Elassoma Gilberti

Yeah, I'd wait it out. These fish are so small and don't necessarily display until they really get in the right frame of "mind". If you have a good number of fry, I'd be willing to bet you have a good percentage of males among them. Give them time to grow out. Anyway, if you want to trade at some point or just get rid of some extras females, I'll be happy to help out.

Okay, maybe.
I'm curious, what pH and hardness do you have in central Ohio? The water parameters here in Cleveland and Avon Lake are 8 to 8.5 pH and about 6 to 10 degrees of general hardness.

Edited by EricaWieser, 03 December 2010 - 01:33 PM.

Well looking at your tank I see a lot of shell and what is the substrate. I know African cichlid keepers use crushed shell and coral to keep the PH high. Elassoma and Bettas too like low ph. Maybe take out the shells?
My tapwater is about 7.2 PH and quite hard.
I have a lot of plants and do not need to change my water in my Elassoma tanks- just top off, so the water probably softens, but I don't think is does too much.

Well looking at your tank I see a lot of shell and what is the substrate. I know African cichlid keepers use crushed shell and coral to keep the PH high. Elassoma and Bettas too like low ph. Maybe take out the shells?
My tapwater is about 7.2 PH and quite hard.
I have a lot of plants and do not need to change my water in my Elassoma tanks- just top off, so the water probably softens, but I don't think is does too much.

I just now tested the water pH and these are the results:
55 gallon (known from before): Around 8.5
10 gallon (tested just now): 8.3
tap water (tested just now): 8.0
My tap water comes from Cleveland Public Water.


I'm not taking out the shells in the 55 gallon tank because
1. The Neolamprologus multifasciatus live in the shells and
2. There is only a 0.2 difference between the tank with shells and the tank with only sand and no shells.

Current picture of 10 gallon tank:
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sand substrate

Picture of really cute Neolamprologus multifasciatus: (which get along with the Elassoma. They are friends)
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Edited by EricaWieser, 05 December 2010 - 02:14 PM.

Hi Erica,
Here's something you might want to try. I know you don't want to monkey with the water to cater to your fish, but this is pretty easy. Years and years ago, I had some discus fry and wanted softer water. I bought what was called a "water softening pillow". It was some sort of granulated resin, which would get recharged in simple salt water. I have no idea how the chemistry worked, but I'm sure it would make sense for you. Anyway, the upshot is that it was really, really, easy, and worked very well on lowering the hardness. I didn't even put it in the filter as was suggested; I just let it sit on the bottom of the tank.

Those things work by using a resin with ion bonding sites on the surface that have a slightly greater affinity for cations with two charges than one. In mostly fresh water, this results in the exchange of sodium ions from the resin for calcium and magnesium from the water. When placed in salt water, the solution equilibrium is effectively disturbed back in the direction of free calcium and magnesium, due to the now extremely high concentration of dissolved sodium, and the resin is renewed to its original state.

This process may or may not benefit your fish. It seems to be still up for discussion, but my impression is that the people who know what they're talking about are mostly of the opinion that it won't help and may sometimes hurt. If the problem really is an active transport mechanism that is specifically taking up calcium and/or magnesium, then the softener will help, but if the fish also take up sodium this way or if they are simply stressed by an osmotic pressure different from what they are adapted to then the softener makes it worse since it raises the salinity, just with ions your kit doesn't pick up.

While Elassoma are certainly most abundant in soft water down here, that may just be a function of the fact that other habitat requirements such as shallow, slack water, few larger predators, and heavy leaf litter or vegetation tend to be found in swamps more than rivers. I do find them in rivers and larger lakes though. All our water is a little soft, but I'd be surprised if their requirements were really that specific. If you are interested in softening your water, I would recommend driftwood (aka sticks) as a completely passive/low maintenance addition that also happens to look awesome in the tank. I don't really think it's necessary though.

There can be different physiological responses by different fishes to monovalent and divalent cations. Fish kidneys are often better at regulating internal levels of divalent cations rather than monovalent which can be done by chloride cells in the gills. In some freshwater species this divalent regulatory ability is not nearly as good. I have no good idea, but Elassoma could arguably be such a genus with reduced capabilities since they're such obligate "swamp" species that may live in areas with low calcium/magnesium hardness.

Elassoma could arguably be such a genus with reduced capabilities since they're such obligate "swamp" species that may live in areas with low calcium/magnesium hardness.

except when they live in limestone springs...

Yeah, you're right about that, certainly in the case of alabamae. My handwaving was mostly about gilberti which I don't know at all.

too funny. Dave did a "gotcha".

