Elassoma Gilberti

I've noticed that too: many fish (especially intelligent/observant Perciforms like sunnies, darters, cichlids, anabantoids) seem more at ease and less prone to freak out in tanks on stands at head-level, rather than down low. {My skinny legs and heron-like schnoz probably don't help matters).

I must say, I just got my fish the other day - and i was really surprised at how shy they WERENT. then i realized after reading this that my tank is pretty high. I'm not standing over the tank, or them. My tank is on a high shelf where my eyes are basically level with the middle of the tank.

Now that I think about it's really suspicious that there's not corpses left... Dangit, maybe I'm being cheated. Any input from you all would be really, really appreciated. I've never killed fish by cooking them before, so I don't know what happens to their corpses. I'm not actually too sure how Elassoma decompose, since I spend all my time with them in their living state. Is it reasonable for there not to be any bodies in the water that arrived after 2-3 days in shipping? Or is this guy scamming me?

Hi Erica,
I don't really believe the fish would dissolve from heat. And you mentioned that she did not take a picture of whatever was left in the bag you sent. Clearly, if fish were dead in a bag and there was nothing left, why would you open up the bag at all?
I personally have shipped many fish, in breather bags, with heat packs in the temperatures you described, and in the smallest priority box available from usps. Also, my pygmy sunfish that just arrived came with a heat pack as well (in MAY)
- Temperature in the box does depend on the heatpack, the size of the box and the bag of water. However based on what you said, it sounds fishy to me. From your description- I would have used a heat pack too, in a lunch bag or wrapped in newspaper seperated by layers of newspaper (in case the box gets flipped you dont really want the heatpack to touch the bag)
Maybe try normal bags next time. I like the breather bags for my guppies, so they dont slosh around.
Unfortunately I think people do try to scam, its not often but it does happen.
How long after she got your package did she send you an email. Is it possible that the fish arrived alive and that they died when she tried to acclimate them? So then she said they arriveed dead.
Is it possible she just took the fish out and they are living a nice life and telling you they are dead, hoping you will just send new fish.
Anyways, sounds FISHY to me!!

Hi Erica...

Thank you for your support. I sent him a second starter colony of fish and changed my Dead On Arrival (DOA) policy so that it will be harder to scam me in the future. Now they have to send me a picture of the fish in the unopened bag within two hours of its arrival. I buy package tracking so I know when it arrives.

Recently I was reading aquabid and one fish seller has a DOA policy that in order to get more fish the buyer has to e-mail the shipper a picture of the fish with its head cut off. That was interesting, lol.

Anyway, it's a valuable experience that I am glad I shared with others. If you have Elassoma gilberti often what you have is a productive breeding colony. A lot of the people reading this topic will find that they have enough fish to ship to others. So if they can learn from my mistake, and will on their first auction include a good DOA policy, then some good has been done by me writing down what happened. Yes, the buyer in this instance got more fish. But it won't be that easy next time.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 May 2012 - 12:31 PM.

Update on the baby Elassoma:
They're so big! I can see individual organs in their abdomens now. Their eyes have big white regions and are very well developed. Their tails now kind of remind me of a stickleback's, very skinny and then flaring out.

I still count 10 ish fry, which means there may be anywhere from 10-20 of them in there. I'm glad to have some new breeders. This is the first batch of fry since this time last year.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 May 2012 - 12:33 PM.

Thank you for your support. I sent him a second starter colony of fish and changed my Dead On Arrival (DOA) policy so that it will be harder to scam me in the future. Now they have to send me a picture of the fish in the unopened bag within two hours of its arrival. I buy package tracking so I know when it arrives.

Recently I was reading aquabid and one fish seller has a DOA policy that in order to get more fish the buyer has to e-mail the shipper a picture of the fish with its head cut off. That was interesting, lol.

I seen that you also made a decent buck off them on Aqua bid, so I guess your losses arent too bad in sending him another group. Guess a strict DOA policy is key. Aquabid is a great place to sell - do you sell on there often?

Aquabid is a great place to sell - do you sell on there often?

