Elassoma Gilberti

I moved the fish tank a few days ago, which gave me the opportunity to take some photos of the fish in states they are not usually in. Here are two males in a blue net during capture:
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They are easy to capture if you remove all of the plants first and approach them with the net from underneath in a corner. If you approach them from the side with the net, then they attempt brief spurts of activity that wear them out and stress them. It's better to scoop them up from underneath. Unlike guppies, the Elassoma do not thrash about during capture and can be gently surrounded by a net with little stress. Until they're captured and realize it, of course, and then you just quickly scoop them up and place them in their next container of water.

Here are some photos of the tank after the plants have been removed. You can see just how many Elassoma gilberti there are (my friend and I tallied a count of them as I scooped them out, and it turns out there were 84 Elassoma gilberti in the 55 gallon tank).

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Elassoma gilberti blend in very well with the substrate I use (kitty litter), so it was hard to see them to scoop them out. They didn't help matters by burying themselves into the soft substrate in order to escape capture. Here is a photo:

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But eventually I got them all (or most of them) and moved the tank. Here is a photo of it in its new location a couple hours after moving. The water is cloudy because of the move, and because I chose to go with all new kitty litter substrate instead of hauling wet mud during the moving process. I only added 25 pound of kitty litter (approximately $3 of Walmart's Special Kitty brand litter) this time.

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Update:
I have been feeding the tank only with crushed flake food for a while now and wanted to post the results. The Elassoma gilberti have not all starved to death, although I think it's possible that one or two did. Instead, they have changed their behavior.

Before, when californian blackworms were plentiful, the top five or so males would constantly display and parade their colored-up selves around the tank, dancing continuously. Now, with only crushed flake food, the fish are skinnier and more secretive. I have not seen a male display in about two weeks. Today is the first time I saw a colored male at all since the move. He was hidden within the anubias, but was definitely black with blue stripes once again. I think he might be afraid to enter the open spaces and dance with the guppies there. I'm not sure yet, though.

The gray Elassoma are in general more willing to enter the open spaces of the tank when the wild guppies are there. They probably are following the guppies's lead to eat flake food, but I can't prove it. I bought a show guppy, one with a solid black tail, and the pygmy sunfish are afraid of that one and flee from it as if it were a dark, dominant Elassoma. But overall I think the guppies are encouraging the pygmies to be less afraid of open spaces. One small Elassoma gilberti swam around at the front of the glass during feeding time today, completely ignoring me sitting there, obviously in search of food.

My conclusion is that if you have californian blackworms, and if feeding them to your pygmy sunfish isn't a hassle to you, then it definitely makes them fatter and spawn more frequently. But I was having problems keeping a blackworm population alive, and it was costing me a lot of money. I think weaning the Elassoma gilberti onto flake foods is a viable alternative that will work given enough time and a large enough starting population. It's just sad to see some of them starve to death while food floats down and lands on their head.

Edited by EricaWieser, 22 May 2011 - 02:26 PM.

Erica, is there a particular brand of cat litter you'd recommend?

The labeling requirements seem pretty loose. It's hard to tell which has leachable treatments in it. I'm assuming key words like "odor control" indicate the presence of some chemical, but I haven't seen one that I was confident was "just baked clay" yet. My plan is to layer cat litter over soil in the planted portions of my new tank, with a sandy area for burrowers on one side.

Erica, is there a particular brand of cat litter you'd recommend?

I use Special Kitty brand, which you can buy at Walmart. It's baked clay with no chemicals added, and it's $3 for 25 pounds. Here's an analysis of the nutrients in it, done by Jamie Johnson: http://www.thekrib.c...rate-jamie.html

Thanks, I see now I missed that in your previous post (which I hadn't ready, but rather navigated to this topic just to ask that question).

That link makes me question the need for soil at all. Any thoughts on that? Does the litter break down over time into something that would be stirred up by burrowers?

That link makes me question the need for soil at all. Any thoughts on that? Does the litter break down over time into something that would be stirred up by burrowers?

*nods* According to that substrate analysis, soil, litter, and fluorite all start off with enough nutrients to successfully grow plants. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) analysis (also on http://www.thekrib.c...rate-jamie.html ) shows that over time, fluorite does not have a high enough exchange rate to replenish the nutrients in it from the water column alone. Fertilization might be required to keep old fluorite as productive as new fluorite. Soil and kitty litter, on the other hand, have a high CEC and maintain their nutrient content over time. The one issue with soil/kitty litter is that each region's ground is different, and soil/kitty litter from different areas have slightly varying nutritional values. It's a good idea to put a sample size of the kitty litter/soil you've purchased into a cup of water and test the pH and degrees of hardness (GH) of the water in the cup. For example, my GH is 6 degrees of hardness right after the water comes out of the tap, and 20 degrees of hardness in the fish tank after being exposed to the kitty litter.

