Elassoma Gilberti

^^^posts #876 and #877 - Great shots!

thank you

Thanks to the nine fry I feel comfortable enough in their population to list these fish on aquabid and share them with other people. The auction is one dollar starting price, no reserve price. http://www.aquabid.c...tive

Edited by EricaWieser, 12 June 2012 - 06:40 PM.

I bought Daylight Deluxe bulbs for my 4 foot 32 watt T8 shop light and it made the tank look a lot less yellow.

^Those bulbs are great. I use them on a heavily planted tank and they work very well, look great, and my local HW store has them for $4 each.

^Those bulbs are great. I use them on a heavily planted tank and they work very well, look great, and my local HW store has them for $4 each.

I'm not sure what I bought last time but at the time I thought it was the right bulb. Either it yellowed as it aged or I must have gotten the wrong thing. This Daylight Deluxe is exactly what I wanted



http://gallery.nanfa...male 1.jpg.html


http://gallery.nanfa...f gray.jpg.html

As you can see I'm not much of a gardener, but I like the fish.

Edited by EricaWieser, 18 June 2012 - 07:15 PM.

I'm having some problems with cladophora algae and have been considering doing something about it.
http://img.photobuck...imiru/004-6.jpg
http://img.photobuck...imiru/019-7.jpg

It's a problem. The grindal worms I'm trying to feed these Elassoma gilberti drift downward after being added and, if the fish don't snap them up on the way down, immediately disappear into the cladophora carpet. Then instead of being eaten by the Elassoma they slowly drown to death and deteriorate my tank's water quality I've gotta do something about this. I've already considered H2O2 injections and I think they are too dangerous to the fry in the tank. And no, manual removal of the cladophora is not working. Maybe I'll get shrimp.

Amano shrimp, which are famous for eating cladophora algae, grow to be two inches long. This might be a problem with my inch long Elassoma gilberti adults. It definitely might be a problem for the fry, who are less than a half inch long for their first half year of life.
I remember Gerald saying one time that cherry shrimp were able to coexist peacefully with his Elassoma gilberti (the ancestors of my own fish). I think if I remember correctly the reason why I removed the cherry shrimp from my Elassoma tank way back when was because they were eating the microworms. With the shrimp in the tank microworms wiggled for less than a full day until they all got eaten. With the shrimp removed the microworms wiggled for several days until they all drowned. *nods* But I guess I'd prefer to have more frequent microworm feedings than this gross cladophora.

Anyway, so, yes, I'm thinking about getting shrimp. Are there any shrimp willing to eat cladophora that aren't two inches long? Do you think amano shrimp would eat my Elassoma fry? Comments welcome, suggestions appreciated.

Edit: I did think about the paleomonetes (native) shrimp I used to keep and breed. But I remember them eating snails mostly. I didn't have cladophora back then so I don't know if they eat it or not. The snails kind of points to carnivore.

Edit #2: Oooh. Maybe if I got these shrimp (same as cherries but a different color morph) http://images60.fotk...IMG_8342-vi.jpg it would signal dominance to the Elassoma and help keep the fish away from the [possible predatious] shrimp. Hmm.

Edited by EricaWieser, 09 July 2012 - 09:45 PM.

Amano shrimp (japonica) are mainly algivores/scavengers and definitely less predaceous than Palaemonetes. Amanos are much better than cherries IME at controlling filamentous green algae However I've never kept Amanos in tanks where egglayers were breeding so I cant swear they wont eat fish eggs or newborns.

It's discouraging to hear that cherry shrimp don't enjoy the taste of filamentous algae. I'm going to do some more research to see if anyone has had problems with amano shrimp eating fish fry/eggs.

Update:
To quote shrimpster on http://www.plantedta...ad.php?t=173134 , "I have witnessed an amano eat a freshly molted juvenile shrimp head first still kicking. It was probably stressed as my nitrates were high at the time, but I still hated to see it."
There is no way I'm putting amano shrimp in my Elassoma gilberti tank after reading that.

Update #2: Unless this is a case of mistaken identity and quite a lot of people have something else they're calling amano shrimp, it seems to be fairly common for the amano shrimp to attack and eat fish. One person mentioned losing a healthy neon tetra (which is larger and faster than my slow moving Elassoma gilberti fry).

Edited by EricaWieser, 10 July 2012 - 05:31 PM.

you might be able to selectively black out portions of your tank if you can find a black shallow plastic container. drill or holes along the sides to allow water/fry to flow through it and put it upside down on the large patches of algae. as long as no light gets into it, you should be able to starve it out. it wont get rid of the algae, but may give you an area where you can feed your fish without the worms getting lost. the only other thing i can think of is total black out, but that isnt good for the plants.

i have a love/hate relationship with cladophora. i love it for use in algae scrubbers, i hate it when i forget to dose with CO2 and it takes over may tanks...

if you ever decide on a shrimp, you could put them in an inverted breeder box or net and set it on the bottom of the tank. that way they could be restricted to eating the algae.

Oooh, I like your ideas.

you might be able to selectively black out portions of your tank if you can find a black shallow plastic container. drill or holes along the sides to allow water/fry to flow through it and put it upside down on the large patches of algae. as long as no light gets into it, you should be able to starve it out. it wont get rid of the algae, but may give you an area where you can feed your fish without the worms getting lost. the only other thing i can think of is total black out, but that isnt good for the plants.

I don't think I'm going to do the blackout because I've seen cladophora that was completely dried out and ungrowing fall into the tank, fluff up with a little bit of water, and start growing again. I just don't think a blackout will kill it. Cladophora does this thing where unless it's burninated it's not dead.

if you ever decide on a shrimp, you could put them in an inverted breeder box or net and set it on the bottom of the tank. that way they could be restricted to eating the algae.

