Hello! Welcome to the NANFA forum
Your tank is gorgeous, great job.
I keep Elassoma gilberti, a species very closely related to Elassoma okefenokee, so I can try to answer your questions based upon my experience with my gilberti.
*are there any behavioral symtoms to know that there might be a sickness or problem with this fish. I find they stay low to the ground and never in a wide open space.
Usually they don't show any symptoms of illness before dropping dead. They've got about a one year life span, so once they reach the end they of that they tend to die with no obvious symptoms. I have lost a few to illness but very few. Here's a video of a male Elassoma gilberti with dropsy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-XM5Qqm_ak
That was the only male I ever saw with dropsy. Other than him they really are more likely to just up and die instead of giving you warning signs. One time I poisoned my whole tank with too much algaecide. I noticed that the Elassoma gilberti died (I thought it was from something else, trying to wean them onto flakes) but it was only when the guppies started itching themselves on things and my plants started melting that I realized it couldn't just be starvation. Guppies readily rub themselves on tank decorations when they're being housed in foul water. Elassoma don't.
*how long do eggs incubate, how often do these fish spawn- how many eggs per spawn
According to
http://www.nanfa.org.../elassoma.shtml (excellent read, give it a look), the fecundity range of Elassoma okefenokee is 20 to 25 and percent egg survival is 45-50%.
Recently I placed 4 female Elassoma gilberti and 2 males in a 10 gallon tank to themselves. Within two weeks they had adjusted to their new home enough to spawn. I removed the fish from the spawning tank at the first sign of fry, so I estimate I got about three days' worth of eggs. I count about a dozen, so I estimate that between one and two dozen are in the tank, but I won't know the real number until I drain the tank to put the juveniles in the 55 gallon tank with their parents.
To give you an idea of their population growth, in the fall of 2010 I started out with 5 Elassoma gilberti in a 10 gallon tank. In May of 2011 I drained the 55 gallon tank and removed 84 fish total.
*at what age/size is a male distinguisable from a female ( I received some smaller fish so would like to know)
For mine in my tank setup it's four months ish. That's when they are about one half inch in length. The males at that size begin to get shiny and dark. You can really tell when they start doing dances.
*what type of snails are safe with these fish (and their Eggs!!!)
Elassoma actually eat snails. So snails aren't just safe, they're tasty. My Elassoma gilberti enjoy eating my physa fontinalis, lymnaea, and ramshorn snail babies. One invertebrate I would think twice about adding to an Elassoma tank is shrimp. Elassoma eggs are vulnerable while they lay on the ground before hatching, and Elassoma fry stay tiny for a very long time. Any shrimp inclined to eat them could easily do so.
*are they escape artists (jumping out the tank!!!)
I've never had one jump out ever. These are the least escape prone fish I've ever kept. They flee downward when you're chasing them, so a good tip on catching an Elassoma is going underneath it with a net and then lifting upwards.
* what are the main challenges in keeping these fish
Feeding them. See my topic on grindal worm tips and tricks:
http://forum.nanfa.o...ips-and-tricks/You can also feed them frozen bloodworms. I hold the cube with my planting tweezers (not with my hand; bloodworms develop allergies in most people) and cut the worms in half as they thaw off as I shake the cube around in the tank water.
I feed the fry microworms, which I culture on oatmeal and a tiny bit of yeast (to make the culture smell good). If you lay a coffee filter over the top of the oatmeal the microworms crawl right onto it and are easy to harvest. I also coffee filter the lid so pests can't possibly get in. My cultures are pest free.
Edited by EricaWieser, 04 May 2012 - 06:56 PM.
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