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Eyes are bigger than your stomach


Alex

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G'day

 

I recently got a new ray, and had a small shoal of spotted dollars with them. The dollars were proving to be a bit nippy (no real damage done and Ray is going amazingly, and i wanted to keep it this way). With nowhere else to put the dollars (only runnings 2 tanks these days) their fate was sealed. Eye balling the dollars I thought to myself, maybe these are a touch big for the bass to eat with their rounded body shape. So I whacked one in as a test, and sure enough out of all the bass the absolute smallest female grabbed it, and sure enough got stuck in her mouth. I should have known better and did know better but did it anyway.

 

Out came the net and got her out and manually removed the dollar - was actually a bit harder than I thought - was well and truly stuck and the bass would have eventually succumbed to the situation if not for my intervention. I guess my hast and my immediate distrust and disgust at the silver dollars lead me to make a rash decision. 

 

The female bass is absolutely fine, feeling a bit sorry for herself initially. But she is back with the group feeding and acting normal a couple hours later. It did provide me with a good chance to get a measurement on her bang on 28cm. Which is odd because when I eye balled them I would have thought she was about 20cm and the big males ~30cm. Turns out she is closer to what the males are and the males are more like 40cm or slightly larger. Not a bad turn around from little scared juvies late last year to 40cm thumpers 6-7months later. Had the bass for sale recently but will most likely hold onto them in the hopes that I can get all 10 to coexist into the future (and keep them from spawning). Bass are looking absolutely amazing these days. Still a pain in the ass to feed, always get wet as well as the floor, ceiling and surrounding walls. 

 

Anyway, moral of the story, with fish keeping once you get to a certain point you know what the right and wrong thing to do is. Whether that be feeding (in this case) or buying a new fish and getting excited when you know that, that fish may not be for you or your current situation but you do it anyway due to excitement. Consistency is the key to fish keeping and not letting emotion or excitement take over, and lead you astray from your fish keeping philosophies. 

 

In this case no foul no harm. 

 

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It is easy feeding the Rays with the bass. I feed mostly pellets. When I feed, I feed 3 -4 heaped table spoons of pellets. Plenty of it gets passed the bass as it is made up of 2 and 4mm pellets. The bass usually get big mouth full of it then spit it all out (they take on more than they can handle, like in the pic) then systematically hoover it all back up again off the floor. The Rays are big powerful beasts these days, the Bass know not to get stuck underneath them at feeding time.

 

Awesome pic BTW. My mates went jigging on the weekend and caught quite a few flathead that were smaller than their jigs at one spot. Amazing what predatory fish will try to consume. 

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Barra are crazy nuts for swallowing things, themselves mostly,, as fast growing individuals have it inbuilt, fish will be actually swallowing other fish their same size.

Its amazing how some species makes use of their own fry source as a food source for their healthier fry,,, (fry eating fry).

 

And Alex, don't you mean 2.8mm and 6mm. ?   :)

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Buccal - haha. Yes you are right the Otohime is 2.8mm (not 2mm). I'm pretty sure the last batch of Fishwerx Gold I bought was 4mm? I don't have the packaging anymore I just open it up and mix it all together in a tupperware container. I think theirs even a small portion of NLS in there that I had left over when I was keeping cichlids. Will only be Fishwerx Gold and Otohime moving forward though. 

 

Have you noticed an aniseed smell with Fishwerx Gold before? My last batch had a distinct aniseed smell, that I hadn't noticed previously.

 

A couple in tank shots of the bass - taken a few weeks back so the nuchal humps aren't as pronounced as they are today. Will get some updated pics in the next couple of days, one of the boys has a big dirty red hump on him, hopefully they don't spawn.

 

Shot of the bass heads down tails up sucking down pellets off the sand - 

 

 

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Stunning mate just stunning, don't like your chances of not spawning soon lol,,, I reckon very beginning of spring, taking into consideration the crazy fast growth rates of everything in that tank,,, and wouldn't be surprised if it was tomorrow lol,, I've seen pictures and proof of them spawning at 20cm, and they didn't look matured and stunted either,, think it was on MFK America.

Yeah gold pellet has a rich oily smell, I've never noticed a aniseed smell, but it is kinda but not hah ha,,, but every single bit of ingredient in that is aquatic,, I'm fairly certain of,, last time I looked at it was about 2.5 years ago.

But there are two types they sell, one has the balanced diet,,, and other is mainly brine shrimp in the pellet, but the brine shrimp pellets only finish at smaller pellet size.

Must admit they do have a strange smell, but they smell extremely rich, like blows ya nose of.

 

 

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Thanks mate, the Bass bang their heads up a bit smashing into the bracing chasing food (can see a bit of it in the pics).

Maybe it isn't aniseed that I am smelling, but it is a smell that I have never smelt off aquarium food and I've sniffed a lot of it over the years ;)

What I should really do is just buy a second hand 6x2x2 whack a trio in there and make the rest disappear. 

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Took a couple pics tonight after they got a good feed of pellets. Hard to get a decent pic when they are hungry - as they are always facing me head on swimming into the glass. They certainly know what the food container or a plate with frozen food looks like. 

As always due to the water level being quite high, the odd fish has some small scratches on their heads from smashing into the tank bracing. Something I can't seem to avoid, but will look at covering it up with something softer as they grow a bit.

As always pics are just phone pictures, but they will suffice. 

Can see the red hump starting to form up on the first fish. The biggest fish in the tank continues to outgrow its brothers and sisters and still hasn't developed any of the tell tail signs of being a boy.

 

 

My favourite one, always been a bit of a standout with its yellow colour 

 

 

Pack of wolves

 

 

 

 

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On 28 June 2016 at 8:33 PM, Alex said:

Thanks mate, the Bass bang their heads up a bit smashing into the bracing chasing food (can see a bit of it in the pics).

Maybe it isn't aniseed that I am smelling, but it is a smell that I have never smelt off aquarium food and I've sniffed a lot of it over the years ;)

What I should really do is just buy a second hand 6x2x2 whack a trio in there and make the rest disappear. 

Yes I know what you mean,, the first time I smelt it, I did think it was really odd,,,, but I don't think it's the type of food that would keep as long as some others,,, it could be that it's entirely marine aquatic meaty foods and probably doesn't go through heating processes as intensely as other pellet types,,, but the batches can sometimes show inconsistency of cooking or whatever, because pellets occassionly look darker and appears to smell like it's more cooked.

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Looking good mate. 

I have the same issue with bumped heads with some of my more eager feeders. Actually just replaced a lid because a kilo+ of oscar launched vertical knocked the spoon of food all over the floor then came down on the lid which broke under him. He was completely unphased and unharmed. What a jerk. 

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Yeah it's a pain John. 

 

I use twin wall polycarbonate as lids these days. Softer on heads, doesn't break like glass and can easily cut holes to fit pipes etc through creating nice tight fitting lids - something to consider. It doesn't remedy by thick bracing.

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