I like the shrimp corral idea. I'm picturing a little paddock for the shrimpies, kind of like cows are restricted to certain pastures to graze. Now I just have to figure out how to actually do that, and I'm sold. That's a great idea.

i have a love/hate relationship with cladophora. i love it for use in algae scrubbers, i hate it when i forget to dose with CO2 and it takes over may tanks...

So are you saying that when you dose with CO2 you have less cladophora growth? I've seen other people saying the same thing online. Currently lighting and substrate are not limiting to growth in my tank. I think CO2 is the limiting reactant in plant growth. It makes sense that if I dosed with CO2 the limiting reactant would switch to being the nitrogen available. When the other plants outcompete the cladophora for the ammonium and nitrate in the water, they'll be able to dig their roots into the substrate and get food, while it will be stuck with the 0 ppm nitrogen in the water column. That's very interesting. I'm going to think about setting my CO2 fermenter back up. I saw this recently and it made me giggle: http://www.aquaticpl...ome-brew-2.html The stuff I brewed always smelled like prison wine. Maybe I'll use a champagne or beer yeast strain this time just to avoid the terrible smell of pouring an old bread yeast culture down the sink. That was such an awful smell, and I lived with roommates at the time, so they were... not pleased.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2012 - 11:12 AM.

yep, the CO2 kept it from growing. i also have a siamese algae eater(Crossocheilus siamensis), which does a fine job of keeping to a minimum, but it would overgrow my tank without CO2. With CO2 it stops growing. just be prepared for your plants to end up needing ferts at some point. if you are running CO2 and high lighting, you will eventually need to fertilize your tanks, even with kitty litter. from my experience, the first plants to start withering away are the ones that grow the fastest.

if you dont have a diffuser you wont notice much difference. i made a diffuser out of a 20oz coke bottle and a maxijet 400. i cut the bottom off the bottle and connected it to the intake of the maxijet. the coke bottle just so happens to fit it like a glove. i then cut a small hole to push the CO2 tube through, so all the bubbles get channeled up and through the maxijet. you can also stuff the bottle full of filter floss and use it as a powerfilter if you wanted, they are quite versatile.

That's a really cute diffuser idea I like it.
I happen to already own a diffuser that I bought from aqmagic.com a few years ago but your idea is really nifty

It's interesting that you have ceratophyllum demersum (hornwort) in your tank. That's an unrooted plant that gets its nutrients solely from the water column. It presence and its ability to grow puts a chink in my theory that the reason why CO2 works to stop cladophora growing is that it drops the water column nitrogen that plants eat (ammonium, nitrate) down to 0 ppm and the cladophora starves. But if ceratophyllum is growing somehow then that theory seems a bit flawed. Maybe the ceratophyllum demersum is outcompeting the cladophora for the nitrogen the moment it enters the 0ppm water column, and vascular plants are just faster eaters than algaes. That does kind of make sense.

*goes and tests tank* *comes back* Wait, my tank water is already between 0 and 20 ppm nitrate (the lowest result the test strip gives). And the cladophora's growing like crazy. Hmm.

I'm convinced that the CO2 stops cladophora growth since I've heard this from multiple independent sources, but now I have no idea why.

Edited by EricaWieser, 14 July 2012 - 02:00 PM.

its actually ceratophyllum submersum, which is sometimes called tropical hornwort or soft hornwort. the leaves are a little longer than they are in C. demersum. without having the two right next to each other though, its almost impossible to tell the difference by sight. i have both in my tank.
here is a pic. submersum is on the far left, demersum is on the right. the demersum started getting lighter, almost redish leaves when i started adding CO2 this last time.


i really have no idea why CO2 works for algae. maybe the plants deplete the water of nitrogen every morning before the algae can grow? maybe it DOES deplete all the nitrogen right off the bat... that would make sense if nitrogen slowly builds back up slightly at night. then the plants use it all up before the algae can use it, leaving the algae to starve while the plant just sits and waits for the next morning to come around. who knows.

The male that is in the video in post #896 above is a daddy. I found these eggs this morning:

http://gallery.nanfa...h 2012.jpg.html
You can follow that hyperlink and click on the image to zoom in.

By evening more of the eggs had hatched into fry:

http://gallery.nanfa...om out.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...oom in.jpg.html

It's kind of interesting I was upset about the cladophora algae being in the tank because without it I doubt the eggs would have stuck to the myriophyllum pinnatum. Now I'm really glad I didn't put any shrimp in the Elassoma tank; I don't want anything eating any of those fry. The dad doesn't either. Take a look at his silhouette behind the first photo. He wouldn't leave his babies even after I bothered him for ten minutes taking photos and even using the flash repeatedly. He's still there, circling the stalk of plant, protecting it.

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 July 2012 - 08:50 PM.

Update:
I'm not sure how much this affects things, but when I came home today walking inside from the 93 F outdoors, the inside felt hotter. My apartment's air conditioning was blowing hot air. I checked on the fish and the dad has left his post and is dark black again. All but four of the eggs are gone; those last four have turned white. I haven't spotted any of the hatched fry. It's too bad the heater went on the fritz, because this was the first batch of eggs I'd been able to follow as it developed and get a good timeline for. But now it's hard to say what the timeline is, unless people in the future plan to jump their temperature from 75 to something above 93 to replicate what happened to this batch of eggs.

He spawned again in the same spot



http://gallery.nanfa...er/010.JPG.html
http://gallery.nanfa...d 2012.jpg.html
http://gallery.nanfa...21_002.JPG.html
http://gallery.nanfa...lberti.jpg.html

Thats cool about the eggs being there again. Nice photos. Looks like a nice crop of new fish.