Yes, I like aquabid.com quite a lot, and I use it frequently. There is a feedback system where you are asked to comment on your transactions, and website policy operates so that people buying and selling things under $30 do so for free. Only if you sell something for more than $30 is the seller even asked to donate to aquabid.

In the old days if you bred fish you gave them to your local pet store for store credit. That system was awful for the breeder because
1. Fish breeders don't need store credit. We're in the phase of producing, not consuming, and
2. We make no money, therefore there is no incentive for us to breed more fish.
Local pet stores are also limited to getting customers from the people in the immediate region around the store. Through aquabid a small fish breeder like myself (I only breed two fish species and am about to start breeding a third) can have contact with a nationwide customer pool. Then they bid to compete. With aquabid the buyer is no long limited to what fish are in their local pet stores, and the breeder becomes well paid for producing baby fish. The end result is that more fish are produced and more people get Elassoma gilberti.

Aquabid also lets you write as much text and post as many videos as you want in your auction description. I hope that I have prevented some deaths and hardship by telling people right off the bat on the auction page that, "No, I never could get this fish to eat fish flakes. Don't even try; I've tried for you and a percentage of my fish starved to death. Here's a video of an emaciated Elassoma gilberti seeing its first grindal worm; look how quickly it ate it." Versus a pet store clerk looking to make a sale going, "Maybe it will eat fish flakes. I haven't tried" and then second-hand causing the deaths of a continuing percentage of the fish they sell. I like the idea of an auction webpage because it lets me tell people about my own experiences with the fish before they buy it.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 May 2012 - 01:43 PM.

Here are two photos of the Elassoma gilberti fry taken May 6th 2012:
http://gallery.nanfa...08_001.JPG.html
http://gallery.nanfa...er/009.JPG.html

You can click on them to zoom in.
They are much bigger now; I should probably get new photos.

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 May 2012 - 01:48 PM.

Wow! I can't tell you how happy I am to have finally reached the last post. Whew. I just read this entire thread in three hours. I've learned so much from your observations of the Elassoma Gilberti, I hadn't even heard of grindal worms but now I'm tempted to try that. I'm also wanting to set up an Elassoma Gilberti tank. Hopefully I can get some from you. At first I wasn't sure because I'm used to tropical fish who aren't shy but I became certain that I want gilberti after you had success with the grindal worm feedings.

They really are beautiful fish.

Thank you for reading

Speaking of grindal worms, I added some soft sponges to the culture that had previously only had dark green, hard, thin Scotch Brite® pads in it. There are a lot more worms in there than I thought there were! They crawled up into the soft sponges and I was able to scrape them off with the planting tweezers. The tweezers were only ever able to collect a few from the hard sponges, but on the soft sponges they scoop off many more worms.

That's great! Would you mind if I came by sometime and picked up some Elassoma and grindal worms from you since we're less than an hour apart?

That's great! Would you mind if I came by sometime and picked up some Elassoma and grindal worms from you since we're less than an hour apart?

I'm still kind of new to all of this and my production rate isn't that high yet.

My new Elassoma are a little bit too small to transport at the moment: http://gallery.nanfa...er/009.JPG.html . I don't have any extra fish right now (the honest truth or I'd have an auction going). Some people currently have Elassoma on aquabid.com, so you can find them there.

The grindal worms, well. I'm currently supporting a 55 gallon with ten Elassoma adults and ten guppies and a 10 gallon with ten to twenty Elassoma fry on my cultures, so I could probably be able to scoop up a tablespoon or two but that's about it. The expansion time for these worms is really long, so it would take about three to five months for a few worms to grow to a harvestable culture size, and that's if they survive transport. To save yourself the time it might be easier to buy a full colony on aquabid.com for $20.

What I can offer you is plants. I've got something like half a dozen species that I can give you snippets of to start your Elassoma tank.

Edited by EricaWieser, 12 May 2012 - 11:47 AM.

I'm still kind of new to all of this and my production rate isn't that high yet.

