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Elassoma Gilberti

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

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1023 replies to this topic

#981 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 09 January 2013 - 08:30 PM

think there might be fry in the tank somwhere? with those fish, i wouldnt be the least bit surprised. the fry hide so well i have waited weeks before actually seeing them in a grow-out tank.

No. He didn't get a chance to breed with them, only coloring up after they died. Although at this point I've realized that I have no idea how many Elassoma are in my tank at any given time. There was that time I thought I had a few, and I emptied the tank and counted and I had 84. Then there was that time I thought they were all dead and I had a few. And then I thought I was out of males and here's this guy. So... I have no idea. But I think there aren't any.

Edited by EricaWieser, 09 January 2013 - 08:32 PM.

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#982 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 12 August 2013 - 09:02 AM

I've been out of the game for almost a year, but I'm getting back in again. I miss my little pygmy sunfish. They were such fun little creatures.

I've got a plan for a tank setup that I think would be more conducive to breeding pygmy sunfish in large numbers. I'm going to build tank dividers in a 75 gallon tank to split it up into three tanks and use a spare 10 gallon tank as well. My plan is to rotate the fish between the four 'tanks', removing all the fish from where they are once a month and moving them one tank along the line.

Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zps7052b045.png

The timing (once a month) and minimum number of tanks (four) is based upon my observation that four month old elassoma gilberti were a half inch in size and the males were beginning to do their wiggly wobbly dance. At that age they would definitely no longer be in danger of being eaten by the adults.

Right now the 75 gallon tank is still full of things so I'm in the process of getting rid of them. Then once the tank is empty I'll empty it out, let it dry, and install the tank dividers. I'm nearly done setting up the 10 gallon. I got

a clip on light for it from Home Depot for $ 8
really bright around 1500 lumen ish sunlight-emulating compact fluorescent bulbs for $10 for 4
a $5 piece of acrylic to rest the clip on light onto to change the angle of light to reduce civilian casualties (with the clip on it shines into the room a little bit).

Also, as a perk to this setup, I don't have to worry about other fish eating the pygmy sunfish fry because no adult of any species will be in the same tank as the fry. This means that I could add other species to the setup, under the one condition that they must not interfere with the adult Elassoma spawning dance. This includes light colored fish the same size as the Elassoma (dark colored or larger fish would be seen as dominant, and might cause the male Elassoma to hide). So, I've gone and dug up my one inch fish list from http://www.ratemyfis.../topic4764.html (my username is Okiimiru), and I'm looking at it now for tankmate candidates. I always did want to keep leptolucania ommata (a notorious fry eater, not a problem here), dario dario (a nondancing red version of a pygmy sunfish), and possibly some fish I'd never before considered and haven't yet researched, like epiplatys annulatus. Hmm, so many options. I'll work on getting the tank set up and think about it.

yay

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#983 Guest_Joshaeus_*

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Posted 12 August 2013 - 02:59 PM

Congrats on your plans! I have settled on pygmy sunfish as well, even though I will not be using so many tanks...currently it is looking like a 5 gallon main tank and a smaller breeding tank, although a second 5 gallon in the future cannot be ruled out.
Anyhow, I just wanted to mention that, from what I've read, Dario species males are not as tolerant as their elassomid counterparts. I've heard that males of Dario species do not only chase their own kind out of their territory, but they also chase them away from food. If this behavior extends to chasing pygmy sunfish away from food, then the pygmy sunfish might become quite a bit more difficult to feed...

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#984 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 12 August 2013 - 03:57 PM

Congrats on your plans! I have settled on pygmy sunfish as well, even though I will not be using so many tanks...currently it is looking like a 5 gallon main tank and a smaller breeding tank, although a second 5 gallon in the future cannot be ruled out.
Anyhow, I just wanted to mention that, from what I've read, Dario species males are not as tolerant as their elassomid counterparts. I've heard that males of Dario species do not only chase their own kind out of their territory, but they also chase them away from food. If this behavior extends to chasing pygmy sunfish away from food, then the pygmy sunfish might become quite a bit more difficult to feed...

