Tank update!

S

Sygoomei

New Member
Well it's finally over. I've survived the most brutal winter I've ever experienced--that is, the first winter I've been in the work-force AND in grave-yards at that. So I haven't been here in a while, because I've just been trying to survive. But now I'm back!

As I haven't got updated pics yet, I'll hold off on that for probably a day or two more. For now we start simple:

Albino Bichir: He's doing quite well. I've never seen him sick, or really anything outside of the norm. Still quite small--and may likely be the smallest fish in the tank very soon. Probably 5 inches now. I'm not sure I see any substantial growth in the year that he's been with me.

Indo Tiger: Well despite my post here months ago that I'd planned on putting this fish down because he had a huge bump on his head which opened up and released puss all over, he's still here. The bump has gone away and come back a few times since then and we're still battling it as we speak.

On a plus however, he's just recently started eating pellets!!!! I was finishing up snakes on a plane and popped some Hikari "sinking carnivore pellets" and suddenly I noticed he was poppin' 'em back like candy! I was terribly excited and this trend has continued every day since. I don't feed dew worms any longer because he was getting noticeably ill from them (even if I did clean them EXTREMELY well). If I feed dew worms, I now just cut off the head and feed the rest because the heads appear to be so dirty that you can't clean them properly without slitting them right open and washing out all the innards and insides of guts. In all, dew worms do not seem to be good eats. I need new food.

Small prochilodus: Being a pain... as usual. Big phoenix and small phoenix fight all the time. I really shouldn't say Big and small... They're both quite large. The small on is probably 7-8 inches now. She has a really big curvy body. I'll try to take pics of what I mean.

Big Prochilodus: Small? Big? This is really not the way to describe Pookie. Pook is HUGE! I can't fit her in a 5 gallon bucket now. That's actually really scary to me. What do I do in an emergency? I'm unsure as of yet. I need a good fish box because she's just too big for almost anything else.

RTG: Coming along nicely. At times, I can see deep purples along each scale. Like this morning when I came home to the XP3 not running, and I was changing water... Well I swear I had a purple fish. I still don't have good pics showing this, but I suppose that's only a matter of time.

Aro hasn't been eating in weeks however. Since I don't feed worms because Tiger gets sick and Aro was having swollen anus issues, I just haven't been putting anything in the tank that Aro wants to eat. So it doesn't eat. I ocassionaly put a worm or some tiger prawn in, but it takes a long time before he'll swallow. Usually he just mouths it for 20+ minutes and then swallows and will eat a bit more and stop. He wants king/meal worm it seems. But everyone around here said that's not good food, so I haven't bought them in a few weeks/months.

Any ideas for new Aro food? Doesn't want pellets, I've tried numerous kinds and he's just not interested at all. I'm trying to improve my water quality, but my bio-load is too high to maintain a good level for very long. This is why I can't wait for the tank order to arrive and get the small phoenix into it's own tank.

Well for now, I'll be off. I'm going to attempt some photo's, possibly tonight. Someone hacked my photobucket account, so I'm outta luck for posting for now anyway.

Pax,
Sygoomei
 
My aro loves superworms and shrimp but mostly superworms. What is wrong with superworms? My aro has gained more gold color from them and also has the purple fringe on the scales you mention. I am a newbie to aros and want to keep her healthy. Could I compensate by soaking the shrimp in vitamins? There are 2 rays and 2 peacock bass in the tank as well that really go for the shrimp too.
 
My aro loves superworms as well. But cutting the heads off was both nasty and time consuming. Also, I remember being told that they're basically cardboard until you gutload them. So unless I raise 1000 on good food sources, and then feed a special meal and freeze right away; then I'm basically feeding expensive 'candy' to my aro.

I'd prefer that he was eating 'meat' anyway. I liked the dew worms because they actually have blood in them--but the dirt inside them as well is a huge deterrent. I'm thinking of raising small frogs or toads and feeding babies. But that'll have to wait indefinitely.

I've taken some pics, but I'm not happy with them.
 
My aro is from the October 2007 order. He's still quite small and has a hard time defecating the heads. My large Phoenix is quite a bit larger than the Aro. I'd say that the Aro will possibly be longer than the Phoenix within a year, but will be 'smaller' in body mass for probably 2 or 3.
 
the aro should be growing at 1 inch per month the FF will grow at 1 inch per year once it gets to 8-10inch

if you are cutting the heads off the super worms that maybe why the aro is not intrested in them so much as they are already dead when you are feeding them
 
Don't get me wrong, aro eats SW if I feed them; heads cut or not. But his anus started swelling up and after I stopped feeding them, his anus returned to normal.

My FF is approximately 14." It may be 15, but I've got a hard time measuring such a quick moving fish. The tank is 18" wide, and she's WAY more than 1/2 the width in length.

Even my small FF is still 8-10," and the Aro is only 11-13."

One of the problems I have, is that the heads are so hard to digest that the fish seem to have to defecate the whole head back out. My Tiger is only 3" or so and it seems to me that his anus must be far too small to easily rid himself of such a large item.
 
I had about 12 aros in total in the past all fed just on super worm nothing else i never had a problem with any of them the aro should be eatting about 10-14 super worms per feed now

but hey if the aro is growing the way you like it stick to the food you are feeding :D
 
Well I finally broke. So here it is, here's the 1st photo I've uploaded anywhere online in 2008!

20080626_3904.jpg


ISO 100 with flash. Photobucket only allows 1MB files max, so I lost over 2MB in this photo. Does anyone know a photo storage site which will let me store 3MB files?

*Edit*

I wasn't happy with the reduction in quality, so here's a cropped version of his top rear section.

close-up-scale.jpg


This more properly reflects my fish's growth--that is, from when he was basically colourless back in November.
 
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