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Elassoma Gilberti

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

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#521 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 08:20 PM

Is that light a T8 fixture? I've killed a lot of plants with my $200 T5.

Here are links to the light fixture and bulbs I use:
Light fixture: http://www.homedepot...catalogId=10053
It's a 4 foot long, T8 fluorescent light fixture that takes two 32 watt fluorescent bulbs. It costs $20.
Bulbs: http://www.homedepot...53#BVRRWidgetID
2750 lumens, 32 watts, 6500 K, T8 Fluorescent light bulbs. They cost $8 for two bulbs.

My plants love this setup.

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#522 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 08:41 PM

as mentioned in another thread my e. okefenokees died all of a sudden. no signs of illness, no different behaviour.
maybe death of elassomas is a quiet one...

Well, they don't 'itch' themselves against tank fixtures the way some other species of fish do, but they definitely have changes of behavior. I have, sadly, watched a few extremely stupid Elassoma starve to death since the switch over to flake food, and they definitely have a difference in the drab color of their appearance, their sunken bellies, and an increase in their secretive, hidden behavior. There are about five or so fish that are constantly swimming up along the front glass at any given time (I think they're crazy. I love those ones, the attention hogs) and those are always ones with bulging full bellies. The skinny ones never come up to the front, and are always hiding behind plants. I think the more out in the open and colorful the Elassoma, the healthier it is.

Tank update:
I'm actually getting worried because since those initial signs of coloring up when I first removed the guppies, none of the males have started dancing as much as they used to. I have a link to a video on my 'About Me' page as a NANFA forum user, "Pygmy sunfish male dances happily", and it shows an Elassoma swimming around and around in circles, dancing the whole time. They haven't done that recently, that social, generally courting dance. I think that's because of several reasons. One, I gave away a lot of my adult males to my friends and fellow NANFA members. Two, the older fish were the ones hardest hit by the switch to full flake food. And three, the younger fish that have big fat bellies are still juveniles and haven't yet made the transition to being a mildly dominant male.

As I sit in front of the tank and compare the skinny fish to the fat ones looking for attributes shared by each group, an age line begins to be visible. There's a noticable division in between the generations. The babies that grew up eating microworms are skinner than the generation after them, that was forced to scavenge. I think that baby Elassoma who grew up searching the ground for worms make worse flake feeders than babies who grew up eating whatever they could. The downside is that there are less of the generation that grew up scrounging; a higher percentage of babies survived back when I was feeding them microworms every day. That could also be because I lost a bunch of the babies during the move. They either straight up died when the water level was lowered initially (one or two) or weren't caught and transferred with the adults (I estimate about a dozen. They're so hard to see).

You all are probably sick of me whining about the Elassoma converting to flake food, and my worries about whether the population can survive the transition, so I'll stop talking about it now. My conclusion is that when this next generation (the dozen or so juveniles I have whose bellies are bulging with flake food) grows up, at that time there will be happy, dancing males again. *nods*

Edited by EricaWieser, 07 June 2011 - 08:42 PM.

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#523 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 08:57 PM

On the contrary, I was following the whole saga with great interest. I didn't think it was possible to keep those on flakes.

I have that exact light fixture too, and had decided it was impossible to grow plants with it in a tall tank.

I'll just keep watching this thread for solutions to all my other problems. Tell me again what you used on the algae?

(just kidding; I prefer to promote an invertebrate population even if it means some green stuff)

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#524 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 09:49 PM

I have that exact light fixture too, and had decided it was impossible to grow plants with it in a tall tank.

I'll just keep watching this thread for solutions to all my other problems. Tell me again what you used on the algae? (just kidding; I prefer to promote an invertebrate population even if it means some green stuff)

About the light:
Did you use the 2750 lumen, full spectrum bulbs? When I bought the light fixture there were a good five to ten options for which type of bulb to buy. If you bought one of the lower lumen, limited spectrum bulbs then I could imagine the plants wouldn't grow so well.

