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Gold Occelatus in a 29?


mynameisnobody
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Hello, I have an empty 29 gallon that I’d like to set up as a species only for some Gold Occelatus. I already have multies and similis and these guys are intriguing. I have the opportunity to purchase pairs. Does anyone have experience and any suggestions as to what ratios to stock for success? I know the aggression can be much amongst themselves. Thank you kindly

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I keep and breed these guys. 

I've found that if you can get a pair or group going, they'll do their own thing consistently and reliably. But getting past the aggression/compatibility/suitability hump with a group seems to be the hard part. 

They are quite different from multis, in terms of behavior and how they use space and shells. 

Some tips: 

- 29gal will be fine. I keep my 1m/3f group in a 20" x 20" frag tank, and the floor space is more than adequate. 

-  I use a fine pool filter sand for substrate, with lava rocks for structure. 

- Until you have a working setup, make sure you have a lid on the tank. It's not uncommon for the submissive fish in a group to be pushed up off the substrate, and they only place they can hide is behind the heater, behind the filter, or at the upper corner somewhere. I've had fish leave the tank (jump and die) to escape aggression. 

- They're pretty much impossible to sex reliably unless you have larger male. If not, breeding behavior is the only way. 

- Shell number and density should be much lower than for multis. I recommend 2 shells per fish as a starting point. But they shouldn't be clustered in groups like they are with multis. Spread them out evenly, 1 here, 1 there and so forth. Use rocks, sponge filter etc to create sightline breaks at substrate level. 

- In my setup the male has his own shell, and the 3 females have their own shells, all spread out from each other by around 4-8". More distance is better. There is always 3 or 4 free shells in the setup that females change to if they want. 

- I had a "spare" younger male in the tank for a while (along with the 1+3), and while he was able to find a safe home at the back of the tank, he silently and quietly ate a lot of babies. Once I removed him and restored the tank to 1 breeding male, all was good again. 

- If you are purchasing proven pairs, you're ahead of the game and I say go for it. If pairs means 2 fish that the seller thinks might be a male and female, I'd get 4-6 fish, and hope you get at least 1 working pair or group out of that. If you don't see babies after say 2 months, do a renovation to mix things up.

- If you do have aggression, you can try to resolve it via major renovations (moving rocks shells etc around to force the fish to settle into new territories), or have a backup tank to hold extras/submissives/problem fish. 

Good luck!

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On 1/3/2023 at 2:32 PM, TOtrees said:

I keep and breed these guys. 

I've found that if you can get a pair or group going, they'll do their own thing consistently and reliably. But getting past the aggression/compatibility/suitability hump with a group seems to be the hard part. 

They are quite different from multis, in terms of behavior and how they use space and shells. 

Some tips: 

- 29gal will be fine. I keep my 1m/3f group in a 20" x 20" frag tank, and the floor space is more than adequate. 

-  I use a fine pool filter sand for substrate, with lava rocks for structure. 

- Until you have a working setup, make sure you have a lid on the tank. It's not uncommon for the submissive fish in a group to be pushed up off the substrate, and they only place they can hide is behind the heater, behind the filter, or at the upper corner somewhere. I've had fish leave the tank (jump and die) to escape aggression. 

- They're pretty much impossible to sex reliably unless you have larger male. If not, breeding behavior is the only way. 

- Shell number and density should be much lower than for multis. I recommend 2 shells per fish as a starting point. But they shouldn't be clustered in groups like they are with multis. Spread them out evenly, 1 here, 1 there and so forth. Use rocks, sponge filter etc to create sightline breaks at substrate level. 

- In my setup the male has his own shell, and the 3 females have their own shells, all spread out from each other by around 4-8". More distance is better. There is always 3 or 4 free shells in the setup that females change to if they want. 

- I had a "spare" younger male in the tank for a while (along with the 1+3), and while he was able to find a safe home at the back of the tank, he silently and quietly ate a lot of babies. Once I removed him and restored the tank to 1 breeding male, all was good again. 

- If you are purchasing proven pairs, you're ahead of the game and I say go for it. If pairs means 2 fish that the seller thinks might be a male and female, I'd get 4-6 fish, and hope you get at least 1 working pair or group out of that. If you don't see babies after say 2 months, do a renovation to mix things up.

- If you do have aggression, you can try to resolve it via major renovations (moving rocks shells etc around to force the fish to settle into new territories), or have a backup tank to hold extras/submissives/problem fish. 

Good luck!

You’ve got me hooked! Any pics of yours??😁

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On 1/3/2023 at 8:42 AM, Mynameisnobody said:

Thank you for the info. I’m going to look into purchasing 1M/3F from the same person. I believe he only sells pairs, but it’s worth an ask. Thank you kindly

I'd recommend aiming to establish a single pair to start, remove any extras and let the pair do its thing for a while, then add more females after you've achieved that. I'm having a hard time figuring out why I'm recommending this, but I think it's just a case of having fewer variables or potential problems to nail down or control. It's also been my observation that these fish are pretty choosy, meaning just because you put a male and female together, doesn't mean they'll get along or breed. This is where the trial and error, and mixing things up over time comes in.

In the early days/weeks/months, you might want some dither fish/tankmates, to spread out aggression. Guppies or endlers would be good, or something killi-like like lampeyes. I keep an albino bristlenose in the tank plus various snails to keep things tidy. If you only have the 2-6 golds in a tank that big, you're likely to end up with quite a bit of uneaten food so the extra fish will be helpful there too. 

When my 1m/3f was just 1m/1f, I also kept and bred masked julies in the tank, and they were a decent pairing. The julies bred behind the big rocks at the back, and occupied 1 half of my 20x20 tank (with a kind of rock/ridge through the middle), and the golds and their babies occupied the other side. In a longer 29 gallon tank, you could easily have room for a pair of golds at 1 side, and a group of julies on the other. Plus guppies/killis or whatever up top. 

Edited by TOtrees
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