Elassoma Gilberti

Doesn't the bottle say that it's not for use on newly established aquariums? Not sure what mechanism would cause problems, but your tank is pretty new.

You can calculate the concentration that would result from the recommended dosage and compare it to toxicity information here:
http://www.pesticide...Taxa_Group=Fish

I'm sure you could do the calculation faster than I.

Doesn't the bottle say that it's not for use on newly established aquariums? Not sure what mechanism would cause problems, but your tank is pretty new.

You can calculate the concentration that would result from the recommended dosage and compare it to toxicity information here:
http://www.pesticide...Taxa_Group=Fish

I'm sure you could do the calculation faster than I.

There aren't any Elassoma on that fish list. Toxicity seems to vary greatly by fish, and pygmy sunfish aren't mentioned.

I dosed at greater than this concentration a few weeks ago when the tank was younger than it was now (it has been set up since July 13th-ish), and the fish did not die then. Some other issue must have arisen that compromised their ability to survive the Algae Control®.

First spawning wiggle!

Here's a summary of the events leading up to the wiggle:
I accidentally added too much water to the soil substrate grindal worm culture that I ordered online, so the worms couldn't escape the water and drowned. The two sponge-substrate cultures I'd started aren't populated enough to feed the fish with yet, so I went to Petsmart and spent $10 on 30 blocks each of frozes bloodworms and tubifex. Anyway, long story short, the steady diet of worms has made the Elassoma gilberti very fat and now they're doing spawning wiggles! There hasn't been any actual spawning, but it's only a matter of time now. They're getting fatter and fatter and soon, soon there will be fry I'm going to always feed them worms from now on. It's so nice to have them full and active again Also I have a freezer now XD

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 September 2011 - 10:41 PM.

One of the older females is dark grey and is doing a gesture that I had previously only see males do. It's like a fin wiggle; her dorsal fin moves back and forth. The effect on another fish was to let her have the worm that they were both going for, but I can't say if that's because it is a known Elassoma "I'm dominant and that's mine!" gesture, or because the other fish was confused about what she was doing.

woohoo!

I more or less gave up on the paludarium project and I'm just going to put the elassoma in my 20 gallon long. I think I'm going to set it up this weekend and start trying to get plants and snails into it, so it will be ready for the elassoma and all cycled.

woohoo!

I more or less gave up on the paludarium project and I'm just going to put the elassoma in my 20 gallon long. I think I'm going to set it up this weekend and start trying to get plants and snails into it, so it will be ready for the elassoma and all cycled.

You know, there is a person on aquabid who is selling Elassoma okefenokee right now. Link: http://www.aquabid.c...tive I'll keep trying to get my fish to spawn, but if you find them elsewhere sooner it wouldn't offend me

If you buy frozen food again, sometimes you can find Daphnia and baby Artemia that provide some good variety.

If you buy frozen food again, sometimes you can find Daphnia and baby Artemia that provide some good variety.

I've tried live adult artemia (brine shrimp) and the Elassoma gilberti don't eat them. So although I saw frozen baby artemia in the store, I avoided them. I was also concerned about the salt content of a cube of frozen baby artemia. As to daphnia, I've never fed them that and am not sure how they respond. Do your pygmy sunfish eat them?

Oh, and a comment on the tubifex and bloodworms that I did get. The bloodworms are a little large for the Elassoma. They can't swallow the whole thing and then another fish rips it out of their mouth. It looks kind of like they're choking on it when they do try to swallow. The tubifex are much skinnier and easier to eat (skinnier even than grindal worms), but they were very decayed and the Elassoma gilberti didn't show much interest in them. That might have to do with me dropping the cube of tubifex worms into boiling water versus letting the bloodworm cube thaw. I'm going to try letting a tubifex worm cube thaw slowly and see if the Elassoma have any more interest in them.

I can now rate the relative sizes of live foods.
microworms < tubifex worms < grindal worms < blackworms < bloodworms
Bloodworms and microworms are difficult for adult Elassoma gilberti to eat.

Edited by EricaWieser, 16 September 2011 - 05:36 PM.

After a week, my young sunfish all between 3/4 inch to 1 inch were eating freeze dried blood worms that I crumbled up in my palm before dropping in. There are 10 of these small ones and they have all grown in the past 10 days noticably. I still crumble but not so fine now. They all come to the top and feed very well on this. Also, freeze dried tubifax crumbled is also taken.


Usil

After a week, my young sunfish all between 3/4 inch to 1 inch were eating freeze dried blood worms that I crumbled up in my palm before dropping in. There are 10 of these small ones and they have all grown in the past 10 days noticably. I still crumble but not so fine now. They all come to the top and feed very well on this. Also, freeze dried tubifax crumbled is also taken.


Usil

Pygmy sunfish prefer to eat off of the bottom than from the surface. Freeze dried foods float and are ignored.

After a week, my young sunfish all between 3/4 inch to 1 inch were eating freeze dried blood worms that I crumbled up in my palm before dropping in. There are 10 of these small ones and they have all grown in the past 10 days noticably. I still crumble but not so fine now. They all come to the top and feed very well on this. Also, freeze dried tubifax crumbled is also taken.


Usil

Be careful with freeze dried food, they can cause dropsy which is pretty much incurable.

I am keeping the diet varied including some live food. I have not tried flakes yet either but that might be added as well.