There's definitely the potential for fish not getting along. I agree. *nods* Thankfully that first month (which by my estimate might be October I hope), there will be four empty tanks. I'm prepared to move a species into one of the empty portions if it doesn't play nice with the others. Then I could figure out a new home for it.

Food isn't an issue, though. I've kept my grindal and micro worms going strong even in the Elassoma's absence. They're super useful for feeding most kinds of fish. Because I breed them myself I have an unlimited supply.
I also could have frozen bloodworms from the local pet store and bulk order frozen blackworms. I do already have some Ken's golden pearls.

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#985 Guest_Joshaeus_*

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Posted 12 August 2013 - 04:16 PM

I didn't say feeding them would be an issue normally, just that feeding them would be difficult if some angry male darios were constantly chasing them away from the food...
Incidentally, I have the greenlight from my parents for hatching brine shrimp, so I do have a live food source! Yay!

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#986 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 13 August 2013 - 03:39 PM

It looks like the timetable just got bumped up a bit. I found someone willing to come and collect the last lonely fish from the 75 gallon tank on Thursday, which means I could have the time to drain and clean and build dividers this weekend. I have many sheets of 7 mesh plastic canvas on hand already, and the air stone and air pump that are the main filtration. I've got a 75 gallon filter on hand too, but I don't want to use it if I don't have to.
I'm so excited! I missed my pygmy sunfish

New time table:
Thursday: Last fish leaves
Weekend: drain tank, remove all substrate, build dividers in (I'm thinking I'll use Great Stuff foam to secure the gaps), add pure clay kitty litter substrate, plant.
Monday: order fish? O_O yes!

I'll document the tank divider building process a little bit to give you all an idea of how to replicate it. Here is a link to the method: http://www.tropicalf...dividers-21866/ except since I have a custom built rock background it will also involve a bit of Great Stuff foam.

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#987 Guest_Joshaeus_*

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Posted 13 August 2013 - 04:19 PM

Yay for you! Are you going to do gilberti again this time, or will you be doing a different species? I like evergladei and zonatum myself...
Incidentally, might it be possible to have two pygmy sunfish species in the same breeding setup? Zonatum cannot hybridize with the other pygmy sunfish species, from what I read...

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#988 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 13 August 2013 - 04:46 PM

It depends on what the availability is. Wherever I order them from I'm not buying unless I get a collection site. Here's a map, you can see which site yields okefenokee and which yield gilberti: http://biology.unm.e...et al. 2009.pdf I want to properly label whatever I breed, so I'm going to go on the collection site and that map, not what the vendor says (no offense in advance to the vendor). If I get okefenokee I'll start a new topic.

I am not going to try to mix two types of pygmy sunfish. Spawning males need about a foot of territory to dance in. Another dark blue/black fish would get in the way. Leptolucania ommata are yellow and dario dario are red and gold, which is why I was considering them.

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#989 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 16 August 2013 - 08:06 PM

After some thought, I decided that the easiest way for me to get flow through this multiply divided tank would be to have the intake for the filter at one end and the outflow at another. I have seen this design for hillstream loaches and North American stream tanks before. Example image: http://www.loaches.c...pg/image_medium
I installed 1.25 inch PVC pipe to divert the intake for the filter to the opposite end of the tank. Here is a picture:
Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zps60bbe682.jpg
(The tufa rock background was already part of the tank. I describe how I built it here: http://forum.aquatic...t=1429&start=90 )

I will update with more photos once I get the dividers installed. I am going to build them out of seven mesh plastic canvas, Great Stuff foam, and aquarium silicone.

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#990 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 17 August 2013 - 01:08 PM

After looking at a lot of the barbs and danios and tetras and cyprinids, etc (the 'twitchy' fish, in my opinion) that are the same one inch size as Elassoma, I learned that a lot of them eat eggs and fry and need to be separated from their young within a few days to a week of spawning. Even with five dividers (which leaves less than 15 gallons per tank), the shortest I could get the per-tank time down to was two weeks. So I gave up on having those egg eating species in the tank, which might mean I can't add leptolucania ommata.

