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Elassoma Gilberti

Started by Guest_Okiimiru_* , Aug 22 2010 01:19 PM

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#361 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 March 2011 - 11:07 PM

Current photo of tank:

015resize.jpg 189.96KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...ze_002.jpg.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 01 March 2011 - 11:13 PM.

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#362 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 02 March 2011 - 05:20 PM

The Elassoma gilberti are skinnier than they were a week ago. I don't like it that there aren't any blackworms left. But I feel like if I buy more, they'll just get eaten by the leeches. It's a bad situation and I don't know what to do about it. The way things are going, the fish will continue to get skinnier and skinner and be unhappy and starving. They will likely begin to eat their own young. Some of them may switch to flake food, but most of them probably won't, and they'll subsist on the snail eggs, staying very skinny and unhappy.

There are a couple options:
1. The leech trap, which may or may not work. It's labor intensive either way and I don't like it because the very skinny young leeches wouldn't be caught by it. The reproductive age might be younger and smaller than the age the trap catches them, and then I would be continually catching them and they would still always be there.
2. Chemical warfare. I know that levamisole hcl would probably kill the leeches. The problem is that it would also probably kill the snails, too, whose young help feed the Elassoma. And I can't guarantee that the Elassoma gilberti would be completely unaffected by the chemicals. It might also kill all of the snails but the leeches, hidden in the substrate, might live.
3. Go with a bare bottom tank. I could put the roots of the plants in little pots and have a glass bottom. Any blackworms and/or leeches would have to be exposed at all times. That means I could see the leeches and remove them, unlike right now, when they are hidden in the substrate. The problem with this plan is that the leeches would still probably hide in the substrate of the pots.
4. Sell my plants, sell my tank, sell everything and start over. If I had the chance to start again, it's likely I could avoid a leech problem by not newly contaminating the tank. I don't know if I have the energy to set this all up again, only to break it down in two months when I move to my summer housing.
5. Sell everything and call it a wash. Admit failure and take a break from fish. I'm so tempted to do this option because it would also reduce a lot of the things I have to transport when moving to a place three states away in a few months.

So those are my options. I don't know what to do. The Elassoma don't have any blackworms to eat and they're unhappy and it's making me unhappy. I hate these leeches. I wish there was something else the Elassoma would eat.

6. feed em frozen brine shrimp... it works well and I have had them fatten up and breed on frozen foods alone
7. put some water lettuce outside in a trash can and once a week bring a few bunches in and put them in your tank... the fish love the live food offered and again grow fat and breed...

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#363 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 02 March 2011 - 05:22 PM

Are there actually "muck-feeding" or detritivorous leeches? I thought all leeches were either predatory or blood-feeding.

I had a turtle leech in a tank for a long time... in the wild they feed off the shell fo turtles (really logical name then huh)... in teh tank he fed on teh shell of snails... it killed the snails, but he was a great critter in the tank... I think there was a thread on him with photos...

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#364 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 02 March 2011 - 06:50 PM

6. feed em frozen brine shrimp... it works well and I have had them fatten up and breed on frozen foods alone
7. put some water lettuce outside in a trash can and once a week bring a few bunches in and put them in your tank... the fish love the live food offered and again grow fat and breed...

Thanks, I'll try that

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#365 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 12:36 PM

For all that I've been stressing about the lack of food, the Elassoma gilberti don't seem to mind too much. They're still doing well and there hasn't been a pause in the constant breeding. Here are some new pictures of them:

The new male:

the new male.jpg 60.48KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...w male.jpg.html
He's a bit too skinny for my liking.

Here's a juvenile eating flakes and microworms:

juvenile eating flakes.jpg 162.59KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...flakes.jpg.html

Male dancing:

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#366 Guest_mywan_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 09:12 PM

I see a number of worms, at least what appears to be worms, sticking up out of the substrate like blackworms in that pic. The one behind that juvenile has a distinct segmented look like a blackworm. It appears to me that many blackworms remain, just not in the numbers they once had.

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#367 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 09:45 PM

I see a number of worms, at least what appears to be worms, sticking up out of the substrate like blackworms in that pic. The one behind that juvenile has a distinct segmented look like a blackworm. It appears to me that many blackworms remain, just not in the numbers they once had.

That's true, they are there in patches and clumps. But it's not nearly the amount I had. About 9/10 of them disappeared.

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#368 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 11:16 PM

I have a similar set up with 14 gilberti and 6 L. ommata and I added two portions of blackworms yesterday that I got from a local tropical fish store in Columbus Ohio and today there are not a lot of the worms left. I know you have fewer adult gilberti than I do but I have to wonder if the combination of some of your young reaching a size where they can now feed on the blackworms and the addition of the school of neons is actually the cause of the thinning out of the blackworm population rather than leaches... Have you seen additional leaches since you killed the one? Don't mean to be too skeptical but I am a little.

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#369 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 11:25 PM

Have you seen additional leaches since you killed the one? Don't mean to be too skeptical but I am a little.

No, I haven't seen any of the big species of leech since the first one. I really hope that it didn't reproduce and maybe all my leech worries are over with. I could test that idea by buying more blackworms tomorrow, restocking the tank, and seeing how long they survive. *nods* I'll do that.

I really don't think the neon tetras are eating the blackworms. It's like they're bad at it. I watched the following happen: The large female gilberti was sitting still on the bottom of the tank. She was watching a worm wiggle around, and because she was so still, the worm didn't hide from her. All of a sudden, she dramatically shot forward and grabbed the worm. A neon tetra, who had been swimming in its spastic neon tetra way up above the gilberti, darted down and tried to steal her meal, attracted by the motion. She dodged the neon tetra, it got ADD and swam away, and she finished her meal in peace. The neon tetra ignored the other worms, who were still wiggling in the substrate a bit aways from it.
It's like the neon tetras are just bad at eating blackworms. They're stupid. Their jerky movements startle the worms back into their burrows, and they don't have the patience to sit there and wait for them like the gilberti do. They seem to ignore the substrate, swimming several inches above it.