As to whether or not kitty litter 'breaks down': well, litter is pure clay, which becomes mud when mixed with water. The smallest particles are dust sized, and the largest particles break down to dust size when compressed. I wish I'd taken pictures of my tank when I emptied and moved it. The sections where plant roots had laced through the litter were very sturdy and capable of standing on their own, but the regions that were root free were squishy, compressible, and became a mud puddle with stirring. I've never kept burrowing fish species myself, but I can tell you that it takes up to three or four hours with a good filter for the water to become completely clear again after I've rearranged the plants with this kitty litter substrate. If the burrowing fish is known for making the water cloudy with a sand substrate then it probably will do the same with a kitty litter or soil substrate, too.

Conclusions: Kitty litter and soil are nutritious enough to grow plants on their own; you don't need to use both. For example, I don't use any soil at all and my plants have vast healthy root systems.
If you have burrowing fish, you can put the plants in little pots of substrate, bury the pots, and then cover them with an inch or so of gravel that the fish won't burrow into. That would allow for healthy root growth but prevent the fish from burrowing into a fine grain substrate and making the water cloudy.

Edited by EricaWieser, 22 May 2011 - 08:10 PM.

Update:
I spent a little bit of time watching the Elassoma gilberti today and I am slightly more reassured that they are eating. It's tearing me up inside to think of them starving, but I think the smarter ones are getting used to it and filling their bellies.

I removed that floating mass of plants from the tank today. I will post an updated photo of the tank after night falls and I can take a proper picture.

It's interesting, the Elassoma gilberti are definitely a cover-loving fish. They hide in between the branches of plant tissue in Cabomba caroliniana. When that massive clump of plants was floating on the surface of the water and practically no plant was at the ground level, they were all found inside the plants, up near the surface. Now that I have removed the floating plants, the Elassoma gilberti are once again all at the root base of the plants in the shadowy region right at the substrate level, no higher.

I think that's probably the best place for them to be because they refuse to eat crushed flakes from the surface of the water. If you've ever kept a fish like Betta splendens or something of similar head shape, you've seen fish with heads designed to eat food off of the surface of the water. The shape of the Elassoma gilberti's head is very different from a betta's, and I wonder if they can even see food floating above them. Their eyes just aren't pointed in the right direction to notice food above their heads. They also don't snap at food floating in the water column around them. Instead, they prefer food that is moving right below them, on the substrate. Movement captures their attention, and worms are definitely their favorite food. In my opinion, the ones that are still alive right now and who haven't starved to death aren't necessarily identifying crushed flake food lying on the substrate as food, but rather are the fish that will halfheartedly pluck at the substrate in the hopes of finding something to eat. They nibble at the bottom of the tank, which happens to be coated in flake food, and in doing so accidentally feed themselves.

Edit: I know what they remind me of. It's like a robin, who stands completely still and cocks its head to the side to see the worm better on the ground. That's what Elassoma gilberti do; they turn their entire body to the side to see their prey better as it wiggles on the ground. Then they dart forward and eat it.

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 May 2011 - 07:46 PM.

As promised, here are photos of the tank before and after plant trimming. You can't really see the 80+ Elassoma gilberti that are in it because they are so tiny compared to the length of the aquarium. The few fish you can see are guppies, which are in the tank as dither fish for the Elassoma.
These pictures can be seen in crystal clear focus on their nanfa gallery pages, the hyperlinks of which are listed below the embedded image.

Before:
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After:
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The pygmy sunfish don't like going out onto the flat expanse of foreground with no vegetation cover. I think once I'm done killing all of the cladophora algae, I'll add some sort of plant into the foreground to expand the percentage of the tank that the Elassoma feel comfortable inhabiting. Maybe I'll add water lettuce again now that the aphids have all drowned, to give more surface cover. Not sure yet, and the cladophora is stubbornly hanging on despite me tripling the recommended dose of Tetra brand's Algae Clear, so adding plants is a moot point until the algae pest is eradicated.

