Elassoma Gilberti

Still no wigglies in the 10 gallon spawning aquarium, although the pygmy sunfish have settled down a bit and aren't as terrified as they were the first few days after being scooped out of their previous home and added to this tank. They've noticed the abundance of grindal worms and are now much less hysterical. Maybe there will be wigglies soon.

My red tiger lotus arrived in the mail! Once again I am pleased with Aquatic Magic. They are a company I do business with every half year or so and every time am happy with their prompt service. Would recommend to others. Anyway, I took the bulb out of its packaging and plopped it in the tank. Here is a photo of it with an Elassoma gilberti next to it, for scale. http://gallery.nanfa...17_001.JPG.html If it survives and grows leaves I can definitely picture them enjoying the shade on the underside. They used to really love the anubias.

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 April 2012 - 06:48 PM.

Ho ho ho... I went to go turn the light off just now and caught a very startled female (fat, full of eggs) and a very startled male (dark black and blue) turn to look at me. I left the light on

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 April 2012 - 09:46 PM.

Bow chikka bow bow!

It's possible that there... might? be wigglies? It's hard to tell because there are rotifers in this tank, too. I'll check again in a little while.

It's possible that there... might? be wigglies? It's hard to tell because there are rotifers in this tank, too. I'll check again in a little while.

Not sure. Fed the tank with microworms just in case.

From what I have seen, Elassoma newborns do not wiggle. They dart a few inches, stop, then lie nearly motionless until something startles them and they dart again. The pectoral fins flutter after a few days as their controlled swimming skills start to develop, but I have never seen the larval body-tail continuous wiggle behavior that sunfish, cichlids, catfish and many other yolk-sac fry do. To me it's another distinctive difference between pygmies and "real" sunfish.

From what I have seen, Elassoma newborns do not wiggle. They dart a few inches, stop, then lie nearly motionless until something startles them and they dart again. The pectoral fins flutter after a few days as their controlled swimming skills start to develop, but I have never seen the larval body-tail continuous wiggle behavior that sunfish, cichlids, catfish and many other yolk-sac fry do...

True. I have seen them dart around from one place to another before, and that is was I was looking for. That's the same motion that rotifers do, too, which is why it was hard for me to tell if it was a rotifer or a fry yesterday evening. I was just calling them 'wigglies' because to it's better than calling them bugs, which is what they really look like to me. Here's a picture of a newly hatched Elassoma gilberti: http://gallery.nanfa...ze_002.jpg.html 'Wigglies' was just an affectionate euphemism. No, they don't actually wiggle. I suppose I will just call them 'fry' in the future.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 April 2012 - 12:06 PM.

I suspect the things you're calling rotifers are probably copepods, based on your swimming description. Rotifers swim in a smooth, slow spiralling motion, and the soft-bodied ones like Philodina can also walk like inchworms or leeches. I've never heard of rotifers that dart, but I certainly haven't seen them all. Cyclops, Diaptomus and similar copepods are the most common freshwater zooplankton that swim with a darting motion.

Confirmed presence of baby fish!

I am going to scoop the parents out right now

I am going to scoop the parents out right now

I got one of the two males and none of the three (are there three in there still?) females.

All told I felt pretty successful given the circumstances.
The circumstances: http://gallery.nanfa...20_001.JPG.html
The fish have the advantage in that dense a jungle.

Also fed them micro and grindal worms. Will try again to remove the parents later tonight.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 April 2012 - 06:38 PM.

Will try again to remove the parents later tonight.

I just now removed the second male and four females from the tank At least even if no fry result from this, I didn't lose any of the fish I had. The fourth female was kind of a surprise. I had forgotten I put her in there. Did I? ...?

I fed the tank with microworms, and will continue to feed it twice a day.

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 April 2012 - 04:36 PM.

Erica how many fry do they typically produce in a spawn? What's ur survival rate? I'm curious cuz ur thread has made me want to keep elassoma and I want to be successful.

Erica how many fry do they typically produce in a spawn? What's ur survival rate?

I'm not sure. All I can say is that I got 5 fish from Gerald in the fall of 2010, and then when I went to go move in May of 2011 I emptied the 55 gallon tank and counted 84 fish. They are masters of hiding and I did not think I had nearly that many.