My new Elassoma are a little bit too small to transport at the moment: http://gallery.nanfa...er/009.JPG.html . I don't have any extra fish right now (the honest truth or I'd have an auction going). Some people currently have Elassoma on aquabid.com, so you can find them there.

The grindal worms, well. I'm currently supporting a 55 gallon with ten Elassoma adults and ten guppies and a 10 gallon with ten to twenty Elassoma fry on my cultures, so I could probably be able to scoop up a tablespoon or two but that's about it. The expansion time for these worms is really long, so it would take about three to five months for a few worms to grow to a harvestable culture size, and that's if they survive transport. To save yourself the time it might be easier to buy a full colony on aquabid.com for $20.

What I can offer you is plants. I've got something like half a dozen species that I can give you snippets of to start your Elassoma tank.

Sorry about that, I've been distracted with rescuing a Pacu and a Blood Parrot lately.

I'll do what you suggest and try the grindal worm colony and the Elassomas on Aquabid. I would love the plants! I'm always willing to take plants. Send me anything you'd like! Should I PM you my info?

"Send me anything you'd like! Should I PM you my info?" I guess if you want to pay for shipping I could send stuff to you. I was kind of thinking since we live half an hour away from one another you could stop by sometime with a tupperware container and I could cut you some plant trimmings. But let's continue this conversation in private messaging. I like to keep the text on this topic about Elassoma gilberti.

The switch from Scotch Brite brillo pad worm culture over to soft sponges is going really well. I did it by piling up the hard green sponges on one side of the box and putting new soft sponges on top of the other side. Then I didn't put any food on the Scotch Brite side, only the soft sponge side. The amount of worms that traveled from the foodless scrubby sponge side to the kibbles on the soft sponge side still surprises me. Apparently they were there in large number, just very difficult to collect. More food for the Elassoma gilberti The adults are now entirely fed by the grindal worm cultures. I also add the tiniest size of Ken's Premium Golden Pearls for the guppy and/or any Elassoma fry that might exist in the 55 gallon tank. Microworms are really annoying because I have to make fresh oatmeal every week or two. *sighs* But it's better than newly hatched brine shrimp, which needed cleaning up and maintenanced even more frequently.

The gray guppies are gone from the 55 gallon tank and all that is left are 8 tiny 'gold' or 'blond' fry and a similarly non-gray juvenile. The Elassoma gilberti were seriously disturbed by the dark gray colored guppies. These show quality fish were twice the size of the wild guppies I used to have and they really scared the Elassoma. Now that they're gone the Elassoma are reestablishing their territories. They were all too busy hiding to keep the claim on their land

It's official. Hemianthus callitrichoides swallows the grindal worms as soon as they land on it. Now that it's coating the entire front bottom of my tank and has grown upwards a bit it's really noticable. In the future I'm going to design my Elassoma tanks without a groundcover plant. The fish are much more likely to find and eat the worms when they're wiggling on a flat surface. When they're hiding inside a dense bush of plants they just wiggle there until they drown and rot.

Edited by EricaWieser, 15 May 2012 - 06:38 PM.

New photo of the fry:
Zoom out: http://gallery.nanfa...er/064.JPG.html
Zoom in: http://gallery.nanfa...oom in.JPG.html
They've got pretty large bellies for me not having fed them microworms for a week or more. (Probably more). Meh, I figure it's fine. There are microfauna in the tank and I've been adding the smallest grain of Ken's Premium Golden Pearls twice a day. That stuff lasts for a really long time. I'm trying to make it go away because the adult Elassoma won't eat it (smallest grain is too small) but I don't think the Elassoma babies do either. *shrugs* The guppy fry love it.

"Send me anything you'd like! Should I PM you my info?" I guess if you want to pay for shipping I could send stuff to you. I was kind of thinking since we live half an hour away from one another you could stop by sometime with a tupperware container and I could cut you some plant trimmings. But let's continue this conversation in private messaging. I like to keep the text on this topic about Elassoma gilberti.

My apologies! I'll continue this in PMs.