Oh, about the Elassoma gilberti and their feeding on flakes: I watched one today, a not quite full grown juvenile, sit there and eat mouthfuls of kitty litter. It would scoop a mouthful in, sift it, and spit out the dust particles. I admire its adaptability; it has learned how to get food in its new setup. Maybe it learned from the guppies, who pick at the flakes that sit on the substrate for hours afterwards. I couldn't say.
I've also resolved to feed crushed BettaMin® flakes in the place of a regular flake during one of the thrice daily feedings because it's bright bright red and might be easier to identify against the gray of the kitty litter.

Edited by EricaWieser, 25 May 2011 - 09:31 PM.

Hmmm. I've been watching some of my old videos (especially youtube.com/watch?v=EYqphSrwuAs ) and I think I might remove the guppies. The Elassoma males don't dance out in the open with the guppies zipping around everywhere. I haven't seen a display dance since before the tank was moved.
But the tank looks so empty with just pygmy sunfish. It's a dilemma.

Edited by EricaWieser, 25 May 2011 - 11:11 PM.

...I think I might remove the guppies. ... But the tank looks so empty with just pygmy sunfish. It's a dilemma.

I think I'm going to try Leptolucania ommata and/or Heterandria formosa. Those might not zip around as much as guppies and scare the Elassoma gilberti males into the plants, preventing them from doing their display dance. They might still serve the same role as the guppies, though, for helping the Elassoma learn to eat flake food. I'll try it.

Also, it might not be the guppies but starvation that is preventing the males from dancing. I really hope that's not the case. But it's possible. But they don't look that starved... But it's still possible. Thinking back to when the guppies were first added, there was a drastic decrease in the dark black and shiny blue males' presence after their initial introduction. I think it's the guppies. Maybe.

The really sad part about this is, the guppies were doing a pretty good job at getting the gray Elassoma gilberti to go out in the open. I saw one today going back and forth in the water like it thought it was a guppy, too. But the gray ones aren't pretty (in my opinion) and I miss the males' dancing. So, the guppies have to go, at least to a different tank. But I think that the idea of dither fish, and their presence in the open area of the water, does encourage the Elassoma into the open. It's just a matter of finding the right dither fish, that isn't colorful enough to scare the males into hiding as if fleeing from a more dominant male.

Edited by EricaWieser, 25 May 2011 - 11:09 PM.

Ooh, I almost forgot, I got some new photos of that darkened older female that hangs out under the rock and in the anubias. She took up the same residence after the move. Here she is in her 'dark' mood.

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Those are crushed flakes on her head. They sat there on her forehead until she swam away. She never ate them.

And when I'm referring to the fish as too skinny, I'm referring to the guy on the left here. My urge is to scoop him out of the tank and feed him blackworms.
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the guy on the left to me looks like a normal size. all of my zonatum (minus the gravid females) are similar in size.

the guy on the left to me looks like a normal size. all of my zonatum (minus the gravid females) are similar in size.

Really? Are your zonatum spawning? I had worried that when their bellies sunk in like that it meant they were starving. But if yours are spawning with that sunken shape then I guess it's just normal. Mine were just a lot fatter when they were on blackworms, so the change made me worry.

Edited by EricaWieser, 26 May 2011 - 07:56 PM.

Photo evidence of Elassoma gilberti noticing the crushed flakes on the surface of the water. Notice how it's one of the not-fully-grown juveniles. They seem to be more interested in the flake food than the fully grown adults.

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i just don't see the "sunken" belly. To me they look like " normal" bellies. What caused you to stop feeding the blackworms?

What caused you to stop feeding the blackworms?

They were expensive and I had to keep buying more and more of them.

They were expensive and I had to keep buying more and more of them.

If you can buy them in bulk, they get significantly cheaper. I used to buy them by the pound. It is just a lot of upkeep then, cleaning them daily.

If you can buy them in bulk, they get significantly cheaper. I used to buy them by the pound. It is just a lot of upkeep then, cleaning them daily.

I've definitely considered buying live blackworms in bulk and breeding them in a separate tank. There are many accounts online of people successfully breeding their own blackworm populations. But blackworm colonies take up space I don't have, can smell bad, and have to be cleaned frequently. It would be a lot easier to just crush flakes and add them to the tank. Establishing a precedent for Elassoma eating flake food might also help make these fish more attractive to the mainstream aquarium community.

Edited by EricaWieser, 26 May 2011 - 10:26 PM.

I've definitely considered buying live blackworms in bulk and breeding them in a separate tank... But blackworm colonies take up space I don't have

Erica,
What if you just bought blackworms in bulk and dumped them in your existing tank? Then all you would need to feed are the blackworms. You might have a living shag carpet on the bottom, but I don't think there would be any health issues with this setup.