Posted 05 November 2016 - 02:14 PM
Yeah, he's in there. He gets shy around feeding time when all the other fish start going nuts. I caught him about a year ago when he was about 3/4", and now he's about 4". He's not skinny, but he's not as fat as I'd like him to be. I feed the fish a pretty good variety, and you'd think that nothing would get past that swarm, but it does. The challenge with him is that he doesn't seem to like to use his eyes for much of anything. I can put a waxworm right in front of him and he'll go right past it. Same for frozen bloodworms. He seems like he feeds solely by sifting. I did have some plant substrate in there, but I recently capped it with sand to help it trap more food particles and allow him to sift better, and it seems to have helped a lot. Once he gets a smidge bigger I'll be able to start getting him larger foods that I can either hand feed or just get to the bottom easier. He's been my favourite since I first got him. That horny head is quickly becoming a favourite too, starting to get some real nice red fins and sizing up.
That is local elodea, canadiensis I think. The only other local plant in there is curly pond weed, which after some dieback is finally starting to take. My Valisneria is just regular jungle val, but I've seen one variety in a river near me that grows in massive clumps, but I've never tried them. I'm kinda wary about the wild vals because their roots zone is so big I don't want to bring in any eggs or anything from the substrate. I've tried the elodea before with little success, but this time it greened right up and is starting to send out anchor roots. I think it likes all the limestone in the tank. I've tried other natives with little success. I have some blue flag iris in there too, but it's just sitting there not doing anything. Maybe it'll take, maybe not.
120 low tech native planted - Blackstriped Topminnow, Central Stoneroller, Fathead minnow, Golden Shiner, Black chin shiner, Carmine Shiner, Emerald Shiner, Sand Shiner, Spotfin Shiner, Orangethroat darter, Johnny Darter, and Banded Darter.