Looks like Erica has pretty well demonstrated that gilberti can breed and grow quite well in pH 8.0 to 8.5 and Ca+Mg hardness 6-10 DH (100-180 mg/l) -- with the possible glitch of too few males produced, IF the pH/hardness have anything to do with sex determination. They don't seem to be physiologically limited to soft acidic water in the way that certain tropical fish seem to be (low survival of eggs/larvae and liver/kidney damage in hard water). I'd suspect the tropical waters that host those species have been consistently ultra-soft and acidic for thousands of fish generations longer than our N.Amer soft/acid habitats, where we've probably had more physical/chemical fluctuation and so swamp species haven't had the selective pressure (or luxury) to become obligate soft/acid specialists.

Update horror story:

I was cleaning out the cladophora algae that grows in the 10 gallon whenever I'm not looking, it seems, and I saw a red hump sticking up from under the sand. It was about an inch in width and curved like a C back into the soil within about an inch of length. I was like, "What is that?" and poked it.

Giant mistake. As soon as I poked it, it reared up and started swimming around like a frantic ribbon, a giant eight inch long two to three inch wide leech. Oh my goodness, I removed my hand from that tank so fast and screamed so loud people can running in my room to see what the bloody murder was all about. Ew. Just... ew. I tried to stab it with a stick that I have, but it escaped some how and now it's still in the tank and I'm seriously disturbed. There are leeches in my main tank, of course, but none of them have been able to grow that large. I think the combination of lots of blackworms (which are now all gone, I think the leech ate them all) and a loose sand substrate allowed the leeches in the 10 gallon to grow that large.

So, I proceeded to rip out all of the plants (they were all dead, covered in algae anyway) and put as many of the fully grown Elassoma as I could find into the 55 gallon. The Elassoma gilberti in the 55 gallon are doing really great, by the way.
Long story short I hate hate hate leeches and I'm going to rip down the entire 10 gallon tank if I have to to get that giant evil creature out of it. And yes, I know they lay eggs and it's basically impossible to remove all of the leeches. But I won't be able to restock those poor murdered blackworms until the leeches are gone, since they will eat them all, and I don't know what else to do.

Ew. I'm kind of glad I don't have a picture to show you all. You'd just have nightmares.

Okay, maybe.
I'm curious, what pH and hardness do you have in central Ohio? The water parameters here in Cleveland and Avon Lake are 8 to 8.5 pH and about 6 to 10 degrees of general hardness.

I don't know. I never check it. Has never been a problem. We have surface water reservoirs as our tap water sources.

... If you are interested in softening your water, I would recommend driftwood (aka sticks) as a completely passive/low maintenance addition that also happens to look awesome in the tank. I don't really think it's necessary though.

How does driftwood soften water?

How do you think you got leeches in your tank? I don't think I've ever seen that unless they were deliberately introduced or came in attached to wild fish or plants or turtles. Still I've had a lot of tanks with fish from all over the place and _never_ had leeches take up residence... to my knowledge.

I'll take a wild guess myself and say they may have come in with the blackworms. Those things are grown in heavily nutrient-laden organic material that is ideal for leaches as well. I don't generally fool with them (blackworms). I'm not saying anyone else shouldn't, just expressing a personal preference. Leeches are pretty creepy. I've had some nasty bites from them. One left a welt that turned black and itched like crazy. Others didn't leave a mark after a short healing. Some are really colorful and camoflaged to match the colors of hosts like turtles with colorful shells. Probably not great tankmates for fishes or fish spawn though.

Edited by itsme, 13 December 2010 - 12:40 AM.

How do you think you got leeches in your tank? I don't think I've ever seen that unless they were deliberately introduced or came in attached to wild fish or plants or turtles. Still I've had a lot of tanks with fish from all over the place and _never_ had leeches take up residence... to my knowledge.

I'll take a wild guess myself and say they may have come in with the blackworms. Those things are grown in heavily nutrient-laden organic material that is ideal for leaches as well. I don't generally fool with them (blackworms). I'm not saying anyone else shouldn't, just expressing a personal preference...

I've got two species of leeches, one large kind that is dark brown or black and one species that is clear and much smaller. Both were established in my 55 gallon tank long before I bought the blackworms, but I did notice that there was a leech in one of the blackworm bags when I bought it, of the small white species.
I think they came in (originally in the 55) on my multitude of live plants. Then I transferred them into the 10 gallon when I put plants in there. Then I bought blackworms and diversified the gene pool of the clear leeches. Yay.

The two species reproduce differently, I've noticed. The big dark brown species laid egg pouches on my PVC piping and shells. The egg pouches were small, about three millimeters, and contained two baby leeches per sack. The egg pouches, oval in shape, turned from clear yellow to darker and darker yellow as the young developed.
The clear species of leech has its young on its back. It literally carries around about a dozen baby leeches, which turn more and more opaque (from clear to caramel) as they develop. This makes the clear leech especially hard to kil because if you don't squish it right, all its babies escape.