Edit: I just now dropped sinking pellets onto the neon tetra school to see what would happen. They dodged them as they fell down and then ignored them when they sat on the substrate. They're just not good bottom feeders.

Edited by EricaWieser, 03 March 2011 - 11:37 PM.

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#370 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 March 2011 - 11:49 PM

I think I'll title this photo "Who's watching who?"
http://gallery.nanfa...ng who.jpg.html

There's some measure of justice in the blackworm eating the leech corpse.

040resize.jpg 145.86KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html

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#371 Guest_mywan_*

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Posted 04 March 2011 - 01:29 AM

Cool. Boom bust cycles are as common in ecology as weather. The fact that your tank handled this without actual loss says a lot about your setup. I have learned a lot from your efforts :tongue:

Keep it up :cool2:

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#372 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 05:20 PM

Comments anyone?

015resize.jpg 193.07KB 2 downloads

015resizecrop.jpg 31.91KB 1 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...15_001.JPG.html http://gallery.nanfa...zecrop.jpg.html

Edit: To put the picture in perspective, there was a male that was pursuing her and doing his mating dance at her, but he got startled away when I took the picture. He was in the bottom right hand corner, near the anubias.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 March 2011 - 05:22 PM.

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#373 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 05:27 PM

Other photos:

005resize.jpg 260.96KB 0 downloads

004resize.jpg 193.63KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...ze_001.jpg.html http://gallery.nanfa...ze_002.jpg.html

That's the new male shown above.
Also, I've decided that the male a couple pages back in the topic who was dancing with a clamped caudal fin (tail) is just deformed and he can't open his all the way. Video: youtube.com/watch?v=PLTuFdKhL7g
I haven't seen him do a normal dance even once. And I haven't seen any of the other fish do a clamped fin dance. So I think he's deformed.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 March 2011 - 05:30 PM.

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#374 Guest_gerald_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 08:39 PM

I hope she's just really gravid, but when I see pygmies THAT fat I wonder about bloat and kidney/liver damage.

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#375 Guest_itsme_*

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Posted 05 March 2011 - 09:27 PM

Comments anyone?
015resize.jpg 193.07KB 2 downloads
015resizecrop.jpg 31.91KB 1 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...15_001.JPG.html http://gallery.nanfa...zecrop.jpg.html

Edit: To put the picture in perspective, there was a male that was pursuing her and doing his mating dance at her, but he got startled away when I took the picture. He was in the bottom right hand corner, near the anubias.

I don't mean this in any way to be a criticism or judgement, just the laws of nature: If I had that fish in my tank, I would remove it and destroy it. Unless your other females commonly attain this girth and lose it after spawning, that fish is almost certainly ill with a parasite or something that is causing her to retain fluids. My approach is to remove such a fish immediately to hopefully prevent it from spreading to others. It's hard to tell exactly what it is, and will likely be a hassle to figure it out, get appropriate meds, (if there are any) and treat it. These things happen to us fishkeepers all the time, It's nothing unusual. But I would take action to prevent its spreading.

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#376 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 02:28 PM

(changing post) I can't make up my mind whether or not I should remove her. I don't want to kill her, you know? She acts like she's happy, still spawning with the males, still eating normally.

I also don't want to wait too long and let whatever pathogen killed her liver/kidneys infect my other fish.

*can't decide*

Edited by EricaWieser, 06 March 2011 - 02:48 PM.

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#377 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 02:30 PM

I hope she's just really gravid, but when I see pygmies THAT fat I wonder about bloat and kidney/liver damage.

She is really, really fat. I'm glad you agree with me. I was looking at her and I was like, "I just don't like these Elassoma gilberti females. Boy are they ugly." So I'm glad it's an anomaly. I guess I can stop calling all of my other fish 'too skinny' like I was. I was comparing them to her.

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#378 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 02:50 PM

(changing post) I can't make up my mind whether or not I should remove her. I don't want to kill her, you know? She acts like she's happy, still spawning with the males, still eating normally.

I also don't want to wait too long and let whatever pathogen killed her liver/kidneys infect my other fish.

*can't decide*

I'm thinking about netting her and putting her in my 10 gallon tank. That way she wouldn't have to die, and wouldn't be able to infect my other fish. But there isn't anything for her to eat in that 10 gallon tank. ...

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#379 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 03:01 PM

I'm thinking about netting her and putting her in my 10 gallon tank. That way she wouldn't have to die, and wouldn't be able to infect my other fish. But there isn't anything for her to eat in that 10 gallon tank. ...

Done! There are snails in that tank. She can eat their eggs if she's hungry I guess.

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#380 Guest_itsme_*

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Posted 06 March 2011 - 03:52 PM

That's a good solution. I can understand why you don't want to end it for her. And it's curious that she otherwise behaves normally. Let us know how she progresses. Maybe the outcome will provide some answers. Probably now, she'll live forever! :biggrin:

Have you tried frozen brine shrimp? The larger Elassoma should be able to eat this and enjoy it. Frozen bloodworms can work, but often the worms in the batch you get are way too big for their tiny mouths. You can chop them, but it's a pain. I've thought of stocking a freshwater shrimp that will reproduce, like the red cherry shrimp. I figure the Elassoma would eat their offspring. I worry though, that the adult shrimp would attack the Elassoma eggs. I'd be curious if anyone has comments/experience with that.