Hello everyone! New to the forums, was directed here from some other posts for information on E. okefenokee. I've been really excited about this fish for quite a while now, had to postpone getting some over the summer since I was out of the country, but am back now. I've got plent of questions, but I'll try and save those for more specific threads. I guess my initial question is a school of 8 (from Sach's) in a 20 long an acceptable school size? It's heavily, heavily planted. I was planning on trying to get some in here next week, have some fruit flies cultured for a dart frog that I'm hoping they'll snack on, in addition to all kinds of frozen food, cultured baby brine, and will probably order some Daphnia or other small invert to go with them. I'm a believer in as varied a diet as possible, as it seems to encourage better health and breeding quality in other fish I've kept. Anyways, wanted to introduce myself, and get to know you all on the forums. Thanks!
-TG
New to the forums, E. okefenokee arriving soon!
Started by
Guest_TarantulaGuy_*
, Sep 22 2013 12:27 PM
11 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_Joshaeus_*
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Posted 22 September 2013 - 03:11 PM
Pygmy sunfish do not school, but nonetheless 8 sounds like a good starting number. It gives the group enough genetic diversity that their descendants will not be hideously inbred for some time (and let me tell you, you WANT them breeding if you want to see the male's black and blue colors). Most of the foods sound fine, but don't fruit flies float? Pygmy sunfish are not known for visiting the surface very often...
#3
Michael Wolfe
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Posted 22 September 2013 - 03:25 PM
Welcome T-Guy,
I think a "colony" of 8 will be a fine start in your 20L. And a varied diet is also a great idea. You said heavily planted... is it also heavily populated with snails? Baby snails are a great food source for Elassoma and they also help keep your water quality up. I have had good success with feeding frozen foods... it takes them a while, but they are more curious than you would think for an inch long fish and after a while they will investigate what you are dropping in the tank. Live foods are certainly best, but frozen are pretty good and they will breed on frozen.
I think a "colony" of 8 will be a fine start in your 20L. And a varied diet is also a great idea. You said heavily planted... is it also heavily populated with snails? Baby snails are a great food source for Elassoma and they also help keep your water quality up. I have had good success with feeding frozen foods... it takes them a while, but they are more curious than you would think for an inch long fish and after a while they will investigate what you are dropping in the tank. Live foods are certainly best, but frozen are pretty good and they will breed on frozen.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#4
mattknepley
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Posted 22 September 2013 - 05:06 PM
Welcome, TG!
I have no experience with pygmy sunfishes, but I do with a couple of the foods mentioned. I had a dart frog (great little tinc, Brazilian yellowhead) for a while. Constantly had a couple ff cultures going. Obviously, for one tinc that was overkill, but did not want it to be left hungry if one culture crashed. I did try feeding the ffs to my fish one day. It was a disaster. As Joshaeus noted, and you probably know, the little suckers float. And they motor to the sides and up and out of the water and aquarium in short order. They were out of the water before any fish really took a notice to them. Unlike a viv, the top of an aquarium provides no place a ff wants to hide, and they bailed all over the room the aquarium was in. Definitely NOT a wife approved feeding strategy.
As for Michael's snail suggestion, I had my doubts when he proposed it to me but dang if he wasn't right. I have three different species of snail in my native tank now, and have never had the population of any of them get out of control. I know they are reproducing because they aren't shy about procreating in public, and I see egg masses in the tank. Babies turn up in the filter, but otherwise the fish must be eating the vast majority of them. I had a couple darters that took a very long time, by darter standards, to take frozen food. They got by on little snails until they wised up and diversified their diet.
Best of luck with your little friends. And if you look on here more, I know we have at least one other Anchorage area member.
I have no experience with pygmy sunfishes, but I do with a couple of the foods mentioned. I had a dart frog (great little tinc, Brazilian yellowhead) for a while. Constantly had a couple ff cultures going. Obviously, for one tinc that was overkill, but did not want it to be left hungry if one culture crashed. I did try feeding the ffs to my fish one day. It was a disaster. As Joshaeus noted, and you probably know, the little suckers float. And they motor to the sides and up and out of the water and aquarium in short order. They were out of the water before any fish really took a notice to them. Unlike a viv, the top of an aquarium provides no place a ff wants to hide, and they bailed all over the room the aquarium was in. Definitely NOT a wife approved feeding strategy.
As for Michael's snail suggestion, I had my doubts when he proposed it to me but dang if he wasn't right. I have three different species of snail in my native tank now, and have never had the population of any of them get out of control. I know they are reproducing because they aren't shy about procreating in public, and I see egg masses in the tank. Babies turn up in the filter, but otherwise the fish must be eating the vast majority of them. I had a couple darters that took a very long time, by darter standards, to take frozen food. They got by on little snails until they wised up and diversified their diet.
Best of luck with your little friends. And if you look on here more, I know we have at least one other Anchorage area member.
Matt Knepley
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
#5
Guest_EricaLyons_*
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Posted 22 September 2013 - 07:00 PM
I recommend grindal worms, as they are easy to culture and readily eaten by the fish. I describe how I culture mine on post #55 of this page: http://forum.nanfa.o...ks/page__st__40
Microworms are also a good food to supplement the fry's diet.
Blackworms are $35 for a pound on ebay.
I wrote an article on elassoma gilberti, a fish very similar to elassoma okefenokee. Link: http://www.nanfa.org...Egilberti.shtml
http://forum.nanfa.o...ssoma-gilberti/
http://forum.nanfa.o...lberti-round-2/
Microworms are also a good food to supplement the fry's diet.
