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8x3x2.5 Tank Journal


Alex

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Speaking of fishing - 

 

I woke up this morning and went to quickly feed my fish and thought to myself, that's a strange looking crap. Appears that one of my snakehead Gudgeons has regurgitated an old fishing hook! I'm not sure how they are collected by the supplier, if it is with line and hook or by net. This could have been an old hook. I think it was the female that spewed it up as she has spewed up a few things recently, and the colour has been quite strange 'rusty' looking. 20 + years of fish keeping and I'm still seeing new things.

 

 

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Its' amazing. As a fishermen it is a common school of thought that once fish are gut hooked they are pretty much done for, or at least the possibility of survival greatly decreases. While it isn't a huge hook, the fish is relatively small at ~20cm. This fish has also been wild collected (stress), put into a foreign surrounding in the suppliers tank (stress), flown across Australia (stress), been removed from a store in Mandurah's tank and driven for ~1.5hrs to my house (more stress) and has not only survived she has thrived. All in a relatively short space of time. Smashing food and putting on conditioning while I've had her all while having a hook lodged in her gut! Hardy is an understatement.

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On 23 February 2016 at 6:45 PM, Ducksta said:

I don't know if anything will really work as dithers on the bass.

Big red hooks (and red piranha and small pacu) are excellent live baits for even middling sized peacocks. 

Just keeping them occupied or channeling attention away that's all.

A group of large silvery fish may divert the bass attention enough.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Been a while since I posted anything in this thread - no new fish to report on. 

 

The Bass have come along in leaps and bounds, they growth has been really amazing. Looked back on some old pics when I first got them as shy little juvies. They are now big bruisers. The two big males amongst the group are now approaching 30cm long. The smallest ones are around 20cm. It may be time to start thinning out the numbers. Or set up another tank and get some fry out of them when they start pairing off. 

 

 

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Canberra Alex - there are 4 rays in there (10 Bass). 

The bass completely ignore the rays as if they aren't even there. The only time their is any interaction is at feeding time. I feed a mixture of sinking pellets containing otohime (ep2), marine gold pellets and hikari carnivore (the carnivore only makes up a very small % of the mix maybe 5% at most). The bass have learnt to feed off the floor now, the rays jump all over the food before the bass can get to it. If anything once the food hits the floor the bass are at a huge disadvantage. The bigger female rays (3) are quite 'big' now, and super robust. The boy is a lot smaller due to his genes, and being a little bit more of a fussy feeder (won't eat otohime or marine gold; smashes whitebait and hiker though) - he still has no issues getting a feed though. 

Feeding whole food items like whitebait is a bit trickier as the bass will absolutely pig out to the point where they will start throwing food back up, messing up the tank quite badly. I need to get in there with a net after and scoop up all the bits of food that and been thrown back up (rays do a good job getting most of it) but the real small stuff has to be netted. I have started incorporating squid into their diet - which is much cleaner than the whitebait.

Here is an updated pic of the rays - two larger animals are girls the smaller one is the male. Please excuse the floating debris as I'd just fed them trying to get all the rays into one spot.

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To give an idea of how hybrids morph and change + the growth that the rays have gone through. This is a pic of the ray on the right of the above pic (about 3 months ago)

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Cheers, 

 

Alex

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Yeah the tank floor is absolutely covered in algae.

 

Doesn't look great, been considering mitigating this with covering the floor with sand - rays should turn over the sand enough for it not to become covered in algae. May chuck in a pleco (poo machine) in the next couple of weeks.

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Yea they poop a lot but I find their waste quite easy to manage compared to how much they keep on top of food waste and algae and what not. 

Having said that I've never had bare display tanks either so not sure on that one. 

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The tank floor covered in algae doesn't bother me the slightest - the only thing that bothers me is it doesn't look great in pics and people that come over to the house thing I don't maintain my tanks, despite the water being crystal clear.

Will see if I can find one in the 20-25cm range and see how it goes. I had an albino gibbi with rays in the past and they got on alright. 

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  • 3 months later...

Update - fish have grown a lot. All the bass are 30cm + and super messy. I guess that's what will happen when you have rays with 10 feet worth of cichlids cruising around. Some of the male bass have big red cherry humps now. May have to take the piece of rock out that was holding down the wood when it wasn't water logged. I'm not all that keen on them spawning in there. Although the males seem to be more interested at flaring up at each other rather than the girls - so i find their sexual orientation a little confusing. Pics are a month or so old, but not much has changed, except the males humps are bigger and brighter again. You kind of forget bass are cichlids, until they start carrying on like pork chops after a water change. No real damage is ever done - could keep all these males together long term without any real forseen issues. The most damage that gets done to them is from the top bracing at feeding time.

