Community

One of the things that I really enjoy being witness to is the way that fish interact with one another. Naturally feeding time can be both a beautiful sight in colorful contrast, as well as a comical spectacle to keep an eye on. This is usually about the time that I start naming my fish...lol Here's Rusty, Birdy, Max, and a special guest appearance by Spaz to help shine on your day.

 

Thanks for the responses! This particular tank (45Gdeep) contains a balanced bunch of mostly respectful neighbors. And as @Danno11 states, apart from pushing and swatting each other occasionally, there is little serious aggression. These are of course the ground floor crew, apart from the albino bichir which I call spaz because he absolutely has no clue where he belongs apart from being on the near constant move. Spaz has got to be one of the craziest fish I have ever kept. He'll literally swim right into the glass, just bounce off happily without a care, and keep right on going his spastic way. It eats off the top and the bottom and I have no doubt he'd dine mid water as well if he had the patience to do so. I'm thinking that much like many catfish species, (unlike loricariidae btw) bichirs must have relatively poor eyesight, and "see" by barbel sensory means more so than sheer sight. This is such a comical fish to watch that I could have easily just named him Mr. Magoo. Here's a shot of this tank's other community members. You can't see all the Angelfish in this photo as there are actually 10 all roughly the same size, and apart from a little bit of Max, the yellow spotted peckoltia sabaji L075 (an identification that I do not agree with!) most tankmates are in hiding as this photo was taken early in the day. I actually purchased all 10 of these Peruvian angels (containing 3 naturally occurring melanistic (black) members) when they were quarter sized, all from the same batch. There a happy bunch that I refer to as the "fan dancers" because of how they all behave at feeding time.

 

Thanks @Danno11! Angels and plecos have always been two of my favorites. I was very fortunate about 25 years back to have been able to keep Altums. Had them for several years up until a wintertime power failure that lasted for several days ended up claiming them. They are truly the most beautiful wild angels I have ever had the pleasure of keeping.

 

Hi All, back with another installment of "community". But before I go any further I want to sincerely thank both @Danno11 & @Guppylover3x! I do my best to keep my fish happy, and healthy.

I have another fun story board, that's almost soap opera worthy. This fish tail, or rather tale, stars three fish characters from a 50G breeder tank that contains quite a few other residents.
Over the years I have found that fish, like ALL animals, do have personalities. These personalities originate from two basic camps. One extroverted, and one introverted. Now, I'm certainly not gonna go all Myers Briggs on everyone here, but I will state unequivocally that from these two basic personality platforms, there are in fact numerous fractional diversities in personality characteristics that fish exhibit in terms of their observed fish behavior.
Our story begins one day when I happened to walk into the room containing the aforementioned tank and sat down to observe them in my typical slacker fashion. I wasn't really focused on much of anything in particular until I realized that I had managed to interject my tank side presence right in midst of some significant fish hanky panky goings on. Shamefully, I must admit that it was a rather fascinatingly forbidden spectacle to behold.
Leading up to this time I had been feeding the 6 angels in this tank frozen bloodworms one or two times a day. Now you can't just feed fish protein rich foods all the time. Most all the fishes that I keep, especially lori's and angels, do in fact need other plant based nutrients in order to have that which effectively mimics their natural varied balanced diet. I do know that the blood worms are specifically what put them in the mood though.
Few people that keep fish think about the fact that fish in the wild are ravenous eaters that almost never stop eating as their growing. Even when they're adults, apart from annual or naturally scheduled spawners that fast for a period of time relative to spawning, they eat MUCH more than the average aquarist can or is willing to feed them.
Having noticed in the proceeding few weeks that two of my wild angels had paired up, been getting frisky, and at times hinting at courtship behavior, I really wasn't completely surprised. However, it was an unexpected sight, and I certainly was delighted to watch the female gracefully depositing her eggs in neat, yet tightly condensed vertical rows, so that the male could return from his constant nearby sentinel duty to fertilize the fresh eggs. As he did his part, she would take turns making certain that no other midwater fish came anywhere near her eggs. They both were colored up to an extreme degree, as they both literally glowed with an almost unnatural vibrance of hormone induced
coloration.
Deep down inside I was both thrilled and troubled simultaneously. And no, I don't mean that I had a guilty conscience from watching them do the "wild thang"either. I was troubled because I had nothing prepared to put the piece of slate in that the eggs had been deposited on. Actually, the only way that I would have done such an extraction is if I could have isolated the male and female prior to spawning to begin with. Call me irresponsible if you like, but breeding is simply something that I'm not prepared to take on, or rather, facilitate at this time. At least not with any real degree of proficiency due to my present space and time limitations. So I did what any respectable fish keeper would do. I sat there taking rather lame photos and videos of the action that was unexpectedly unfolding in front of me until I noticed some shadowy movement of a different sort in the tank.
Yes, you guessed it, or perhaps you haven't yet, but having kept plecos forever I know that they are not exactly the most discriminating nor discreet bunch of fish in the pond so to speak. This is especially true when it comes to their ravenous appetites. This tank has roughly 10 plecos in it and most of these are relatively small, except for one...
Enter Lurch, the tank butler. Lurch is a well meaning, and gentle chap of a pleco. His personality is one of complete amiable ease and on this fine day, he was truly in an exceptionally rare and wondrous form. Unfortunately, this included one of Lurch's most consistent and dependable trademarks, a thoroughly ravenous appetite. It's nothing for him to polish off 4 big Hikari spirulina wafers each day. There he was peeking out from behind the very piece of slate upon which all the angel couple's eggs were neatly strewn. Even though I'll provide a couple of current tank photos here, the glare and reflections on this tank were a nightmare while all this was taking place. I really apologize for not having better documentation here. I actually recorded a video on my phone before these photos were taken, but it's so bad that I wouldn't even attempt to include it here, as the photos are bad enough! I have since started using my camera exclusively to shoot fish photos.etween the blurry images, as well as the tank being far less than dressed out due to being a very new set up, I give you the rest of this fishy tale in what are far less than stellar phone photos. I'll also include a few photos of relevant members in their more so newly decorated digs...

 

Boy, this website or forum can sure be wonky to navigate with respect to photos. It kept posting multiple photos of the same photo that had been uploaded just once. Very odd! Here are some newer community photos of the same tank/members.

 

Thanks! @Deanasue It's definitely what I strive for. Seeing your fish get all ripped to shreds by one another isn't cool IMO. The use of mechanical current and lotsa driftwood goes a long way in creating claimed territory opportunities. It's also wonderful for schooling fish because it gives them ample places to rest and hide, and then take off and zoom around. I do 60-70% water changes on all my tanks every three days. Every second water change in this cycle sees all exposed bottom substrate vacuumed. Every third time I pull most everything out of the tank (quickly, so nothing begins to dry) and vacuum the gravel from one side to the other. I rearrange it a little different each time everything comes out so that no one gets too protective or greedy with respect to territory.

In this tank I have 5 clown loaches, 9 blacklline rasboras, 6 angels, 6 roseline sharks, and 10 plecostomus. Everything constantly grows (thrives) and is quite happy.

One thing that's critical to mention is that I incorporate numerous plecostomus tubular hides underneath and behind the driftwood along with several pieces of slate, and fake amazon swords.

There are no real problems with respect to keeping fish, only opportunities. I don't tolerate injurious dominance or badgering in the least apart from a few unavoidable nighttime pleco scraps. If a particular pleco gets too dominant or becomes a constant instigator, that pleco provides me with one of two opportunities. It goes in a different tank where it's "fit" finds balance, or yes, as you may have already guessed, provides me with yet another reason to set up a new tank.
lol!