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Elassoma Gilberti

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

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#561 Guest_RichardSFL_*

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Posted 12 July 2011 - 02:19 PM

Hi Erica - I had Celestial Pearl Danios in my tank with my first L. ommatas a few years back, and they (the CPDs) were extremely shy, far more shy than the ommatas, so I don't they think would be good dither fish for you, at least in my experience. Others might have had a different experience.

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#562 Guest_jetajockey_*

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Posted 13 July 2011 - 01:38 AM

Did the golden topminnows, apart from being shrimp killers, give you any other problems? Are they fry eaters and did they bother the pygmy sunfish?

I'll keep an eye out for celestial pearl danios. With a maximum size of an inch they'd be a good size match for pygmy sunfish. They appear to be $8 each before shipping cost, though. Can you try mixing yours and tell us what happens? I would be worried they are egg eaters because the zebra danios I had were notorous for that.

The topminnows ignored the sunfish, but I'm certain they would eat any fry, as they were always on the prowl.

I'm going to check my CPD tub in the next few days and see what the population is like. They are definitely shy ones, but with pygmy sunfish being fairly reclusive also, and similarly sized, I don't see why they'd have an issue intermingling. I've been breeding CPDs off and on for the past year and they don't predate on eggs too much, I've had fry hatch/grow out alongside adults. However, removing the spawning adults always yielded much larger fry counts.

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#563 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 01:22 AM

I'm going to check my CPD tub in the next few days and see what the population is like. They are definitely shy ones, but with pygmy sunfish being fairly reclusive also, and similarly sized, I don't see why they'd have an issue intermingling.

I can't wait to hear about the results of this experiment

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#564 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 01:53 AM

I moved to North Carolina from Cleveland, Ohio. Here is a picture of the 55 gallon Elassoma gilberti and two white guppies tank taken right before the deconstruction of the tank in preparation for moving. Picture:

before move to NC.jpg 207.07KB 0 downloads
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I packed my filter sponges in a Kordon breathing bag, the Trichopsis pumila in a second bag, the Elassoma gilberti and the two white guppies in a third bag, and the plants in a 4th bag. They all went in a bucket that sat on the passenger seat next to me during our long trip.

I realized in the first couple hours that I had made a mistake. The Trichopsis pumila had been packed with all the Ceratophyllum in their bag, and they couldn't get to the air and I think I nearly accidentally asphyxiated two of them. When I checked on them an hour after packing, two weren't moving. I immediately opened the bag, pour a lot more water in, and worried at them until the two went to the now open surface and gulped air. Looking at the bag now, one recovered and one died. Um. Oops.

The plan was to buy Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix to use as the substrate in this tank in the place of the Walmart Special Kitty brand kitty litter that I used last time. That had been an experiment, and it had paid off, but I had a really high DH because my batch of kitty litter was especially mineral rich. I was hoping that by mixing it up a bit, I could get something a bit lower than 16-20 DH (Degrees of Hardness). So I inspected the ingredients on the bag of potting mix. It sounded really promising. 0.001% water soluble nitrogen. 0.097% water insoluble nitrogen. 0.002% ammoniacal nitrogen (ammonia? Okay. My tank is cycled. Whatever.) 0.05% available phosphate as P2O5 (is that high or low? I don't know).
The main ingredients are composted bark, sphagnum peat moss, and pasteurized poultry litter. I saw that and I went "Woah! Sphagnum peat moss!!!" That being a famous method for reducing the aquarium's pH and hardness and stuff (I'm no expert in that. Did I mention my last tank was 16-20 DH? But it sounded good.). I started thinking I could keep some of those species that had been off limits to me before because of their low pH and hardness requirements, like Leptolucania ommata. So I bought three bags sized 8 dry quarts, thinking if I bought a big bag I would be left over with extra, but if I bought small bags I could return what I didn't open.

Micracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix.jpg 119.44KB 0 downloads
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The potting mix smelled really earthy and kind of pleasant, if you garden and know what I'm talking about. I took a good look at it, and it was very dark (good. I wanted a change from the gray) and was unfortunately very woody. There were big sticks of "composted bark" that weren't quite composted enough.

close up of Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix.jpg 243.95KB 0 downloads
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But I was very trusting in the tried and true Walstad method, which many, many people use with no problems. So I added water. And this happened.

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It floats.

I don't know if I got the wrong brand (unlikely. I bought the smaller bag of the big orange bag she posted a picture of in that article I linked to in an earlier post) or if I was supposed to presoak it (likely. I don't read directions well when I'm excited about something. Was I supposed to soak it first?) or what's going on, but I don't like it. My tank looks like this (see below) and my fish are still in their bag.

Tank after move to NC Day 1.jpg 122.44KB 0 downloads
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What is going on? Will this "composted bark" take the three days to a week to sink that other wood I've had in the past has? Does everyone else's Walstad setup begin with a multi-day soaking period to make the substrate sink? Did I use the wrong stuff?
I'll look up some answers to these questions and more in the future, but for now I just figured I'd update you all about how the Elassoma gilberti are doing. They're in their bag, they're probably hungry, and judging by the amount they're excreting, I'd say yes, they were eating the flake food. I'm going to try to get their tank up and running as soon as possible, and hopefully after some drip acclimation life can go back to normal for them.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2011 - 01:56 AM.

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#565 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 14 July 2011 - 07:46 AM

Walstad does recommend an inch or so of gravel over the potting soil... this would likely be the way that she is keeping the bark and such on the bottom of the aquarium for the first week or so until it becomes saturated.

Do you have a copy of the book handy? She also says on p.138 something about putting the soil in, then the gravel then filling the tank to three inches deep and putting the plants in... then she says she drains off the cloudy water and refills!

Glad that you are in the South (welcome)... Sorry that you are having troubles... you might really need a shovel or two of dirt from Gerald's back yard...

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

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#566 Guest_gerald_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 09:30 AM

Right brand, but wrong product. Apparently that "potting mix" is different from their "potting soil" which comes in a yellow and green bag - the kind Diana used in her demo at our Raleigh Aquar conference a couple years ago. It looked more like soil, without all the wood chips. And yes, she puts sand over it.

At this point, I would remove all the floating particles with a fine-mesh net, then spread sand on top of the remaining soil, siphon out all the water above the sand, then refill it carefully with newspaper and a dinner plate layed on top of the sand during filling. The remaining suspended particles will settle or be caught in your filter over the next few days/weeks.

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#567 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 01:06 PM

Hmm. Okay. It's definitely the same product she used for this link: http://www.atlasbook...00388Shrimp.pdf and the pdf is from February 2010. She adds sand, "enough to hold down the soil particles". *headdesk* I should have added sand. There's the problem. I guess that keeps it down until it can saturate with water enough to stay down by itself. So. Lesson learned: Read the entire pdf before just going out, buying it, and pouring it in. Fail on my part.

I think I am going to go out and buy a test kit today and test the water, and then make a decision. A good chunk of it settled overnight, so I now have about two thirds of it on the bottom and only one third still floating on the top. If the pH and DH are reasonable, I'll put the filter on the tank and let it run for a few hours and see what it looks like after that. It's a good product, for sure. It smells... garden-y. I like it. Of course, once it stops floating I'll like it a lot more.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2011 - 01:15 PM.

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#568 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 04:51 PM

I think I am going to go out and buy a test kit today and test the water, and then make a decision.

