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Badis badis (Chameleon fish) / Melina (Bandit) corydora Adventure


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So my new kids for the new tank arrived at 7:40 pm last night. My UPS guy made a special stop since I’ve known him over 20 years. He was headed back to the terminal and said he knew I did not want these sitting on the tuck overnight. 
 

The Badis looked thin. I tested bag water since they were only bagged for 29 hours it was good. I put a few grindal and white worms in the spec cup to make sure they would eat. All 4 ate with gusto as well as the bandits. 
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They were warm 79 degrees so I let them cool slowly on a shelf vs my normal float that drops or raises temp quicker. 
They ar QT in their home. They will be the only residents. Came from same guy who runs a full connected water change system. My panda/Pygmy/ scarlet badis are all fine so I’m not over concerned.  
 

At sun up they were all vigorously searching for food all fins flared but not fully colored up.2E77403C-2FAF-4CFA-A712-52388E1F02F8.jpeg.ceaa4829a503423b51ff66b2d58cfdf6.jpegC4055B15-F0BC-4C9F-9586-6484E21C528B.jpeg.9695d46794c6656fe3ecc0fc84e4b5e9.jpeg73DEC918-BFAD-4E31-AEA7-4C8BA9BCDABA.jpeg.4e1d3bb402e2d06a1f16474a89906c2a.jpeg60C65F90-9B07-4DD6-8182-68C0FD3FDEDC.jpeg.c35c2b81440657dd6bc7fd70930bb3a2.jpeg33E28E3F-DB1E-4A03-AA7D-CEC2F41E6DB3.jpeg.849656f79b65d15942451b4b68c13f86.jpegBF274837-030A-4D57-8F79-DFDD4E8FCB05.jpeg.59555ffb0635d756a83971dda73a767c.jpeg

Breakfast was grindal worms and live BBS. They definitely prefer grindal worms fiercely hunting them down and only picking at BBS.
 

After they ate they are going through the same thing the scarlets went through in qt. The clamp only their tail but not consistently.  Once I  fattened up the scarlets they stopped so hopefully these do also.  Their bellies were slightly sunken on both the scarlets and the Blues.  I think at least on the scarlet they were so starved from fasting and shipping it may give them minor bellyaches when they start feeding. They do not hide and eat well so I’m not overly concerned I’m just sharing in case someone sees similar in the future this might help. 

I’m definitely enamored with the Badidae family (and of course corydora 😁)


HAPPY ADVENTURES…KEARN SOMETHING NEW. 

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On 9/9/2022 at 10:00 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The one fishy has a concave belly indicating possible wasting disease.  A round of paracleanse may be in order.

Thank you for the suggestion. 

I went through the same thing with the scarlets and some other fish after shipping. They are fasted + no food in shipping. The scarlets and other fish usually fill out in a week. 
 

If they don’t fill out I’ll run some praziquantel. With wasting they often do not eat once they are at the conclave stage. These guys are eating with gusto and very active. 
 

I always go every non medication route I can with potential issues. Most things get sorted out. Meds to me are a last resort only. 
 

I’ll keep you updated and let you know if I need to go nuclear and medicate. 

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On 9/9/2022 at 10:38 AM, Guppysnail said:

Thank you for the suggestion. 

I went through the same thing with the scarlets and some other fish after shipping. They are fasted + no food in shipping. The scarlets and other fish usually fill out in a week. 
 

If they don’t fill out I’ll run some praziquantel. With wasting they often do not eat once they are at the conclave stage. These guys are eating with gusto and very active. 
 

I always go every non medication route I can with potential issues. Most things get sorted out. Meds to me are a last resort only. 
 

I’ll keep you updated and let you know if I need to go nuclear and medicate. 

I know, I'm the party pooper.  😐

But yeah, just something to monitor.  I had a dude that had wasting disease for quite some time, a pristella tetra.  He ate like a pig, very energetically, but he kept shrinking, and I couldn't figure out what his deal was (this was in my pre-forum days).  Eventually I learned to put him in QT and medicate, and he did make a full recovery.

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On another note:  I can already tell the Badis Badis have a cute personality.  Reminds me of my ram: stop, look, back up, decide..  not just mindless swimming like some of the schooling fish.  I love cichlids so very much. 😍

And those cories are ADORABLE.  Of course I have to tag the cory NERM @nabokovfan87 to have a look at those beauties.

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One of my favorite things are window tanks. As dawn rolls in I get to watch fish wake up and start their day. Not great quality on the dark videos but cool to me anyway. 
 

The BB bellies are all beginning to fill in. They eat like crazy. Still look at BBS like “mom come on I’m a big fishy.  I’m not chasing those little specs”. But if one gets right near their mouth they eat it. 
 