About the algaecide chemicals:
I've been using Tetra brand's Algae Control product. Link: http://reviews.petco...ews/reviews.htm It isn't affecting the snails at all but I evacuated the clams to a different tank just to play it safe. I think if you gave new plants entering your tanks a few hours in a bath of this stuff, it would prevent them from carrying a new species of algae into your tank. I have removed the anubias from the tank and am currently submerging them in a bucket of high strength solution. The cladophora algae (which has been on the anubias for over two years now) is literally liquefying and sloughing off. I'm very pleased.

Cladophora isn't like other species of algae. I'm fine with a light green dusting on the tank walls and maybe some extra green here and there amongst the plants. But my tank looked like this two years ago:

That's cladophora three inches thick on the substrate. It killed all my other plants (you can see clips of how the plants looked before the algae suffocated everything later on in the video). Throughout all my tank moves (two a year), removing any visible traces of cladophora from the plants each time, it always persisted, and it always ended up overtaking my other species of plants. That's why the cladophora had to die. It was time for some chemical warfare. *nods* The Elassoma, Cabomba, Myriophyllum, etc. seem to be taking the chemical bath in stride, so it's okay.

Edited by EricaWieser, 07 June 2011 - 09:55 PM.

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#525 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 09:58 PM

On the contrary, I was following the whole saga with great interest. I didn't think it was possible to keep those on flakes.

Thank you

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#526 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 10 June 2011 - 12:08 PM

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#527 Guest_RichardSFL_*

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Posted 10 June 2011 - 02:49 PM

I've been following this too and am not at all tired of it. It's been very informative.

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#528 Guest_RichardSFL_*

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Posted 10 June 2011 - 02:54 PM

I've been following this too and am not at all tired of it. It's been very informative.

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#529 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 11 June 2011 - 02:11 PM

I've been following this too and am not at all tired of it. It's been very informative.

Thank you

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#530 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 11 June 2011 - 02:33 PM

Here is a video of the Elassoma gilberti all being social together on June 3rd (about a week ago). And here are some photos taken today during feeding time.

gilberti examines surface resize.jpg 317.37KB 0 downloads

juveniles are full.jpg 154.01KB 0 downloads

juvenile eats from surface resize.jpg 213.32KB 0 downloads

http://gallery.nanfa...urface.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...e full.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...urface.jpg.html

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#531 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 11 June 2011 - 07:58 PM

Here's a current photo of the tank. There wasn't any cladophora algae left on the roots of the anubias that I had had in a special, high concentration algae dissolving bath, so I put the rock back in and arranged the anubias around it. I also put some fresh activated carbon in the filter to remove the medication residue. I've got more Tetra Algae Control on hand if the algae comes back, but hopefully it won't. There's melted bits of algae lying on the substrate partially whited out and dead that I hope don't revive.

55 gallon tank resize.jpg 172.09KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...n tank.jpg.html

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#532 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 19 June 2011 - 09:55 PM

I just thought this was cute. It's a female basically sitting on the top of a Cabomba caroliniana stem.

141resizetopost.jpg 208.54KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html

The situation remains the same. The older Elassoma gilberti are too skinny to want to dance (I haven't seen any dancing in all of June). And the young ones, who are nice and plump from eating crushed flakes, are too young to color up yet. So there's no dancing, which makes me sad.

I did order some white colored guppies, special for the Elassoma. I think the dark colors on the other guppies might have been the part about the guppies that was scaring the Elassoma, and that maybe solid white guppies would not scare them as much. They should arrive tomorrow or soonish, and I'll try to post pictures and comment on the response of the Elassoma when they do. *nods*

Edit: Oh, yes, and the activated carbon that I added to the filter did its job of removing the remains of the algaecide. I know this because the ghost wisps of cladophora skeleton that was left resting on the substrate has colored up and begun to grow. You can see a bit of it being green and fuzzy in the picture above. Lame.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 June 2011 - 09:57 PM.

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#533 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 21 June 2011 - 01:36 PM

The special guppies arrived from Thailand! They're very beautiful. Here's the picture of the male from the breeder. Since he looks exactly like this picture and this is a higher quality image than I could ever take, I'll just link you to it: http://www.aquabid.c...s1294758609.jpg
The female is clear bodied and her fins are that same shiny blue that Elassoma get. Her coloration reminds me of the subdominant males, who get kind of a shiny pearlescent white blue.