I agree about the fry doing well off the microfauna. I have a surprise Zebra Danio fry in my Blue Pearl Shrimp tank and I don't feed it anything but it's been feeding off the microfauna, so I can believe that even though you don't feed them much, they'll still thrive.

I used to have neolamprologus multifasciatus ('multis') and they would pick a shell and use it as their house. Even when they were outside of the shell they would orient themselves so that they could always swim back in. They are called shell dwellers. I think Elassoma gilberti are plant dwellers. They pick their favorite clump of plants and then they make it their home. Whenever they're outside their plant they always orient themselves so they can swim right back to it. The males seem to have a favorite spot in the plants, sort of like how multis will sometimes hang out inside their shell. Plant dwellers. I think it's a valid description, better than calling them 'shy'.

Current tank photo:
http://gallery.nanfa...7_2012.jpg.html

The tank is four feet long and the fish are one inch long, so you can't see individual fish well in this photo.

The ludwigia peruensis and proserpinaca palustris died because of the week long blackout. I put a branch of hygrophila difformis where they were.
The new tiger lotus has four or five leaves and is red, yay The hemianthus callitrichoides is growing in well, and now covers most of the bottom. That's the one thing that going right, it seems. The ludiwigia ovalis is having problems rooting in the substrate, which has bubbles in it. When I poke it with tweezers it hits the rotting mulch under the kitty litter and bubbles rise up. That mulch was the worst idea... There is a lot of algae in the tank. I figure maybe switching out the ludwigia peruensis and proserpinaca palustris for a plant (hygrophila difformis) that actually visibly grows from week to week will suck some nutrients from the water column and decrease algae growth. Maybe then the red of the rotala wallichii will become visible. *shrugs* The fish don't seem to care where or not their tank is pretty.

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 May 2012 - 12:22 AM.

The Elassoma gilberti like their new red tiger lotus. I think they like broad leafed plants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzoYPiUFKFM

It reminds me of this female Elassoma gilberti and her anubias: http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html

On an unrelated note, I think the lack of fry in the current 55 gallon setup mystery may have something to do with how I don't have any floating plants. I can't help but think of this photo: http://gallery.nanfa...06_001.JPG.html (click on it to zoom in and see the baby fish). Tank setup photo: http://gallery.nanfa...lsize.jpg.html There were also plants near the surface in the original 10 gallon Elassoma gilberti tank. I wonder if surface plants increase fry survival? This is the first tank setup where I haven't had floating plants but have had well fed fish (who spawned readily when removed to the 10 gallon tank, remember) and still no fry. For all the photos like this in the past: http://gallery.nanfa...e_002.jpg.html http://gallery.nanfa...07_001.JPG.html and http://gallery.nanfa...ze_001.jpg.html there are also photos like this: http://gallery.nanfa...photo3.jpg.html Hmm. I'm letting the plants grow up to the surface. Maybe the fry will survive.

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 May 2012 - 06:44 PM.

Terrible news. All of the fry that were in the 10 gallon tank are dead. I think it was the lack of water movement. Even with the tank absolutely packed full of plants, and even though this is a fish species used to slack water, water movement turns out to really really be necessary or the tank goes foul. It smells rancid.
Picture of dead fry: http://gallery.nanfa... water.png.html
It's terrible.
This is why I'm so intent on breeding the fish in-tank. This temporary little fry tank was supposed to only be for a little while, so I didn't fully prepare it for fry. I took the waterfall filter out (waaay back when I took the parents out, or maybe before) and didn't have an airstone or sponge filter on hand that would make fry-safe water movement. I figured with all those plants it would be okay to have it stagnant for a little while but I figured wrong and now they're all dead.
I feel terrible. But maybe you all can learn from my mistake. Keep the water moving. Bad things grow in stagnant water.

Edited by EricaWieser, 19 May 2012 - 10:12 PM.

i feel really sorry for you.
have you measured some water parameters?
i keep my elassomas in unfiltered tanks of the same size but never had any problems. my fry are growing in 12 l tanks with only javamoss in there. i never had a sudden death of all my newborns.
torben