Worms are another story. They love snooping about the gravel for them. White worms are a bit to big. However the biggest which is almost double the size of the other three tackles them.  He gets a mouthful and it squirms back out. 4-5 tries and it goes down though. Hilarious to watch because it it gets out the BB stalks it from all sides deciding on an attack plan. 
 

No more stress/fear pinched tails. However they have fish sign language with their finnage. It’s way cool. When they get near one another the fins go crazy in all directions and the eyes get dark. 
 

They all found their own little areas. 2 took up residence in 1 spot and seem cozy rubbing one another so hoping 1 girl. I have not gone down the rabbit hole of how to sex them yet. 
 

The big boy AKA Jaws decided he is a centerpiece fish and the entire tank is HIS. He hangs in the middle and monitors the bandits in his territory but eats with them well. He patrols the tank and specifically finds 2/3 of them and chases half hearted aggressively just to show who is BOSS. 
 

Bandits were a good choice as dithers. Very nosey so when confrontation is afoot they come to inspect the scene causing enough chaos to distract. 
 

The one that has not colored up who shacked up with the other likes the salvinia minima. Goes up and roots through it hunting. Always comes out smacking lips. 
 

They don’t like bright tank lights even with a thick layer of salvinia but conversely love the blazing sunlight in the tank in the afternoon. They play along the back wall each jockeying for the best ray of sun spot. 
 

The Bb and Sb have such different personalities than other fish I’ve kept. I really enjoy them. 

I have another video I’ll add in a bit. It’s taking forever to upload to YouTube 

HAPPY ADVENTURES…LEARN SOMETHING NEW

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Edited by Guppysnail
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On 9/10/2022 at 8:32 AM, Guppysnail said:

2 took up residence in 1 spot and seem cozy rubbing one another so hoping 1 girl. I have not gone down the rabbit hole of how to sex them yet. 

It seems like they are figuring that out just fine. 😂

On 9/10/2022 at 8:32 AM, Guppysnail said:

fish sign language with their finnage. It’s way cool. When they get near one another the fins go crazy in all directions and the eyes get dark.

That’s awesome! 😍

On 9/10/2022 at 8:32 AM, Guppysnail said:

Bandits were a good choice as dithers. Very nosey so when confrontation is afoot they come to inspect the scene causing enough chaos to distract. 

It’s funny they are called bandits when actually they are security guards.

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@modified lung yup me again, the pest😁 you are the only one I know that has kept badis. Any chance this one is a girl?  This was early this morning. She? Eats well so the belly is rounding out. She? Is much more shy than the 3 boys so very hard to get photos. The other 3 I’m pretty sure are boys as they are quickly becoming very colorful and boldly striped. 

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On 9/10/2022 at 12:33 PM, Guppysnail said:

@modified lung yup me again, the pest😁 you are the only one I know that has kept badis. Any chance this one is a girl?  This was early this morning. She? Eats well so the belly is rounding out. She? Is much more shy than the 3 boys so very hard to get photos. The other 3 I’m pretty sure are boys as they are quickly becoming very colorful and boldly striped. 

No bother.

Technically the scarlet and black tiger Badis are Darios, not Badis, so IDK if the same things apply to Badis badis.l

I have the most experience with black tigers. With them the easiest way to tall the difference is the belly, besides being larger, is more transparent and pinkish. Same with the gill plate. Then the white-ish color from the bottom of the fish comes further up the side like with female CPDs.

Another is all the fins, especially the pelvic fin, on females are a lot shorter and more rounded than males.

Here's some pics I found on the net. The top two are female scarlets and the middle are female black tigers. Based on those I think the bottom two might be female Badis badis because of the more white or pinkish bellies. Your picture looks to me like it has the same kind of belly. But I've never owned any Badis badis so I'm not completely sure.

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Seen something very interesting.  The one I hope is a girl and the boy she hangs out with were side by side. The boy rolled onto his side with his belly facing the girl.  It was in slow motion and actually scared me. I thought he was going belly up.  He righted himself and she came a bit closer. This continued until the BOSS came and chased the boy. The Boss actively hunts and chases both boys.  The 2 smaller boy will display at one another and chase each other. I have only seen the one smaller boy give chase half heartedly to the hoped for girl. 
 

The boys also move like snakes. They make these weird S shapes at each other or when they have spied a tasty morsel.  At first they didn’t look like they were going to be big on personality but the more they settle in the more interesting they become. I’m also happy to report all 4 have nice filled out bellies.  The fin thing still gets me. They are so expressive with them I would consider them the fin Chatty Cathys of the fish world. 
 