Usil

I would have to reccomend getting cichlid pellets and mixing them in with the freeze dried bloodworms at about 20% Pellets, 80% bloodworms and watch to see if they eat them. If they don't the first time, keep trying, but be sure to get rid of any left over food in the tank. Once they start accepting the pellets increase the amount of pellets. If that doesn't work you could get frozen food and soak the pellets in the "juice" from the frozen foods.

Be careful with freeze dried food, they can cause dropsy which is pretty much incurable.

How's that? Never heard of that one. But then again, never fed much in the way of freeze-dried foods.

I like the idea of mixing a pellet with the freeze dried bloodworms. I can purverize it a bit and the bits should look the same size as the of freeze dried bloodworms. The small fish might just try them all. I will see.

Usil

How's that? Never heard of that one. But then again, never fed much in the way of freeze-dried foods.

Dropsy isn't really a disease that it spread. It is simply when a fish's insides get damaged and freeze dried foods are rough on the organs of a fish.

The bloodworms are a little large for the Elassoma. They can't swallow the whole thing and then another fish rips it out of their mouth.

This was my experience with bloodworms also.

I hadn't worried much about the salt content of brine shrimp, although it would be high. If you change some water regularly it won't build up. There certainly isn't enough in a couple cubes to measurably change the salinity in a 55 gallon tank. Elassoma do like them though. They also enjoy small amounts of the prawn roe you sometimes see by San Francisco Bay Co. It goes bad fast though, so you can only feed small amounts.

Everything likes daphnia.

This was my experience with bloodworms also.

I fixed the problem by cutting the frozen bloodworm cube up with scissors while it was still frozen. The bloodworms get broken into manageable chunks during the process, which makes them easier to swallow. Even the small to midsize Elassoma can eat short lengths of bloodworms, and they love to.

The fish greatly prefer the bloodworms to the tubifex still. The tubifex often go ignored. It doesn't seem to be my method of thawing them; they must just taste bad or have a bad texture or something.

If I see daphnia next time I'm buying frozen cubes, I'll try them. I'm still hesitant about the brine shrimp because the Elassoma gilberti ignored the adult brine shrimp I dumped in the tank. They just swam around until they eventually died from a lack of salinity.

Edited by EricaWieser, 18 September 2011 - 08:36 PM.

Yeah, but normally most species of fish 'itch' themselves when they're distressed. My swordtails (Xiphophorus hellerii) would rub themselves against tank decorations when something was bothering them. These Elassoma gilberti don't give you any warnings like that. The first sign of distress is death. It would have been nice to have had a warning sign.

So, uh... I should probably have said this earlier. The hundreds of snails that were in the tank all died. Yup, that's probably a warning sign. It makes sense that I then lost a few fish.

I'm glad that they're all healthy again. Yay for easy water changes via a connection between faucet tap and vacuum hose

Edited by EricaWieser, 18 September 2011 - 08:44 PM.

Yay, my replacement camera charger arrived in the mail!

Here's a picture of what the tank looks like right now. I killed off a lot of the Hemianthus callitrichoides with the algaecide and the blackout period it had during the green water. But it's hardy, so patches are growing back.
 Elassoma gilberti tank 2011_09_24.jpg   118.43KB   0 downloads

Here's both genders of Elassoma gilberti in the same photograph. The male is being all dominant here; he's the black and blue one. Subdominant males can be light brown with neon blue on their sides, and females are light brown with blue eye semicircles.
 both genders of elassoma gilberti resize.jpg   64.96KB   0 downloads

These are females
 female Elassoma gilberti resize.jpg   92.21KB   0 downloads
 older female elassoma gilberti resize.jpg   173.75KB   0 downloads

Here's one eating a bloodworm. I bought frozen cubes for $5 for 30 at Petsmart and cut them so the bloodworms aren't so long. They're about the same diameter as the Elassoma's throat, so if they're too long they try to eat them but choke a little. I cut the block up while it's still frozen so the worms get segmented into smaller bits that are easier for the fish to swallow.
 elassoma gilberti eats bloodworm resize.jpg   163.3KB   0 downloads

Male eating bloodworms. Only males have blue edges on their fins; females won't.
 male elassoma gilberti eats a chunk of bloodworms resize.jpg   160.07KB   0 downloads
 male elassoma gilberti eats a chunk of bloodworms2 resize.jpg   154.85KB   0 downloads

Another photo of a male:
 male elassoma gilberti in front of hygrophila difformis resize.jpg   158.19KB   0 downloads

Here's a male beginning to color up. They get darker when they want to express their dominance around other fish.
 male elassoma gilberti begins to color up resize.jpg   175.78KB   0 downloads

This one's dark because he's trying to express that this is his bloodworm eating territory.  male elassoma gilberti in his bloodworm territory resize.jpg   184.1KB   0 downloads

This is what a territory dispute looks like:
 territorial sparring over prime bloodworm land resize.jpg   175.83KB   0 downloads


The winner looks like this:
 male elassoma gilberti after winning territory dispute resize.jpg   161.62KB   0 downloads

and the loser gets all clear, like this:
 what male elassomas look like after they back down from a territory dispute resize.jpg   196.25KB   0 downloads

Neither fish gets injured during the territory dispute. They just flap their fins at one another.

Elassoma gilberti are very pretty fish. Here's one noticing the camera:
 pretty elassoma gilberti male resize.jpg   177.88KB   0 downloads
 pretty elassoma gilberti male notices camera resize.jpg   175.17KB   0 downloads

My internet's not behaving, so I'll upload the gallery links later that will link to full sized photos that everyone can view, forum members or no.

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 September 2011 - 08:12 PM.