The Elassoma don't seem to notice the guppies. Their behavior seems entirely unchanged. Maybe that's because there's only two guppies in 55 gallons (likely) or maybe they're the right coloration and the Elassoma are treating them as subdominant males (maybe). I don't know, but I'm glad they're not fleeing [yet].

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#534 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 01 July 2011 - 10:02 PM

Update: The population is fatter than it used to be.

The older males are still not dancing like they used to, but they also haven't starved to death. The little ones who are nice and fat are approaching maturity, and I'm pretty sure when they sex out they'll dance.

The guppies are not bothering the pygmy sunfish. The Elassoma just ignore them, unless a guppy collides with them, and then they act all affronted and swim away.

Here is a picture with a couple Elassoma in it. I zoomed in to the picture (and was there in real life) and can confirm that none of the Elassoma in the shot have a sunken belly. The last time I updated, a lot of them did, with the worst time peaking at about half of the Elassoma having a shrunken belly. Now I don't see any that do.

tank July 1st 2011 resize.jpg 164.03KB 0 downloads
You can zoom in here: http://gallery.nanfa...t 2011.jpg.html

I don't think my method was the best way to convert fish to flake food. (The 'There's nothing but flake food. Eat it or die. There's 84 of you and I'm not a nice person' method.) It probably would have helped to have frozen blackworms as an intermediate or something like that. *shrugs* But I have not had access to even a communal freezer since May 15th ish, and so there wasn't a way to keep frozen live food frozen. So... It was a method. Probably not the best method, but it worked. Well, we'll see if they start dancing again. If it hits Christmas and they're not dancing, then we have a problem. But look at that fat juvenile in the middle of the picture! When he/she picks a gender, if they pick male, then they're going to super dance. (Elassoma gilberti males seem to do the spawning dance continuously if they've got a full belly.)

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#535 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 05 July 2011 - 07:18 PM

For a while now I have had a list of fish that I wanted to add to the Elassoma gilberti tank but that were unreasonably expensive to buy online. Today I happened to be at RMS Aquaculture, the aquarium superstore, and they had sparkling gouramis! Sparkling gouramis are the same size as Elassoma gilberti and roundabout the same shade of gray as a female gilberti, with the major difference that are less shy and will aggressively eat flake food. I bought 6 of them and, after waiting for them to acclimate, added them to the tank. The Elassoma are treating them with no fear at all, which is a very different reaction compared to back when I had colorful guppies. They are even less wary around the sparkling gouramis than they are around the white and clear guppies. The Elassoma don't react when the sparkling gouramis swim around them. Maybe seeing the sparkling gouramis joyfully scarf down flake food will change the opinion of some of the old holdouts who still refuse to eat flakes. I'm also just excited in general to have found another species of fish that is a compatible tank mate with pygmy sunfish.

Size comparison picture of Elassoma and sparkling gourami:

elassoma and trichopsis.jpg 72.1KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa...hopsis.jpg.html

That Elassoma has a shrunken belly, which makes me sad. I didn't think any of them still did.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 July 2011 - 07:32 PM.

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#536 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 July 2011 - 12:08 AM

Maybe seeing the sparkling gouramis joyfully scarf down flake food will change the opinion of some of the old holdouts who still refuse to eat flakes.

Here is a video to show the size comparison of the two fish and how readily the Trichopsis pumila (sparkling gourami) eats flake food. The idea is that maybe seeing a similarly colored and sized fish eating flake food might make Elassoma gilberti want to eat, too.

So far I think that sparkling gouramis make excellent tank mates for Elassoma gilberti. They are a better dither fish (helping the Elassoma go out in the open) than the guppies are.

Also, on an unrelated note, I think that feeding the gilberti multiple times a day is important. They're like fry in that regard; if you feed them too infrequently they starve a bit.

Edited by EricaWieser, 06 July 2011 - 12:11 AM.