Another thing I noticed is they are morning fish. The tank is primarily sun lit and dawn to early afternoon are their most active times. Afternoon to midday is their forage time and deciding whose boss time. After that they chill out and wind down. When they enter each other’s space they either don’t chase or it’s a lame attempt. 
 

Melini are doing great and have also filled out nicely. 

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I’ve been feeding the Bb’s grindal worms and white worms. They now totally ignore live bbs. 🤨. The white worms are to long and they struggle so here sits Gup cutting white worms in half 🤣. I started feeding both worms wet Xtreme wafers. That is working really well and I feel better about worm nutritional value to fish than cat food or bread. @TeeJay showed me seachem nourish. So I ordered nourish and vitachem. I’ll start soaking wafers in that unless someone sees some fatal flaw with that idea. Kind of use the worms like fish food sausage casings 😂
 

My big guy this morning started doing a happy wiggle before snatching each white worm piece. He was kind of full by the time I got the camera but kept picking and spitting them out. No happy dance 😕

 

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On 9/15/2022 at 6:45 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I hope the fish in question is a female. Having dealt with a big group of all male puffers it was WW3. All the best @Guppysnail!

They are doing ok right now. Jaws is the issue. He sits in the middle and wants the tank to himself. The others only chase when they cross each other’s territory. Jaws just patrols the entire tank looking for trouble. He may end up with chaotic CPD or crazy guppies if he starts causing issues. That should put him in his place. 🤣

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Could just be me, wishful thinking or bad eyes. I really think this is a girl. The way the sun shines through her body if it was a guppy I swear the area where a guppy gravid spot is looks like maybe eggs are forming. 
 

The other three have nice filled bellies, maybe to much only eating worms that are fattening I may have to cut back. She is filled out but now rounding on the underside and rounding to the sides. The other 3 do not. 
 

The three males aggressively chase each other. But all three half heartedly give a slow chase to her and she hovers near each of them sometimes. 
 

Fingers crossed 🤞🏻 

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Hectic weekend so I didn’t get video of the Melini.  They act similar but different than my pandas. They do all the normal panda type stuff plus they spend a decent amount of time just swimming midwater vs panda swimming everywhere but usually close to decor, glass, plants etc.  they just swim mid water in open areas. Almost like Pygmy cory but they don’t group up to swim about. Very cool fish. 
 

I found this online. I can really see the girls body shape vs the boys. Definitely looks like the one I hope is a girl. I’ve not seen her pay too much attention to any particular male but she does seem to watch one of the twins (had to be those couldn’t be Jaws that I could easily see which fish she liked 🤨). So if they do display mating behavior and I can figure a way to tell the twins apart I’ll remove them to a separate tank and let them breed for a bit before returning them so I can raise babies. I think for the entire first round I’ll leave them where they are so I can see behavior around other fish and if/how they defend the egg site etc.

 

 

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They can be trained 🤩

So after my notice of the Bb getting pleasantly plump I decided to find a way to control their white worm intake. They each have an area but the little suspected girl does not she roams. I started feeding one white worm at a time in each one’s area and I chose a separate area for the little girl where she is at that moment that is not in boy territory. Day one was war to all get the worm. Day 2 Jaws got his in his spot and tried taking each of the boys. Day 3 same but the boys defended their worm hard core. Day 4 same but they all went to their territory and looked forward in anticipation and the others stayed at the edge of each one’s territory and everyone got their own intended worm.

Little girl (I’m calling her that until I determine otherwise) is FAST. she chooses her dot each day usually midwater or higher and I let the worm drop. If it falls to fast she weaves and dodges the boys. So far including day 1 she has successfully gotten her intended worm. 
 

 

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I decided to see if they would take white worms from my fingers. My hand hit the tank and they all well to their spots. They are getting good at direct feeding. So I held the worm front and center in neutral territory. They eventually lined up in a semi circle around my fingers uncertain what to do but wanting the worm. 
Finally after several minutes of staring little girl backed up, dove full speed under the boys, up around in front of them, snatched the worm and warp speed ran away with it. As soon as she munched it she came back and lined up for worm 2. 
The boys still uncertain just stared. She repeated her performance and snatched worm 2. I stopped there and fed the boys in their spots so Little girl did not over eat. 
 

I got small scuds at Keystone Clash and for evening meal I put those in. Little girl hunted and devoured. The boys including Jaws were hysterical. They would peck about 1/16th of an inch from them then when the scuds moved startled and jumped back. Then hunt new scud and repeat. I never seen the boys actually eat the scuds. They all (what LG didn’t eat) disappeared into the substrate eventually. The boys continued to look. So Jaws and the twins, assumed big bad boys are really scaredy-cats 🤣🥰

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