Elassoma okefenokee

Why don't you just go through the aluminum?

Why don't you just go through the aluminum?

Can drills do that? That didn't even occur to me.
I don't own a drill (nomad lifestyle) so this is probably going to involve me borrowing the tool from someone and I don't want to break it. I'm going to search the internet to see how that could be done without risking the tool. Thank you for the suggestion. I had not even considered that possibility and will now research it.

Most any drill and drill bit can go through aluminum. I would certainly predrill, just go slow.

I first saw the fry on February 21st. Today is March 11th, two and a half weeks later.


http://gallery.nanfa...s old1.jpg.html


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http://gallery.nanfa...s old4.jpg.html

Nice, the fry seem to be doing well! Have you mounted that stand yet?

Not yet, but I'm working on borrowing a drill from someone now and will hopefully have more news on that soon. Right now there are a 10 gallon and a 15 gallon in the stand. My plan is to have another 10 and another 15. The pro to a 10 gallon is a hang on back filter fits on it (they're quiet). The pro to the 15 is it's bigger, but only an in-tank or sponge filter fits and the *bubble* *bubble* *bubble* sound is really annoying.

The bucket tank is currently receiving 24 hours a day of two 2750 lumen Daylight Deluxe T8 bulbs in a lithonia shop light. It now appears to be a solid mass of cladophora. Don't get me wrong; it's a solid mass of cladophora that when I move aside, there are fish in, but I have absolutely no idea how many or what size. Those were all just baby moss balls two months ago in that bucket tank.

The 10 gallon and 15 gallon remain algae free, and are basically just masses of ceratophyllum. I don't know why, but the 15 gallon tank has browner ceratophyllum than the 10 gallon tank, which has lush green healthy ceratophyllum. There are a few differences between the tanks. The 10 gallon has pure clay kitty litter substrate and the 15 gallon is bare bottom. The GH test read 0 degrees of hardness for both tap water alone and tap water plus kitty litter. Based on those readings, the clay can't be contributing much nutrients to the plants. The 10 gallon has a 1500 ish lumen clamp light over it and the 15 gallon has an unknown lumen undercabinet light bulb that's four years old, but light's not usually a big deal with ceratophyllum. Or so I thought. Hmm. Maybe it's time to refresh that undercabinet fixture with a new bulb. Fluorescent bulbs certainly do decay over time, but that bulb grew plants fine a few months ago. The water flow's around the same in both tanks with the hang on back filter's mesh-blocked trickle not producing much current and the sponge filter's weak *bubble* *bubble* *bubble* also not producing much current. I don't know what's up, but I'm keeping an eye on it. The fish don't seem ammonia poisoned at all and plant mass is increasing, so it is growing at least a little bit. I should take a video of them later . They're territorial in the ceratophyllum and watching the males spar for area dividing lines is interesting. None of them get hurt; they just wag their fins a lot.

These adults have been in the 15 gallon with sponge filter for the past two almost three weeks. The moment I see fry, I'm evacuating the adults to the 75 gallon tank. The vinegar eel and microworm combo appears to be readily eaten by the first 10 gallon tank's fry, so I plan to continue the every other day feeding schedule with these fry to come.

The 75 gallon tank is currently doing very well. There are 40+ L144 baby plecos in three and I can't count the baby yellow jacket hybrid guppy&endlers. In other words, small fish are plentiful and not predated upon, and it should be a good holding space for the adult elassoma. There are hundreds of snails, too, which will supplement their diet.


http://img.photobuck...zps1f98efc5.jpg

^where the adult elassoma will go next, once I see fry in the 15 gallon tank they're currently in.

Here is a picture of my first generation elassoma okefenokee male, photoboxed.

http://gallery.nanfa...enokee.jpg.html

First generation elassoma in my tank seem to hate me. It's not until they're born in my tank that they don't fear me looking at them and the camera right in their faces.
Compare to this early generation elassoma gilberti:

http://gallery.nanfa...ze_001.jpg.html

Here's a video of a male first generation in my tank elassoma okefenokee, slowly fading.
http://youtu.be/0-3GWIhji30

Fish that haven't been raised with a camera taking pictures of them every other day react to cameras with fear, blanching, and less color That's why I'm excited about this second generation, which is learning to associate me with food appearing It's the generations raised in my tank that have absolutely no fear of me, and will actually be cute like a puppy.
Here's a video of my gilberti being playful (begging for food?) upon seeing me:
http://youtu.be/wUPoIDsLmYI

I believe you mean parent generation, or P1. First generation would be born in the tank.

Nomenclature is confusing, so I'm just going to clarify:
The fish that are not born in my tank (the fish I receive from other people) are shyer than the fish who are born in my tank. All the generations afterwards that are born in my tank and get hand fed are tamer.
The picture of adult okefenokee posted above whose color is washed out because he is afraid of the camera is a fish I received from other people and who wasn't born in my tanks.
The pictured gilberti wasn't tame, either. The photo was uploaded December 30th 2010 and I received the gilberti in August 2010. He's washed out from fear. That was before I manually fed them grindal worms and thawed frozen blackworms, back in the day they hunted for their own food. It wasn't until after I started hand feeding them that I learned the fish could be tamed. The basic idea is: they don't get food unless you're there. Voila, they like you.