I did some calculations and decided to use three dividers instead of two. This means that I can potentially have the fish in each divided space for three weeks instead of four, which might increase egg survival a little bit. Elassoma gilberti and dario dario are both territory-forming, egg guarding fish. Three or four weeks is about how long it took for me to start seeing fry the two times in the past I've put Elassoma in their own 10 gallon tank. It takes them a while to form a territory and get settled in. The third divider also eliminates the reliance upon the 10 gallon tank, which I'm still going to include, but since it's on a separate filter system and lighting and whatnot, if something goes wrong I can leave it out and still be fine.

I sewed the seven mesh plastic canvas dividers together with fishing line. It's not really sewing because there's already a hole to stick the needle through, so you don't have to rotate the needle and use the sharp end each time. Not rotating the needle saves a lot of time.

There is aquarium silicone in between the plastic canvas dividers and the front glass. In the past I tried a tank separator to separate male and female guppies without silicone-ing the plastic canvas to the glass. The males easily pushed their way into the side with the females. So I learned my lesson and this time used silicone.

Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zpsaf2a4990.jpg

The next step is, after this dries, to use Great Stuff foam to connect the back wall to the plastic canvas and the gap between the filter intake tube to each divider canvas.

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#991 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 17 August 2013 - 02:20 PM

I added the Great Stuff foam. It's wet now, but in a few hours it would be dry enough for me to trim away the excess.

I also used silicone to cover the end of the filter's intake tube with seven mesh plastic canvas. I'm not going to attempt to trim away the excess and make it round until the silicone dries.

Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zpsb3bf14a5.jpg

I'm going to let it all dry for a day. Tomorrow after it's trimmed, cleaned up, and possibly rinse and dried once, I'll add the pure clay kitty litter.

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#992 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 17 August 2013 - 06:55 PM

The silicone dried faster than I thought it would so I added pure clay kitty litter (no clumping chemicals or fragrances added), filled and drained it a few times to instantly get rid of the dust, and took a picture.

Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zpsd0d20b4e.jpg

The next step is to add plants from my other tanks, add sponges to the filter from my other tanks' filters, and order fish. I'm going to put an Elassoma species and dario dario in this tank

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#993 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 17 August 2013 - 07:11 PM

I tested the filter. I'd been worried that the current might be too strong in the leftmost divided area, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. There are some brine shrimp cysts floating leftover from the tank's past incarnation that show water movement. You can see them getting sucked in to the intake PVC tube in the rightmost region, which is how I'd hoped it'd work.

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#994 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 18 August 2013 - 02:51 PM

Updates:
I put two sponges from my established 55 gallon tank into the 75 gallon tank's filter.

I also set up the 10 gallon. It has fresh pure clay kitty litter substrate, water, filter, 1600 lumen daylight-emulating light, and plants.

I chose the following plants: hygrophila difformis (divided region A), ludwigia repens (B), myriophyllum tuberculatum red (C ), myriophyllum pinnatum (D), rotalla wallichii (E, the 10 gallon tank). Two of those, the ludwigia and the myriophyllum pinnatum, are native plants. The hygrophila difformis wasn't doing that well in my 55 gallon tank and needed a home of its own. The m. tuberculatum red and rotala wallichii are red and are there to add some color. These plants are all coming from my other tanks.

Now that the tanks are all set up and ready, I ordered some fish. I put a bid in on some Elassoma gilberti from near the Tallahassee region where my old strain was collected so they should look fairly similar to what I had before, and I outright bought six dario dario of unfortunately unknown gender, so who knows if I'm going to get any females. I may have to buy more. We'll see; those should come within the next few days. It'll be two weeks before the Elassoma auction ends. *sighs* Auctions.

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#995 Guest_Joshaeus_*

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Posted 18 August 2013 - 04:52 PM

Hope you have at least 1 female in there. Just to warn you, but I've heard that the male-female ratio in the wild is also overwhelmingly in favor of the males.

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#996 littlen

NANFA Member

Washington, D.C.

Posted 20 August 2013 - 03:12 PM

My last purchase of ~10 evergladei were first generation of wild caught parents. Certainly ended up with 2-3 females and a lot of male aggression once the fish matured. So much so, in fact, that all but the dominant male survived the breeding season. Whoops. Once I was at that point, I felt like I was playing tetris and put the "L" piece in the wrong orientation.