I bought the Jungle Labs 6-N-One test strips, which I have to say are way easier to use than the drops and vials I had been using earlier. You just stick the test strip in the water for a second, wait thirty more, and then read it. Super easy. Image of product: http://www.arcatapet...lsize/16600.jpg

Here are the test results:

Tap Water:
Nitrate: 0 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Hardness: 25 ppm (about 1.4 DH)
Chlorine: 0 mg/L (suspicious)
KH: 0 ppm
pH: between 7.2 and 7.8, closer to 7.2

Tank water:
Nitrate: 0 mg/L
Nitrite: 0 mg/L
Hardness: between 0 and 25 ppm, closer to 0 ppm (between 0 and 1.4 DH)
Chlorine: 0.5 mg/L (suspicious)
KH: 0 ppm
pH: between 6.2 and 6.8, closer to 6.2

I'm going to have to drip acclimate my fish for a very long time. They're coming from water that was 16-20 DH and going to water that is between 0 and 1.4 DH. That's a huge change. They're also going from 7.5 pH to a pH between 6.2 and 6.8.

To look at this in a positive light, that opens up a lot of possible tank mates that can coexist with the Elassoma gilberti. Having a water DH of 16-20 excluded a lot of species.

Since the pH wasn't 3 or something awful, I put the filter back on. I am not patient enough to remove everything and siphon out all the water and do all the things you suggested, Gerald. I think I'm just going to acclimate the fish and stick them in the tank once it's a tad clearer. My priority is to get the fish out of that bag of excrement and ammonia and back onto a life support system.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2011 - 04:58 PM.

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#569 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 05:25 PM

Hi Erica,
I think it is very likely that you will need to top the soil with sand or fine gravel in order to clear the water. I think Gerald's advice is spot on. The fine organic particles in the soil you have will likely have difficulty settling out with the filter runhning, and it might just keep stirring up more.

For the fish, I would get them out of their bags and into another container while you work on clearing the tank. Any container will do. Even a clean trash can. You can keep the water changed frequently while you are workikng on the other tank. If the container is taller than it is wide, be sure to put in an airstone. I have kept fish in coolers and rubbermaid tubs for weeks this way while I was getting their permanent homes together.

The good news is that both you and they survived the trip. That was the hard part!

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#570 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 08:26 PM

Nothing you listed in the ingredients is actually soil... how long are you planning on having this tank? Poultry litter will probably be entirely decomposed in six months. The bark will last longer, but will also eventually rot away.

Boiling can help wood sink much faster, given that the pieces are small enough to fit in a pan.

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#571 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 08:35 PM

For the fish, I would get them out of their bags and into another container while you work on clearing the tank. Any container will do.

I put them in my 1 gallon former ice cream bucket.

There are tiny white dots, less than a millimeter long, on the surface of the water. I tried to photograph them and they don't show up on the camera.
I took a close look and they are tiny bugs. They probably hatched out of that composted wood when it got wet. So, because the Elassoma gilberti have to be drip acclimated to North Carolina water and since the bugs pour into any container that skims and collects the surface of the water, I've been collecting those bugs and the tank water and slowly adding them to the former ice cream bucket. Maybe the fish will eat them. Even if they don't, it's a start on acclimating them to the new pH and hardness values.

The tank looks a lot better.
At first, every inch of that potting mix floated. The floating mass on the surface of the water was many inches thick. Dry potting mix sat upon the top of wet potting mix, which sat upon the water's surface.
Now, not only is all of the wood below the water's surface, but also it is possible to create open surface by stirring the mulch around a bit. Most of the potting mix is on the bottom, with regions settled one to four inches thick with potting mix. The filter clogs about every 15 minutes, so I guess that means it's doing its job. I'm going to root out that super awesome artificial sea sponge that I bought from Walmart and put that in the filter. It collects tiny particles really well.
Hopefully the rest of this composted wood will sink by tomorrow, or at least the day after.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2011 - 08:37 PM.

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#572 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 08:41 PM

Nothing you listed in the ingredients is actually soil... how long are you planning on having this tank? Poultry litter will probably be entirely decomposed in six months. The bark will last longer, but will also eventually rot away.

Boiling can help wood sink much faster, given that the pieces are small enough to fit in a pan.

