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Elassoma Gilberti

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

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#461 Guest_jetajockey_*

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Posted 27 April 2011 - 03:27 AM

If all goes well this friday, we are going on a short trip eastward (choctawhatchee bay area) to see if we can find some of these

Edited by jetajockey, 27 April 2011 - 03:27 AM.

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#462 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 27 April 2011 - 06:28 PM

If all goes well this friday, we are going on a short trip eastward (choctawhatchee bay area) to see if we can find some of these

Ah! You're so lucky. I wish I could observe E. gilberti in its natural habitat. Have fun!

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#463 Guest_Yeahson421_*

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Posted 28 April 2011 - 09:03 AM

My plan is to sell off the clams before I move (anyone want any?) and dose the tank to a high degree with this anti-algae stuff.

I'm interested in some clams. How deep of substrate do they need?

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#464 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 28 April 2011 - 12:01 PM

I'm interested in some clams. How deep of substrate do they need?

My substrate ranges from a centimeter to six inches and they live all throughout it, in any part that's deep enough to cover their bodies. It seems to be more important that the substrate be soft enough for them to be able to dig in it and cover themselves than how deep it is. A lot died back when I had pea sized gravel because they couldn't bury themselves.

They don't bother the Elassoma gilberti (they do not reproduce parasitically, as many other bivalves do), and I hear from other people that they may possibly be improving water quality with their filtering, although I take that with a grain of salt.

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#465 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 28 April 2011 - 12:07 PM

I'm so glad I found my protractor recently. It allows me to take scaled photos, like this one:

scaled photo.jpg 161.45KB 5 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa... photo.jpg.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 28 April 2011 - 12:20 PM.

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#466 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 28 April 2011 - 03:22 PM

My substrate ranges from a centimeter to six inches and they live all throughout it, in any part that's deep enough to cover their bodies.

Rephrase: I don't want to make it sound like they live at all depths. They bury their bodies and then poke their little mouth filtering parts above the substrate. So they live really only at one depth; the deepness of their clam shell. They are scattered at all areas of the tank, though, at the front which is shallower and at the back, which is deeper. But they only ever bury themselves to the depth of their bodies. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

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#467 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 28 April 2011 - 03:25 PM

Also, it's possible that some of the young Elassoma gilberti are eating the crushed fish flakes. Not sure if that's true yet, though. They are suspiciously fat while some of the older fish (see picture above) have become skinnier without blackworms. But I'll wait to claim that they eat flakes for sure until I actually see one of them eat.

Edited by EricaWieser, 28 April 2011 - 03:25 PM.

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#468 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 May 2011 - 07:44 PM

There aren't going to be blackworms in the tank for about a month, so I went to RMS Aquaculture (my local fish store) and bought some 12 cent 'feeder guppies' (which I believe, based upon this website, to be wild guppies from Peru or Brazil. Website: http://www.pbs.org/w...py/gallery.html ). I chose them based upon their size and their inclination to eat flake food. I figured, maybe the Elassoma will see them eating flake food and will learn to eat flake food too. But even if they don't, these feeder guppies are too small to eat the Elassoma, so they can't do any harm.

feeder guppy.jpg 112.01KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa... guppy.jpg.html

I expected the males to be a little less out in the open with their displaying, because that's something that happened when I added neon tetras a while ago. And that did happen a little bit; the males have been sticking to the plants more than usual. But what I didn't expect was that the presence of the guppies would encourage the female Elassoma to venture more into the open space. This is interesting, because it's not something that happened much with the neon tetras. I guess the female guppies, with how they're clear and all, are functioning a little bit as dither fish. And the females being out in the open is, in turn, exciting the males to do their display dance. So the males aren't hiding as much as they could be.

Size comparison, so you can see that a fully grown guppy can't possibly eat a juvenile Elassoma gilberti:

feeder guppy and juvenile elassoma.jpg 128.77KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...assoma.jpg.html

It's nice to have a little bit of movement in the tank. I missed the openness and unabashed fishy swimming that most tropical fish do. The gilberti are pretty, yes, and their dance is awesome, but a tank full of fifty gilberti can still seem empty if you walk up to it because they all hide.

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#469 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 08:40 AM

For all the time that this baby has been alive, I haven't been feeding microworms. I wonder what it's been eating? Has it been eating the flakes? It's got a full belly...

baby Elassoma gilberti 2.jpg 207.54KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...erti 1.jpg.html

I snapped this photo just now as I was sitting in front of the tank during feeding time. This little fish emerged from hiding and started swimming around. I hope that's because it's eating the flakes.

I wonder if I was doing a bad thing earlier, by feeding the young microworms every day. I think that that was training them to find food only on the bottom of the aquarium. This little baby has apparently survived without microworms at all, which makes me think that it must have eaten the crushed flake food I add twice a day from the water column or from laying on the ground.