I captured the giant leech. It measures six inches stretched out. I got some good pictures and video of its creepy ribbon-like movement, and took a photo of the tank as it now looks with less plants. I'll post those later today, when I return to my home computer.
The question now is what to do with this massive leech. I'd feel bad killing it, now that I've captured it and it's sitting there pathetic in its bucket. But I also don't want to put it back in my tank. Does anyone want some leeches?

Edited by EricaWieser, 13 December 2010 - 11:27 AM.

...I captured the giant leech. It measures six inches stretched out. I got some good pictures and video of its creepy ribbon-like movement, and took a photo of the tank as it now looks with less plants. I'll post those later today, when I return to my home computer.
The question now is what to do with this massive leech. I'd feel bad killing it, now that I've captured it and it's sitting there pathetic in its bucket. But I also don't want to put it back in my tank. Does anyone want some leeches?

You're in college, right? Sounds like the perfect object for a dare to challenge your dorm mates with
Maybe you could rent it out. Don't they use those to improve circulation or something? Donate it to the biology lab? No, I got it, leave it on the bathroom floor and wait for the next person to go in!

Where did your plants come from? I used to get plants from the swamp in Wooster. There was every kind of invertebrate creature you could imagine in those. Lots of hydra. Green scuds.

Mods -- can we move posts #151 onward to a new topic "Leeches"?

The leeches I get with blackworms from CA are pale gray-brown to slate gray, never larger than 3/4 inch, and seem to eat only blackworms as far as I can tell. Ive never had them survive long or breed in a tank, but I do generally remove the visible ones. Maybe blackworms from other sources carry other kinds of leeches.

Sounds like it could be a cool pet for the right person, and you could provide blackworms to feed it.

If not, there's always Mark's great ideas. Or you could take it to fancy restaurant, drop it on your plate after you finish eating, scream, and get a free meal plus hush money.

If not, there's always Mark's great ideas. Or you could take it to fancy restaurant, drop it on your plate after you finish eating, scream, and get a free meal plus hush money.

Wasn't that an episode of My Name is Earl?

Mods -- can we move posts #151 onward to a new topic "Leeches"?
The leeches I get with blackworms from CA are ...

I think leeches are something Elassoma gilberti keepers are going to have to worry about, and it's pertinent to this topic. It sounds like blackworm cultures nearly always have leech infestations, and the small particle substrate that we keep with our Elassoma to protect the fry from getting stuck between gravel is also ideal for leeches growing to large sizes.

I'm being forced to evacuate my Elassoma tank now because of the leech problem. I've moved all of the large adults over to the 55 gallon tank (perk: They're very visible now in the 55 gallon, swimming all over the place. There are eight or so adults, I think). All that is left in the 10 gallon is the fish that I think aren't fully grown yet and might be fragile during a move. I'm thinking of transferring them, though, too, and completely restarting the 10 gallon from scratch. Because the leeches annihilated the blackworm population so thoroughly, there aren't any left in there at all.

I'm considering doing one of two options.
1. Dosing the 10 gallon with levamisole hydrochloride, but keeping the tank full of water and up and running. The young fish could stay in there or be transferred to the 55 gallon, either or. I might do half half.
The levamisole hydrochloride would theoretically kill all snails and leeches in the tank, and I could then do partial water changes, restock with blackworms, and go back to having my functional Elassoma breeding aquarium. If the blackworm population arrived contaminated with leeches already then this plan would fail. It would also fail if the levamasole hydrochloride killed the few plants in the tank, meaning I would have to restock with plants from my 55 gallon tank (which is infested).

2. Completely transferring all Elassoma to the 55 gallon tank, removing all substrate from the 10 gallon tank, letting it sit dry for a couple weeks, and then starting again. This would completely remove the leech problem but might kill the smaller fry, who may or may not adjust to life in the 55 gallon tank well.

Or just 3, leaving it as is, restocking with blackworms frequently, and picking out the more visible leeches. I don't want to do that because then I'd have to spend a lot of money constantly paying for blackworms. I liked it when I had that sustainable population that I did before the leeches destroyed the balance. I think it's just that one dark brown leech that killed all the blackworms. The white kind of leech looks too small to eat blackworms, and I didn't notice the worm population drop dramatically until right before I noticed the dark brown leech. The white leeches have been in there from the start (I think eating detritus and possibly snails).

Edited by EricaWieser, 13 December 2010 - 03:04 PM.

Oh, an explanation: Part of the reason why I removed the big Elassoma to the 55 gallon tank after removing a lot of the plants is because I witnessed the adults preying upon the fry. I've seen it happen once before, too. The fully grown adults do not hesitate to eat their own young. And the babies don't really have anywhere to hide without thick plants and mulm.