I'm curious cuz ur thread has made me want to keep elassoma and I want to be successful.

The most important thing I would say you have to do to get fry is get the adults to eat. They have spawned for me in both pH 7.5, DH 16 to 20 water and pH 6.5, DH 0 water. So unlike discus fish they don't really care about water hardness. Throughout all that time the one thing that made them stop reproducing was when I fed them crushed flake food, which they didn't eat. When they're starving, they not reproducing. So now I feed them live grindal worms ( see the 'grindal worm tips and tricks' forum in the live food section) and thawed frozen cubes of bloodworms, cut up into bite size pieces. I hold the cube with my 10 inch planting tweezers ($5, ebay) and cut the worms that thaw off with scissors. Otherwise they're too large for the juveniles to eat them.

A second thing to consider with Elassoma is they're so small, only an inch long fully grown. They spend the first four months of their lives less than a half inch long. So if you've got three inch long fish in the same tank it's like six times the length of the young Elassoma. It can terrify them or eat them. It's possible to be producing fry but to never see any because a larger tank mate is eating them or preventing them from foraging for food.

Edited by EricaWieser, 21 April 2012 - 07:47 AM.

I count four fry in the four square inches of duckweed roots in the back left surface corner of the 10 gallon tank. Unfortunately my camera isn't capable of capturing clear baby fish only a few millimeters long, or I'd share photos. They have two well formed eyes and dark bellies.

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 April 2012 - 07:09 PM.

I count four fry in the four square inches of duckweed roots...

There are more than four fry; I counted six at the same time yesterday. They are growing up well and have fat little bellies. It's interesting that they're all hanging out in the duckweed at the top instead of on the bottom. In the past they would all sit on the ground. I wonder if that has anything to do with being the only fish in the tank. Maybe going to the bottom is a defensive strategy to protect against potential predation. I dunno.

On a side note baby guppies were born today and it's amazing how much larger they are at birth than these week or so old Elassoma fry. I never realized just how huge livebearer fry were until now that there are Elassoma and guppy babies at the same time.

Also, on a sadder note, I think I've lost three adult Elassoma in the past four days. They're laying on the bottom dead with nothing visibly wrong with them (except for being dead). All the other fish are fine. Either Elassoma gilberti really do have a short lifespan or maybe something's wrong. There has been like one dead fish every other week for the past few months, ever since they hit one year of age. The guppies (canaries in the coal mine, so to speak) seem fine.
Edit: I just tested the water. Nitrate's between 0 and 20 ppm. Nitrite's 0 ppm. Total water hardness 75 ppm (I've added crushed coral since the tank was initially set up. The water's around 0 or 25 if left to its own devices). Chlorine 0 ppm, Total alkalinity (KH) between 40 and 80 ppm, pH 7 +/- 0.2. So they really do seem to be dying of old age.

Edited by EricaWieser, 28 April 2012 - 07:15 PM.

Also, on a sadder note, I think I've lost three adult Elassoma in the past four days. They're laying on the bottom dead with nothing visibly wrong with them (except for being dead). All the other fish are fine. Either Elassoma gilberti really do have a short lifespan or maybe something's wrong. There has been like one dead fish every other week for the past few months, ever since they hit one year of age. The guppies (canaries in the coal mine, so to speak) seem fine.
Edit: I just tested the water. Nitrate's between 0 and 20 ppm. Nitrite's 0 ppm. Total water hardness 75 ppm (I've added crushed coral since the tank was initially set up. The water's around 0 or 25 if left to its own devices). Chlorine 0 ppm, Total alkalinity (KH) between 40 and 80 ppm, pH 7 +/- 0.2. So they really do seem to be dying of old age.

I've had a similar situation with some of my bigeye chubs this spring. They were adults when I collected them over two years ago, so I've been attributing it to old age. Although you expect it, it's still a shame. Sorry to hear about your losses. Sure a good thing you've got babies coming on to replace them.

I've had a similar situation with some of my bigeye chubs this spring. They were adults when I collected them over two years ago, so I've been attributing it to old age. Although you expect it, it's still a shame. Sorry to hear about your losses. Sure a good thing you've got babies coming on to replace them.

