Nanaue's 40 Breeder

[Chris]

I posted about my new flowerhorn, Nanaue, in the "What did you do to your tank today?" thread and decided I wanted to make a thread of his own instead of cluttering up that one.

 

Nanaue is living in a standard 40 breeder (for now), and is only about 4" long at the moment. At the store he came from, he was the most active (and aggressive) flowerhorn they had. He was trying to bite me through the glass, following my finger around, and was generally making a fool of himself - I don't usually buy fish for their aggressiveness, but in this case, I think him being so feisty was a good thing! I always keep my flowerhorns solo (besides the occasional pleco, if they allow it), so I'm not too worried about aggression.

The tank is filtered with a large Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter (powered by a USB air pump) for biological filtration and an AquaClear 30 so that I have a place for filter floss. I don't typically run any chemical media, although I have been known to keep little pieces of sponge or pot scrubbies in my water polishers for extra biological media for QT tanks. I'm actually only using a 50W Aqueon heater, and it's keeping the tank between 75-80. The tank is near my dehumidifier and a long way from my AC, though, so it natural runs a few degrees warmer than room temp anyway. Nothing special for lighting - just a 36" Marineland LED fixture that I got for $20 from a friend. I wouldn't pay $20 for it again, honestly - it's incredibly dim. If was going to be doing many plants, I think I'd honestly be better off with 2-3 5000K E26 LED bulbs from Lowes, The color is decent, I guess. But it has a terrible spread front-to-back, especially considering it came with an 18" deep tank! I have to keep the light pulled forward unless I want nearly complete darkness in the front 6" of tank space or so.

At first, I had the tank completely bare with just a little substrate. He got very skittish, and seemed to be favoring the dark corners of the tank. I went to Lowe's and picked up a couple cheap plastic pots, and pulled some silk plants out of my brackish tank, and that seemed to help him feel a little more comfortable. He's still behaving far more skittishly than I expected him to, but I think he's just settling in.

This is his favorite pot - he seems to like the darker one more than the lighter one, so I may go get a bigger size gray one whenever I get the chance. He'll outgrow these small ones pretty quickly!

I had a little java moss and a baby Crypt stuck to my sponge filter, so I planted the Crypt into the substrate. I've never had a flowerhorn allow me to grow live plants in tanks, so we'll see what he does to this one. I noticed today (these are older pics) that the Crypt is missing an entire leaf, but it's not been uprooted, so I'm thinking it may have fallen off on it's own since it's not the healthiest plant in the world. We'll see! There is a teeny-tiny new leaf growing in.

The biggest issues I've had with him so far has been him jumping at the glass lid and running into the tank walls when he gets scared. He's got a couple bruises on his nuchal hump from bumping into stuff, so I'm trying to get him to chill. If he behaves like this when he's 10", he could seriously injure himself - I had a large flowerhorn break a glass lid by jumping into it once. No injuries, but not a fun mess to clean up. To help him chill, I've been sitting in front of the tank a lot with my camera and lights, trying to get him to get used to my presence, as well as new objects outside the tank. It's been mildly successful so far! Excuse the camera work - it was an impromptu shoot!

There's not a ton I really want to change about this tank right now - I'd like to replace the substrate I'm using (aragonite) with something a little darker and coarser. I think a nice brown substrate would be nice, but the main thing I want to steer clear of is the cloudiness from the aragonite. Every time he stirs up the substrate the tank turns white for a couple hours! My fault for not planning ahead, I guess. I'd also like to put a background on the tank, probably a dark blue. I'd considered painting the back like I usually do, but I'm not a fan of blue backgrounds for any other setups, so I figured I'd do something a little easier to clean off since he'll be outgrowing this tank at some point anyway. I'd like to get a new light, but since it's not an urgent need, I think I may just DIY some pendant bulbs above the tank so I could grow some Pothos/other emersed plants out of the top to help with filtration.

Thanks for the read!

[FrozenFins]

On 9/29/2021 at 5:23 PM, Chris said:

The biggest issues I've had with him so far has been him jumping at the glass lid and running into the tank walls when he gets scared. He's got a couple bruises on his nuchal hump from bumping into stuff, so I'm trying to get him to chill. If

My angelfish does this when hes scared too. Its honestly a little scary to watch. He did it a lot when he was younger, but he still does it a bit. 