Have added a large piece of wood and crushed coral sand as a substrate - to pretty the tank up a bit. I did a trial run with gin gin river sand, but it had way too much fine particles in it, with the consistency of flour that would land on the rays and look rubbish (this was quickly removed). The crushed coral sand looks great and doesn't 'stick' to anything.

Added the pair of snakehead gudgeons in there - female got killed by the bass. But the male has found his place and is a really cool addition, really colourful and mellow.

bass_zpsgj8rat6b.jpg

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Just reading past posts mate would a pleco suck the slime coat off your rays? Bloke im my area got rid of alot of nice large plecos for that reason but i never seen the size of hes rays etc just what he had written on hes posts.

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From my talking to others that has experience, and I've seen it with bristlenoses and pups also,, is that 30% of pleco, sail fin, gold spot, bristlenoses and the likes of,,,, are bugger personalities,, that's three out of ten,,, as soon as you see any of this, get that dirty cat out.    You'll be sorry if you don't,,, get it out and swap it, it's likely your next is fine.

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4 hours ago, Bradc said:

Just reading past posts mate would a pleco suck the slime coat off your rays? Bloke im my area got rid of alot of nice large plecos for that reason but i never seen the size of hes rays etc just what he had written on hes posts.

 

4 hours ago, Buccal said:

From my talking to others that has experience, and I've seen it with bristlenoses and pups also,, is that 30% of pleco, sail fin, gold spot, bristlenoses and the likes of,,,, are bugger personalities,, that's three out of ten,,, as soon as you see any of this, get that dirty cat out.    You'll be sorry if you don't,,, get it out and swap it, it's likely your next is fine.

Exactly. I have had good and bad experiences with plecos and rays.

1 hour ago, Ducksta said:

Mate that full tank shot makes it look small. Reckon the fish are significantly bigger than your estimate again...

haha, yeah their is every chance that the bigger males are about 40cm.

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My last "good" plec died. 

I've tried 2 replacements that didn't gel in my tank.

I can't introduce a small one (choke hazard) and I'm starting to think nobody sells bigger ones unless they are trouble makers. 

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Yeah they are all so different. 

 

I actually have a Gibbi in my sump at the minute that didn't get alomng with my ray pup - tried chewing on the tip of his tail. Need to find a new home for the gibbi. 

I was looking on gumtree before i got this gibbi amazing how many are mislabeled here. Seems that common, sail fins (gibbi) and goldspots are all interchangeable names. 

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There is 50l of K1 media, and it is being circulated by two small powerhead - works ok but not perfectly. I am revising this over the next couple of weeks with a high powered pond air pump and a sprinkler system. Will post pics of the process once done. 

Circulation is similar, the sump return and a powerhead at the bottom of the tank, again works ok but not perfectly. This is also being revised to a series of wave makers. Will hopefully have these two upgrades done in the next month and it should all be just the way i like it. 

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10 hours ago, Ducksta said:

My last "good" plec died. 

I've tried 2 replacements that didn't gel in my tank.

I can't introduce a small one (choke hazard) and I'm starting to think nobody sells bigger ones unless they are trouble makers. 

From 12-15cm, they just keep growing fast,,,,  high probability, as you and Alex has the gist off, getting a larger one has high chance of being a bugger, or something wrong like long term exposure to high nitrates causes the bacteria they naturally carry inside them to actually turn on them and cause waisting,, but aside from that (which is just people doing the wrong thing), they are pretty hardy, bullet proof, in saying that, my gibs and gold spots which are my big tank cleaners, I've had two mystery deaths out of otherwise ten or so.

A well known not so good source here in Perth is where I got them from a long long time ago,, two reached 15cm and maxed out,,, one had sunken gut and stayed that way,, I got 8 or so good ones that are powerhouses and the weight of them is crazy,, my big net as I was trying try catch the Aristochromis christyi with got tangled on a big boy gold spot,, trying to pull it out the water,. Completely destroyed the new net cheapy.

Meaty products and brine shrimp pellet, gets them pumping, but some serious poo too.

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