Very true.

One of the things I like about this blog-type topic is that other people interested in keeping Elassoma gilberti might read it and learn from my mistakes. I've realized that it's very important to keep my population of annual fish breeding. If there aren't any fry being produced then soon, very soon, I won't have any fish.

My Sanyo Xacti video recorder captured the following still photos on April 29th.
1. http://gallery.nanfa...+photo.jpg.html
1. http://gallery.nanfa...+photo.jpg.html
2. http://gallery.nanfa...photo2.jpg.html
2. http://gallery.nanfa...photo2.jpg.html
3. http://gallery.nanfa...photo3.jpg.html
3. http://gallery.nanfa...photo3.jpg.html

The camera isn't really designed to take photos of millimeter long fry, so they're not good resolution. But you can see two things: the fry are located at the surface of the water and they have fat bellies. The first surprises me. In the past the fry stayed at the bottom on the substrate. ( http://gallery.nanfa...ze_001.jpg.html and http://gallery.nanfa...ze_001.jpg.html from previous in this topic). The second also surprises me because I'm feeding them microworms, which sink to the bottom. There are quite a lot of freshwater invertebrates in the tank. The fry must be eating them. It's possible the rotifers/copepods are in turn eating the microworms but I don't know; I feel like I need a microscope to properly study these tiny tiny creatures.

I will try to take some new photos soon. The fry are noticably bigger than they were five days ago. Also, on a side note, I stunned one when I was adding microworms to the tank. They're so small and close to the surface. I think I hit it or swirled it when I dipping the plastic spatula I use to scoop the worms out of their culture into the water. I'd like to say that watching it slowly sink halfway to the bottom before recovering has made me more careful, but I thought I was being careful and I can't exactly not feed them. It's sort of a dilemma. Oh well.

And an update on the 55 gallon tank: I'm not really sure what's going on in there because the lights have been turned off since April 29th when the new guppy fry were born. Guppies will eat their own young, especially if they are illuminated by a light above them. So I turned the light off. I've been using one of the 10 gallon's shop lights to alternately light the left and right side of hemianthus callitrichoides, so it's still healthy. I prop the light right up against the glass and shine it on the lowest few inches of the substrate. It's working well. The Elassoma gilberti do not seem disturbed by the darkness. Some of them are swimming up to the surface because they feel safer in the semi-dark. I noticed this behavior with cloudy water, too; they swim around and leave the plants more.
One last thing to note is that the ludwigia peruensis/glandulosa is not responding well at all to this week of blackout. It lost all of its lower leaves. I'm going to have to turn the light back on soon or it might die. (I'm wondering whether or not that is a bad thing. It needs so much light to grow that when I turn that much light on the algae starts growing over everything, too. *sighs*) Also the ludwigia ovalis is having problems rooting in the still volcano-y Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix®. That stuff is still bubbling down there, even after all this time. I don't know how it has so much gas in it. It's ridiculous. I let the air bubbles out and packed it down again just last week.

So I guess this most recent update is full of both good and bad news. Yay, fry (both Elassoma and guppy). Boo, bubbly substrate and stupidly high light intensity requiring plants. Yay the algae's gone from the tank now. Boo, so are ludwigia peruensis/glandulosa's lower leaves. Yay, the red tiger lotus bulb from aquaticmagic is growing well. Boo, I can't see it because the lights are off. lol, I will turn the lights back on soon. I think what I want is for the plants to grow in a little bit more so they can protect the baby fish in the 55 gallon tanks and I don't have to. I should probably stop trimming them when they reach the surface of the water then XD. Both guppy and Elassoma fry really do benefit from at least some plants touching the surface of the water. *nods*

Edited by EricaWieser, 03 May 2012 - 01:12 PM.

i sometimes observed my e. evergladei fry near the surface. but in most cases this was only the case when the fry was really, really small.
in contrast to this, e. zonatum fry at least in my tank seems to prefer bottom areas.

As promised, here is a new photo of the much larger fry taken yesterday. You can click on it to zoom in. http://gallery.nanfa...07_002.JPG.html
I count at least seven fry in that photo.

Edited by EricaWieser, 04 May 2012 - 07:27 AM.