I've been watching the adult Elassoma gilberti at feeding time, when these feeder guppies are in an eating frenzy. They come out of the plants towards the open region of the tank. The Elassoma can tell something's going on, but they're not sure what. The aroma of food is in the 'air', so they jab futilely at the ground in an attempt to uncover worms. It's sort of sad. The flake food will literally land upon the top of their heads and they don't know to eat it. Maybe this little baby, the one that grew up without eating worms, will eat flake food. It would be nice to have the pygmy sunfish flake trained.

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#470 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 09:34 AM

More scaled photos. That scale is one inch.

blanched male scaled photo resize.jpg 205.08KB 0 downloads

scaled photo number 2 resize.jpg 230.93KB 0 downloads

scaled photo number 3 resize.jpg 278.83KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa... photo.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...mber 2.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...mber 3.jpg.html

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#471 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 09:37 AM

Now that I'm looking at those photos I took and back at the tank, that's definitely a leech in the bottom right hand corner of the last two photos. It's one of the small clear species. Great.

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#472 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 May 2011 - 11:06 PM

So, I've been observing these feeder guppies and their interactions with the Elassoma gilberti for almost a week now and I think I've made some conclusions.

1. The Elassoma gilberti females and not-breeding-colored males are more comfortable swimming out into open area now.
2. The dark black and colorful blue males hide in the plants more, dancing around in open area less.
3. Guppies don't seem to eat Elassoma that I can tell, and Elassoma don't seem to eat guppies that I can tell.
4. About the guppies influencing the Elassoma to eat flake food by visibly eating it themselves: I can't prove that the pygmy sunfish are eating flakes because I've never actually seen it. But I can say for sure that several juveniles were very skinny before feeding time today and plump afterwards. The guppy feeding behavior is stimulating them to eat, but I can't prove yet that it's flakes they're eating.
5. The male feeder guppies gained color and the females gained girth. They were bland and skinny when crammed into the tank of feeders in the pet store, but now they've perked up.
6. I would recommend feeder guppies as a dither fish for pygmy sunfish. They don't spend time in the dense plants where Elassoma are, so I don't think they're any threat to the Elassoma fry. And they seem to encourage the Elassoma into the open space and to eat during feeding time, both good things.

Yup, that's what I've learned.
Here's two juvenile Elassoma gilberti with a male feeder guppy.

Guppy with juvenile Elassoma gilberti.jpg 185.8KB 0 downloads

Two Elassoma gilberti resize.jpg 228.21KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...lberti.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...lberti.jpg.html

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#473 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 03 May 2011 - 11:13 PM

Oh, and here's a "before" picture of the tank because I'm moving it tomorrow.

55 gallon tank May 3rd 2011.jpg 209.26KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...er/058.JPG.html

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#474 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 10 May 2011 - 02:12 PM

Due to a brief delay, the tank hasn't been moved yet. Here's a photo of a male who has grown comfortable with the guppies, and now wanders out into the open water scavenging for food. He's not too skinny, considering I haven't fed them anything but flake food in quite a while.

Elassoma gilberti male resize.jpg 153.9KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...i male.jpg.html

I'm also noticing that the Elassoma become more active and visible after flakes are dropped in, an indication that they may be eating them. This guy in the photo above was photographed right after the food had finished dropping to the bottom.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 May 2011 - 02:14 PM.

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#475 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 11 May 2011 - 06:44 PM

The scale is one inch.

Elassoma gilberti female scaled photo resize.jpg 218.73KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa... photo.jpg.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 11 May 2011 - 06:45 PM.

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#476 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 15 May 2011 - 11:14 PM

We counted the Elassoma gilberti as they were removed from the fish tank in preparation for moving, and the total number was 84. There were 84 Elassoma gilberti in the 55 gallon tank. Wow.

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#477 Guest_skalartor_*

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Posted 16 May 2011 - 01:37 AM

are you able to make any announcements about sex ratio of your gilbertis?

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#478 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 16 May 2011 - 11:15 AM

are you able to make any announcements about sex ratio of your gilbertis?

I felt like it was half male, half female, but I'm still not an expert on telling the genders apart.

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#479 Guest_skalartor_*

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Posted 16 May 2011 - 11:18 AM

thank you for your answer.
i have been thinking about influences on the sex ratio of elassoma for a while. i don't believe in this temperature argument. but i still don't have enough data to even make an educated guess...

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#480 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 16 May 2011 - 11:46 AM

thank you for your answer.
i have been thinking about influences on the sex ratio of elassoma for a while. i don't believe in this temperature argument. but i still don't have enough data to even make an educated guess...

My temperature ranges between 65 and 75 Fahrenheit, if that helps.