but having to do 4 or 5 socks a week was too much); i'll put it this way - i haven't decided yet if i'm going to change the sump on the 550 (which is really a 470 - 8x4); because i only have to clean the sock once a month but i might - will think about it for a bit and evaluate the 600 a couple of months before deciding; i was just noting the unexpected side effect of noise reduction which was a significant issue with the 600 since it is next to my desk; of course having it next to my desk result in bullcrap like this; i mean really what do they want me to do jump in there with them ?
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For diet you might try live brine shrimp if you can get some - some stores sell it cheap - it has a very short shelf life (around 3 days); also long term fluval bug bite are really good; though they do eat greens and something like nls algemax or bug bite for bottom feeders (which has peas mixed in); should be offered. Fishes can go a couple of weeks without eating but usually if they stop eating the long term prognosis isn't good.
i can't comment on if he has parasite but i thought coop treated their fishes prior to selling. I'd contact the store and see if they did pretreat the rams or if any of their other rams are having issues. meds are good when needed but they aren't free; too much med is unhealthy to the fish internal organs.
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Green spot tends to be hard to scrape off and requires a bit of umph; green dust (i think that is what it is called) is fairly soft and can easily be wiped off without much effort.
I believe green spot is caused by low phosphate and not sure about green dust.
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On 3/29/2024 at 9:35 AM, Tony s said:
Of all my angels. My koi are by far the smallest. Now my marbled get huge. But so far, not my koi. not hand selected by any means. My marbled male probably 9” counting trailers. The koi male probably 6”. My koi don’t hold the trailers as erect as the marbles for whatever reason. The females of both are a bit smaller than the males. If your koi are bigger than the rest. Great. So far mine are not. Purchased at same time. at same size. In same tank. started in a 20 for a few weeks when quarter sized. Moved to a 75.
29 is not something I would do long term. I said, not ideal, but doable. Not perfect, but I’ve seen worse.. I gave an honest answer from my observation. But hey, you feel free to keep busting my chops
I really don't want to have this debate; i don't know how many angelfishes you've owned or what sources they have been acquired from or their age/sexes. Since I know of at least one really large male koi that is sufficient to say that some koi do get large. Genetically there is nothing that prevent a koi from getting as large or larger than any other domestic angelfishes; though as I noted in theory there might be a gene that control size and someone could domestically breed them around that gene.
I have a small black male angelfish but i'm not going to claim all black angelfish is small; i have a smallish platinum male but his siblings are a solid 1.5+ inches larger. There is a wide variance in size and growth rate.
Having said this i am curious how many male koi anglefish you owned and their ages; so to see what sort of sample points you are using for your claim.
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None of your fishes are substrate shifter so the grain size is totally up to you. There are advantages to both coarse and fine gravel with regards to long term (multi-year) upkeep. I have a personal liking to pool filter sand (cheap-i use hth); and estes stoney river (black substrate that is not painted; as it is very fine with high density); i've found plants grow well in both substrates and i've not had any issues with either (though my aquarium with hth pool filter sand are not that old yet); I'm not as pleased with jungle river or torpedo beach - both i've used - but both look nice and then it comes down to colour preference. For a 10 cost shouldn't be a big deal but for larger aquariums it can be a factor.
I can't really say why the estes stoney river (black) has done so well over the years compared to my caraibsea substrates - something about the properties but i've not had any issues with gas pockets forming in it (which has been a major headache with all caribsea substrates i've used; though the fine stuff like moonlight is far worse than torpedo beach and jungle river).
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On 3/28/2024 at 11:00 PM, Tony s said:
29 is not ideal, but doable. Koi are on the smaller side for angels.
This is hogwash and i wonder why you make this claim. I've had koi that are very large; and others not as large. A lot depends on the sex as females are naturally smaller than males; but there is a wide variance among individual fishes. Now someone might be breeding a 'smaller' koi through selectively picking smaller fishes but then I would be concern about inbreeding and other recessive traits working into the strain.
Having said that some people keep adult angelfish in a 29 but i generally consider it too small. If you have a known female (young angelfishes are virtually impossible to sex and some one who claims they are selling a young female is a person you should not deal with); then it would probably work ok in a 29. People use 29s to breed angelfish but I would not keep them in a 29 full time. I had a male i had to move to a 29 for time-out (his mate rejected him after a couple of years) and when it became clear she would never allow him back into the 120 i had to give him away since the 29 was just too cramp for him (he was not my largest male but he was large). My koi male i have now is about 6 to 7 inches top to bottom and he is only 2; so will probably grow a bit more over the next few years.
There really aren't great aquariums for angelfishes - maybe a 70 which is 18 inches wide and 21 inches tall. A lot of folks keep them in 55 but i find them too narrow.
Of course what you can do is get some dime size angelfishes for a 29 and keep them until they become too large and then sell them back to the petshop; there is a chance they will get stunted but that is hard to predict.
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Well the perfect aquarium is the little 10 you put in the bathroom; here is mine:
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Beardedbillygoat’s Fish & Shrimp Tank Journal
in Photos, Videos & Journals
Posted · Edited by anewbie
L397 - sadly my group of 4 died during the move; have just one left - likely a male. Actually i don't think that is a L397 it has too much black - well there are 30 or 40 similar options 🙂