Blackworms are $35 for a pound on ebay.
I wrote an article on elassoma gilberti, a fish very similar to elassoma okefenokee. Link: http://www.nanfa.org...Egilberti.shtml
http://forum.nanfa.o...ssoma-gilberti/
http://forum.nanfa.o...lberti-round-2/
#6
Guest_TarantulaGuy_*
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Posted 23 September 2013 - 03:32 PM
Welcome T-Guy,
I think a "colony" of 8 will be a fine start in your 20L. And a varied diet is also a great idea. You said heavily planted... is it also heavily populated with snails? Baby snails are a great food source for Elassoma and they also help keep your water quality up. I have had good success with feeding frozen foods... it takes them a while, but they are more curious than you would think for an inch long fish and after a while they will investigate what you are dropping in the tank. Live foods are certainly best, but frozen are pretty good and they will breed on frozen.
Thanks for the info! And them not "schooling" is fine, but I'm not really sure what else to call a colony of fish of the same species residing in a tank
. There are some snails in here. Unfortunately not a lot, I have another tank that has a trio of dwarf puffers, and they have been putting a major hurt on my snail population. I actually go down to the LFS to get bags of rams horn snails for free and drop them off in my tank for the puff's, can definitely do the same thing for the Oke's. I've also fed FF to several other species of fish who loved them, but yeah, after more reading it seems that the majority of Elassoma don't come to the surface to feed. I'll get some blackworms from my LFS in addition to some Daphnia from Sach's. I'll also look into grindal worms. I've never heard of those before (oddly, given how many various critters I keep), but maybe I know them under another name. If they're easy to culture and nutritious they sound like a winner to me. And Erica, that article was one of the first things I read when I was looking into getting these guys, it was an excellent starting point for me. Thank you!
-TG
#7
Guest_EricaLyons_*
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Posted 23 September 2013 - 04:49 PM
They are a close relative of white worms, so they share the 70% protein and 15% fat composition. But unlike white worms, grindal worms prefer to grow at room temperature instead of in your fridge. This makes them much easier to grow. The downside to them is that compared to micro worms, which 4 days to maturity, grindals take 20. So you're not going to be able to harvest worms from your culture until about two months after you start it.I'll also look into grindal worms. I've never heard of those before (oddly, given how many various critters I keep), but maybe I know them under another name. If they're easy to culture and nutritious they sound like a winner to me.
#8
Guest_EricaLyons_*
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Posted 23 September 2013 - 10:23 PM
They are a close relative of white worms, so they share the 70% protein and 15% fat composition. But unlike white worms, grindal worms prefer to grow at room temperature instead of in your fridge. This makes them much easier to grow. The downside to them is that compared to micro worms, which 4 days to maturity, grindals take 20. So you're not going to be able to harvest worms from your culture until about two months after you start it.
Rereading that later, what I wrote comes off sounding kind of negative. I just want to be clear, grindal worms are my absolute favorite food culture for fish.
I just got some Elassoma in recently and I'd forgotten how shy they can be. It's a totally different experience walking up to a tank of in-tank-blackworm fed pygmy sunfish than it is walking up to a tank of grindal worm fed pygmy sunfish. I'd forgotten that their reaction could be to flee from me. My old fish had been food-reward-trained, so they knew that when I approached the tank they were going to get some live wiggly worms. I think these new fish will catch on soon. There's nothing like a live worm to tame shy fish. And grindal worms are easy to maintain, just once a week maintenance. I give the worms new kibbles every day as I'm opening the cultures anyway to collect some to feed to the fish. Overall they are a very easy and very nutritious live food, and I highly recommend them. Don't get discouraged by the slow initial culture expansion. They're worth it in the long run.
#9
Guest_TarantulaGuy_*
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Posted 24 September 2013 - 04:26 PM
Well, I ordered a group of 8, along with Daphnia, Amphipods, and some Grindal worm cultures. Those, in addition to BBS, and whatever infusoria I can culture should give them a pretty varied choice of food. Hopefully they enjoy the setup I have for them!!
#10
Guest_TarantulaGuy_*
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Posted 07 October 2013 - 10:56 PM
Well my Oke's got in last week. Awesome little fish. Few males, and maybe 5 females? Dumped a bunch of amphipods in the tank, and there are lots of snails in there at this point, so that should give me some time to get my grindal worm cultures going which just came in today. Got 2, so might start a new culture with one, and start feeding out of the other one, have to open them up and see what they look like. My daphnia culture isn't doing as well, having some trouble getting them going, might have to order another batch. Anyways, just thought I'd update this thread, I've got a "unbagging" video that I'll try to get posted up here. https://www.facebook...101251920548151 I'm not sure if that'll work, I can't seem to find a way to upload a video. I can try and post it through a photobucket link too if anyone is curious to see them.
#11
mattknepley
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Posted 08 October 2013 - 05:07 AM
Sounds and looks like those are going to be some spoiled Okes. 
Enjoy 'em!
Enjoy 'em!
Matt Knepley
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
"No thanks, a third of a gopher would merely arouse my appetite..."
#12
Guest_EricaLyons_*
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Posted 08 October 2013 - 08:44 AM
Try youtube. It's very convenient for uploading videos and when you copy and paste the link here, the current forum format embeds and plays the video right on this page.I'm not sure if that'll work, I can't seem to find a way to upload a video.
What technique are you using to grow your grindal worms? Soil or sponge?
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