I'm planning on having the tank set up for at least five years. That's the average length of time it takes for people to complete the Ph.D. program at WFU, which I'm in. Breaking the tank would down no problem if the substrate gets funny in a couple years. I get bored easily and changing it that drastically might be welcome. The future will happen when it happens, and I'll see how I feel when it gets here.

You know, I just might try that boiling thing. I have a big pot and I have a net to catch the floating mass. Hmm. *goes and does it*

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2011 - 08:41 PM.

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#573 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 10:37 PM

You know, I just might try that boiling thing. I have a big pot and I have a net to catch the floating mass. Hmm. *goes and does it*

I've been boiling wood since whenever that last post was. It's not fun.

The water is really yellow from the wood, so I rigged the 10 gallon filter to no longer have its rectangular plastic piece, so it doesn't filter out large particles and has less suction. The reason why I did this was so that it wouldn't clog, and it's been going strong for a little while now and I don't think it's going to stop. There is a bag of activated carbon in there to remove the tannins from the water so that it gets a little clearer. One inch visibility is no fun.

I'm adding the fish in a couple hours and calling it a night. They're very, very slowly drip acclimating. The plants I ordered won't be here for a few days or up to a week, so the whole tank can just chill and settle. I'm sure the Elassoma won't mind the cloudy water for a few days; they seem to be more comfortable swimming out in the open the cloudier the water is. I'll add fish flakes to the tank like normal for the two guppies.

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#574 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 15 July 2011 - 12:59 PM

Update: The visibility has increased from 0-1 to 3-4 inches thanks to the activated carbon. The floating mass of wood on the surface has finally decreased to less than 1 inch thick. The substrate thickness on the bottom is now much increased, but very irregular. There are mounds eight inches high and valleys only an inch deep. The Elassoma gilberti are very comfortable in the blackwater, swimming around and doing circles with their noses on the glass. The plants, which would be the only organisms to majorly suffer during this period of reduced visibility, have still not yet arrived in the mail and are not likely to until next week.

Edited by EricaWieser, 15 July 2011 - 01:05 PM.

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#575 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 15 July 2011 - 04:58 PM

I went out and bought some Winston-Salem Walmart brand Special Kitty cat litter and have got the test results of the water using Jungle Labs 6 Tests in One Strip Quick Dip aquarium multi-test kit. I poured a few table spoons of kitty litter into a cup, filled it with tap water, and let it sit for a few minutes to settle. The results are as follows:

Nitrate: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Total Hardness: 25 ppm (1.4 Degrees of Hardness, DH)
Total Chlorine: 0 - 0.5 ppm
Total Alkalinity (KH): 0 ppm
pH: between 7.2 and 7.8

This is very, very different from the kitty litter I purchased in Cleveland, which left the water that touched it at 16-20 DH. I'm pretty sure the test strip works; when I poked it with my oily, mineral rich human hand the DH square immediately changed colors. So I guess the test results must be pretty accurate. I'm going to skim off the rest of the floating wood and pour an inch of kitty litter down.

Update:
I netted out the wood that was still floating and stuck it in a tub full of water. I did that for two reasons. 1: to keep any fish that might have been netted with the wood alive, and 2: to see how long it takes this wood to sink.
Then I poured a 1 cm thickness of kitty litter over the top of the settled substrate to 'seal' it and protect it against the current, as Gerald pointed out that the current may be stirring it up and making it cloudier. Now the tank looks like tea. It's golden brown and probably the tannin-iest thing I've ever seen. I guess soaking pounds and pounds of high surface area wood chips in water will do that.

Edited by EricaWieser, 15 July 2011 - 05:47 PM.

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#576 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 16 July 2011 - 05:56 PM

Here are some pictures of the progress of the tank.