I find that I don't get truly good pictures until they are born in my tank and have grown up used to humans giving them food and used to a camera taking pictures of them. That's why you all haven't seen me posting pictures like I used to post of my elassoma gilberti (who by 2012 were all born in my tank and would remain fully colored up when a camera pointed at them). I don't expect to be able to take pictures like that until three months from now, when these fry start to do their first dances. The best pictures will probably come a year from now as they start to age and lose ability to hide their blue guanine sheets.

Basically, the idea is, these fish change color at will. An observer influences what they observe. You will never see them colored up like the photos I used to post of super blue and solid black elassoma gilberti unless they are not afraid of you and don't blanch the moment they see you. I maintain my opinion that okefenokee probably look the same as gilberti, but just give me a few months to tame them before we start comparing pictures of fully tame fish to pictures of fish that are metaphorically wetting themselves they're so scared of the camera and the human face behind it.

I'm breaking down the bucket tank. So far I've recovered both adult males that went in and 8 fry. I'll update these numbers when it's done. The adults are going into the 75 gallon tank and the babies into the 10 gallon.

I'm breaking down the bucket tank. So far I've recovered both adult males that went in and 8 fry. I'll update these numbers when it's done. The adults are going into the 75 gallon tank and the babies into the 10 gallon.

Another 13 fry into the 10 gallon, so 21 fry transferred so far. There are no signs of the adult females, three or so I think, that went into this bucket. It was getting pretty bad in there, which is why I'm evacuating it. The algae made it basically solid. Also of note: an L144 pleco was in there, and is now in the 75 gallon tank. I don't know how it got in there, but it was.

Here's another 15 fry. This makes 36 transferred to the 10 gallon tank so far.

Twenty seven more. 27 + 36 = 63 fry transferred so far to the 10 gallon tank from the bucket.
I would pour the water from the bucket into the 10 gallon but
1) Too much water, would overflow. Can't drain very easily due to small size of fry
2) There appear to be leeches in this bucket. *curses*

But yeah, in general, the answer to the question, "Does putting two males and three or four females into a bin with plants and a light over it generate fry?" seems to be 'yes'.

I'm going to go pour some vinegar eels through a coffee filter to feed this 10 gallon tank. Should probably restart a microworm culture, too. I think I'll try malt o' meal this time instead of putting a coffee filter on top of oatmeal. There are still more fry in the bucket to retrieve, too. *walks away from computer*

Three more fry transferred, so now it's 66.

Another photo of the parent generation:

http://gallery.nanfa...nokee4.jpg.html

The count is up to seventy five fry transferred.
I'm stopping keep track as there aren't many left and I've started transferring them individually with my little brine shrimp nauplii net, which is inaccurate because I'm counting one by one. Earlier I was scooping them all into a container and counting them one container at a time, which was easier. Let's say there were around 80-100 fry in the bucket tank.

Guess they like bucket tanks a lot then!

Most everything likes bucket tanks. Surface area is under appreciated in home aquarium keeping. No filter, no water movement, spare if any feedings, yet the fry thrive. It took me months to admit it, but this 3 gallon bucket tank produces more fry than my 55 gallon standard shaped aquarium. There's just no shallow region in a tank that's 4 feet long, ~2 feet tall, ~1 foot front to back. Apparently shallow heavily planted regions are amazing for fry survival.

Probably to my husband's vexation, I'm not breaking down this bucket tank just yet. Once I finish removing all the elassoma fry from this tank, I intend to put a holding mbipia lutea Victorian cichlid into it. I tried the whole 'take the eggs from her mouth and put them in an egg tumbler' thing, and the eggs were doing fine until one day they clogged the tumbler. The number of living fry dropped from 30 eggs to now 5 free swimmers. That is not an acceptable loss for a fish that can be sold for $10 each. So I'm doing a bucket tank experiment, and I'm going to put the next holding female I see / can catch into this bucket to see what happens. I bet a month later I get 30 free swimming fry. *nods* Bucket tanks.

The problems right now is getting the tiny elassoma fry out of the bucket without also transferring leeches. If there weren't leeches in here it'd be a simple pour and done operation. *sighs*

Oh, I should say I've increased feedings to every day both micro and vinegar nematodes in the 10 gallon. Wouldn't want the fry to cannibalize one another. For the microworms, malt-o-meal and cream of wheat appear to work much better than my previous oatmeal + coffee filter method. I don't care if I get tiny wheat bits in the fry tank; it is solid ceratophyllum and the plant probably needs the food. I add a teaspoon of flakes every other day to feed the plants anyway.
The 10 gallon elassoma fry seem very friendly. They are staring back at me when I stare at them

I wonder if regular sunnies would like bucket tanks...?

I wonder if regular sunnies would like bucket tanks...?

Are they fry? Are they raising fry?
I keep the adults on display in standard aquariums. The major downside to bucket tanks is you can't look at them from the side.

I tried to catch all the elassoma okefenokee fry from the bucket tank, but it was frustrating. Instead, I lowered the water level in the 15 gallon, caught all the adults (noticed fry in the 15 gallon), put the 9 captured adults into the 75 gallon tank, and poured all the fry (+leech) into the 15 gallon tank.

In summary, I currently have:
10 gallon tank with minimum 75 elassoma okefenokee fry
15 gallon tank with unknown number of elassoma okefenokee fry and also probably a leech or two
75 gallon tank with 11 adult elassoma okefenokee
^oh, and two adults left as a pair at the last local club meeting.

The bucket tank is now being used to hold the mbipia lutea fry, which at the end of the month when I get the other two tanks for this four tank stand will be transferred to one of them.
Breeding elassoma is like playing musical chairs, but with fish tanks.