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#537 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 July 2011 - 06:28 PM

*gasp* There's a dark black male!

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#538 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 06 July 2011 - 07:28 PM

*gasp* There's a dark black male!

Here is a pretty bad photo of him, a couple minutes afterwards. I saw him starting to lighten up, so I grabbed the camera.

first darkened male in a while.jpg 93.23KB 0 downloads
http://gallery.nanfa... while.jpg.html

It's promising. I haven't seen a male go full black (he was, just not by the time I got the camera) since early June.

These Trichopsis pumila are pretty aggressive. I had read that they gang up on and kill bettas, but I didn't expect them to attempt to rip my two guppies apart. It's sort of sad; the guppies are a couple millimeters bigger but they're getting their fins shredded by this smaller, more aggressive fish. The 'sparkling' (they don't sparkle) gouramis aren't bothering the Elassoma at all, though. Perhaps they only rip apart beautiful fins, and the grey Elassoma aren't irking them. I don't know. I do know that if the gouramis don't settle down, I'm going to have to remove the guppies for their own good.

Edited by EricaWieser, 06 July 2011 - 08:05 PM.

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#539 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 July 2011 - 05:16 PM

I put the contents of my 10 gallon tank up on craigslist yesterday becuase I knew I would have to long term separate the $50 each guppies from the Trichopsis pumila. And it was worth it to me (I *heart* those guppies) to sell all of those fish in the 10 gallon and give the entire tank to the fancy guppies. So today I checked my mail and yes, there were people willing to buy the fish. So I went over to the 55 gallon tank to check on my beloved white guppies, thinking that maybe they would have accrued one more rip in their fins. It was happening at about the rate of one rip per day. But I forgot to feed the 55 gallon tank this morning. Maybe that's why. Or maybe the Trichopsis pumila are just EVIL. Because when I checked on them at 5 pm, the guppies were shredded to within an inch of their lives. I was horrified. It happened so quickly! They were fine together, fine together, and then WHAM! My beloved show guppies are no more. I'm pretty sure the male is going to die. He's got both his dorsal and his caudal fin ripped down to the quick, all the way to the base of his tail. The female looks fine by comparison; she has a couple long rips in her caudal fin and is missing the outer edge of it, but it still swimming around. He's just staying in one place, shaking.

I immediately removed the Trichopsis pumila and then couldn't stop crying. It's totally my fault. I was negligent; I should have removed the Trichopsis pumila at the first sign of aggression. Or at least checked on the guppies this morning or last night.

So. I don't know if I'm going to put them back in the tank. If they ripped the guppies up, what's to stop them from ripping the Elassoma gilberti up when they get into breeding colors? They seemed so happy together, too; even though the guppies are torn apart, I don't see a single Elassoma with even a single nibble on it. They're actually far more out and about than they were, and I'm seeing a lot more color and appetite than I was before the Trichopsis pumila were added. I guess after I get this 10 gallon cleared out I'll house the fancy guppies (probably just the female will be alive) in there, and then I'll put the Trichopsis pumila back in the 55 gallon tank since they're having such a positive effect on the Elassoma [so far. I don't doubt for a second now that they're evil to anything with long flowy fins]. But I'm watching them now. They moment they target another fish, they're going to pester it and pester it until it dies. Just because they haven't targeted the Elassoma gilberti at this moment doesn't mean they won't in the future. So the moment I see a ripped Elassoma gilberti fin, the Trichopsis pumila are done. Grrr.

Long story short:
Elassoma gilberti and white/clear/shiny blue guppies: Compatible
Elassoma gilberti and Trichopsis pumila ("Sparkling" gouramis): Compatible so far
Trichopsis pumila and guppies: NOT COMPATIBLE. The end will be unanticipated and it will be swift.

Edited by EricaWieser, 07 July 2011 - 05:18 PM.

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#540 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 07 July 2011 - 08:02 PM

Yay, courtship behavior! I walked up to the tank (I've been worried about the guppies. The male is still alive) and two Elassoma darted away from one another. One was a female and one was a dark male. Hee hee hee