Pictures:
Friday before using activated carbon:

Friday before activated carbon.jpg 101.44KB 0 downloads
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Friday night a few hours after starting activated carbon:

Friday night a few hours after starting activated carbon.jpg 69.01KB 0 downloads
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Saturday morning (filter had clogged for an unknown time period overnight):

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Saturday afternoon:

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Now that I'm reading up on types of filters, I'm wishing that I had Seachem Purigen instead of activated carbon. I guess it works 500x better than activated carbon and is renewable and (best of all in my opinion), it visibly becomes darker as it gets exhausted. That's one issue I'm having now; how do I know when to replace the activated carbon? I've got pounds of it because I bought it in bulk, but I don't know if the activated carbon in the filter is still good or if I should switch it out. I guess the Elassoma gilberti don't really care (they're enjoying this murk, and it's probably the best thing for them since there aren't any plants or decorations in there until the new plants arrive in the mail). They are swimming around, rubbing their noses on the glass and generally enjoying themselves. If it weren't for the fact that if they go more than a hand's distance deep in the tank you can't see them, I'd recommend this cloudiness to people tying to get their Elassoma to be more outgoing. They seem to be a lot more comfortable than when the water is crystal clear.

Seachem purigen: http://www.seachem.c...es/Purigen.html
The forum I found it on: http://www.plantedta...nnin-water.html

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#577 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 02:11 PM

The water's gotten a bit clearer (you can see the equipment in the back now) and the Elassoma have resumed their response of darting further into the tank when a human walks up to it. They really do have different personalities based upon the cloudiness of the water. It's odd.

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#578 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 18 July 2011 - 12:33 PM

The water is gradually clearing up and you can see the back of the tank now. There isn't anything but substrate, water, and the tube of the filter intake in there until later this week when the plants arrive. The Elassoma gilberti are responding to the large expanse of openness by clumping together in the corners, almost acting like a school. They sit extremely close to or on top of one another as if seeking comfort. The largest ones seem comfortable enough to swim around nosing the glass in the corner, but they stop when I approach them with the camera.
They're all trying, like chameleons, to make themselves the same light gray color as this North Carolina kitty litter.
I hope the plants get here soon because they're definitely not a bare tank fish. The little ones are really scared, sitting on the bottom in the corner not moving at all, like they just want to go home.

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#579 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 18 July 2011 - 05:30 PM

Sunday afternoon:

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Sunday evening:

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Monday morning:

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Monday afternoon:

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Picture of Elassoma gilberti clumping together in a corner:

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That male in the photo was dark grey with blue stripes on him before I approached with the camera. Then he got scared (he seems to fear the camera, not my human head. That's probably because the camera makes a red light before it takes a picture) and blanched out to the color you see in the photo. It's a neat technique; he's pretty well camouflaged against the kitty litter.

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#580 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 20 July 2011 - 11:27 PM

The plants arrived! I'm really excited. They're very neat and I'm happy I ordered them. It's an all new list this time; Myriophyllum pinnatum, Rotala wallichii, Hygrophila difformis, Ludwigia ovalis, Proserpinaca palustris, Cardamine lyrata, Ludwigia peruensis, Ludwigia natans, and four 2x2 inch pots of Hemianthus callitrichoides. They came from sweetaquatics.com and the total cost for enough plants to fill my 55 gallon tank including shipping was only $32.

The Elassoma gilberti really like having plants in their tank once again. They like the Myriophyllum pinnatum a lot, too, like I thought they would. (One male has already claimed the clump of M. pinnatum as his home territory, a necessary step before the courtship dance begins

) I'm going to report on their levels of preference for these new plants like I did the Ceratophyllum demersum, Cabomba caroliniana, Myriophyllum aquaticum, and Anubias nana in the old tank. (in order, they super love, love, tolerate, and love those plants).

Right now probably isn't the best time for taking a picture because of how cloudy the water is after stirring up the substrate by planting, but here's a photo anyway:

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But the joke is kind of on me because there's cladophora contamination on these plants >.<

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 July 2011 - 11:31 PM.