(P.S. Is there going to be a prize for the 1000th poster on this thread?)

Nick L.

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#997 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 20 August 2013 - 03:23 PM

(P.S. Is there going to be a prize for the 1000th poster on this thread?)

Sure, a printed version of this thread so you can have it forever. lol I don't think my printer has that much ink...

Whenever people ask me how I kept pygmy sunfish I don't direct them to this 50 page behemoth. I give them the Fish in Focus article. It's a way shorter read and you can get the gist from it. http://www.nanfa.org...Egilberti.shtml

I feel like most of these 1000 posts are just me messing up over and over again.
"I'm putting other types of fish in with them!" "Whoops, not that species."
"I'm trying to get them to eat flake food!" "They stopped breeding."
"Now they're in the same tank as their young!" "They ate them."
"I put their young in a 10 gallon tank!" "It fouled."
"I put some eggs in a tupperware!" "They died too"
^This topic, in summary.
Hopefully this new rotation tank setup finally solves the problems. And who knows, maybe a few other people have learned what not to do from this whole thing. *shrugs* It's all here if anybody wants to read it.

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#998 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 21 August 2013 - 12:00 PM

The nine dario dario that I ordered arrived. In my opinion they are all of them males. In the vendor's opinion, I was sent six females and three males. Here is a picture of them as they slowly acclimate to my tank:

Posted Image

http://img.photobuck...zps7a69d2bb.jpg
I guess that upon closer examination of this photo it is possible that one of them may be a female. I just don't know; this isn't a fish I've bred before. After this 50 page topic I can immediately tell the difference between male and female Elassoma gilberti (any blue on its body and it's a male) but because this is a new species, maybe I should trust the vendor a little bit. *sighs* This stinks, though. At least on the upside, these fish show all the signs of being good tank mates for pygmy sunfish. They are under one inch long, light bodied, and don't have blue or black on them. They are not twitchy like tetras and barbs are, but instead hold still like a pygmy sunfish does. I think the Elassoma will probably treat them like submissive males.

The auction for Elassoma gilberti that I bid on still hasn't ended. It'll be another two weeks before there's any progress on that.

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#999 littlen

NANFA Member

Washington, D.C.

Posted 21 August 2013 - 12:49 PM

Will the Badis have their own compartment in your tank, or will they live along side the Pygmy sunfish? It would be interesting to see which speicies is more dominant (but not at the expense of any fish being killed or injured in a fight). Gotta love convergent evolution.
It's hard to tell how many of each sex you have, but it does appear that the majority are male. You'll have a better idea once they settle in and aren't as stressed--although much like your male Pygmy sunfish, several males in the same tank may spell trouble.

I know you are using lots of live plants and matured sponge filters, but hopefully you don't have any sort of ammonia/nitrite spike. I'd hate to see you lose any fish you've purchased if the tank was set up quickly. (Although, I'm sure your pictures do no conicide with when you were doing the work).

Nick L.

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#1000 Guest_EricaLyons_*

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Posted 21 August 2013 - 01:06 PM

Will the Badis have their own compartment in your tank, or will they live along side the Pygmy sunfish?

Same compartment. If there are any problems, I can separate them and find them a new home. I've done that in the past with trichopsis pumila after discovering that they are homicidal maniacs. They look cute but they rip other fish to shreds

If the dario dario are that way too I can immediately isolate them to one of the four empty sections.

although much like your male Pygmy sunfish, several males in the same tank may spell trouble.

? In my experience with elassoma gilberti, extra pygmy sunfish males just become submissive and light colored.

I know you are using lots of live plants and matured sponge filters, but hopefully you don't have any sort of ammonia/nitrite spike.

I wasn't worried about it because there are 9 one inch fish in a 75 gallon tank with live plants and two sponges in the filter from my established tank. I have multiple sponges in my hang on back filters so I can insta-cycle tanks. Although really the plants do all the work.

(Although, I'm sure your pictures do no conicide with when you were doing the work).

They do. I uploaded the pictures as I took them. It rained all that day and I didn't have anything else on my schedule.

In other news, the tank dividers work. The fish are staying in that 19 gallon region.