[Chris]

On 9/29/2021 at 6:36 PM, James Black said:

My angelfish does this when hes scared too. Its honestly a little scary to watch. He did it a lot when he was younger, but he still does it a bit. 

Yeah, I've had angels do it too. Kind of strange that I only ever notice cichlids and puffers bumping into glass! I'm sure other fish do it too.

I'm really just concerned when big fish do it - a full grown oscar swimming full-speed into a tank wall could be bad!

[Chris]

Nanaue took a little piece of a freeze-dried mealworm today. I offered him one the day after I got him and he spat it back out. I think it was too big - these smaller pieces seem to work okay. Lots of chewing, but I've always feed a little insect protein to my flowerhorns. I'd like to try some Repashy Grub Pie, just to see if he takes to it.

I'm wondering how on Earth this little Crypt is still growing - I figured Nanaue would have absolutely shredded it by now. I'm rooting for it!

[Chris]

So, I'm learning that Nanaue hates shellfish. I've tried to feed him little bits of raw table shrimp, mysis, brine, and I just now tried some clam, and he immediately rejects it every time! He'll take a bite, and then launch it across the tank with his mouth, lol. He'll take bloodworms okay, and seemed to be a little more fond of the dried insects this morning than he was yesterday - there was no hesitation before it was engulfed into oblivion.

Funnily enough, so far he's only really gotten excited for pellets. I guess when the fish is manmade and captive-bred that makes a little more sense, but still - I find it interesting.

I added a moss ball, a Crypt Lucens, and a piece of Java Fern Windelov to see if he'd leave new plants alone now that he's settled in. So far, so good!

[SWilson]

Nanaue is so beautiful! 

[Chris]

On 10/2/2021 at 1:47 PM, SWilson said:

Nanaue is so beautiful! 

Thanks! He knows he is, unfortunately. He's only been with me a week and he's already spoiled rotten 🙄

[Chris]

Alrighty, so Nanaue's allowing plants into his kingdom, so I added a large Anubias from my mother's tank (I visited last weekend!), and have been pleased with how well the plants have done so far!

Nanaue himself:

The Crypt (it's growing!):

I forgot about this Anubias in a zip-loc baggie for 3 weeks - I plopped it in here on Sunday, and I think I'm seeing some life come out of it:

Here's the giant Anubias from my mom's tank:

And Nanaue's chosen decor - java moss, in his pot:

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Chris

[Chris]

I took a chance on adding a pleco to the tank today. I've had flowerhorns be fine with them, and had a couple try to kill them as soon as they hit the water. So far, Nanaue has been pretty relaxed with it, but we've had a couple nips and such:

I set the tripod up and left the room for the video above. The first clip is their first meeting, and then the later squabble was about 30 minutes later. For whatever reason, Nanaue was very fascinated by the fork, and decided he'd steal a green bean, lol.

I added some new Crypts, a piece of driftwood (for the pleco), and a small Jungle Val. I also switched out the Marineland fixture for a 30" Finnex Stingray. The difference is insane. I knew (IMO) Marineland products were mostly garbage, but wow - this light is junk. I'm embarrassed to have paid $20 for it. Jeez.

[Chris]

Looking better every day!

Edited October 11, 2021 by Chris

[Chris]

Seems as if most of the images on this page aren't loading for me anymore 🤔 wonder if it's a forum issue? My internet is working normally.

Anyway, saw the sailfin pleco out today:

He's been getting a roughly 3"x3" sheet of Nori every night, along with some green beans and Repashy. Nanaue eats some of it, but I only throw it in there whenever the room is completely dark, so I don't think he gets much before he settles down.

I can tell he's getting some of it though - he really is becoming a chunk!

[Chris]

I'm still alive!

I'm actually house hunting - so it hasn't made sense to do any aquarium projects for a while, since they'll all be torn down and moved fairly soon.

Excuse the lighting on these pics - I didn't do anything special to get them today. Just let the DSLR do the work for me!