My Riffle Shrimp And Tanks!

[TallTree01]

I do see your point Nick, and I thought the same thing before I started fertilizing.. Having seen how my plants in the other tanks responded to it, I am almost certainly going to fertilize any tanks in future with flourish excel at least. I'll do a half dose over the next few days and see if the plants respond to it.
The marble queen's flower has reached the surface now. if it starts to form petals I'll take a picture for you all.

 

[TallTree01]

The butterfly ate yesterday and again this morning. He's been taking the pellets when I offer them to him by tweezers. I want to try to get him to take it from the surface but for now I'm happy that he's finally eating non-live food.
The catfish are getting more adventurous by the day. They seem to get excited when I drop food in the tank and you can see them scurrying about under the log.
The Vallis is showing no signs of discomfort yet, in fact it and the other plants seem to have responded really well to the addition of small amounts of excel. I might keep the dose at 2 mls permanently. I don't want to have to be trimming plants daily.

 

[NickAu]

 
The butterfly ate yesterday and again this morning. He's been taking the pellets when I offer them to him by tweezers. I want to try to get him to take it from the surface but for now I'm happy that he's finally eating non-live food.

Good to hear he is eating, I suggest not feeding live/fresh/frozen for 2 weeks get it used to the idea that pellets are the staple diet.
 

 
The catfish are getting more adventurous by the day. They seem to get excited when I drop food in the tank and you can see them scurrying about under the log.

Good time to start training them to be hand fed. When I feed my loaches I drop a loach wafer into the tank then put my hand in the tank with a second wafer in the palm of my hand, The loaches are starting to swim onto my hand to eat.
Make sure your hands are super clean. Wash them in hot water but dont use soap or anything else.
 

 
The Vallis is showing no signs of discomfort yet

Following this closely.

 

[TallTree01]

The butterfly fish is taking pellets daily now. The only thing that stands in his way is his enthusiasm. He's always so keen that it takes him 3-4 tries to get the pellet in his mouth.
The plants are doing very well. The mayaca and chain sword have grown tremendously since the addition of flourish excel. I reckon the chain sword will have carpeted fully within October and the mayaca will reach the surface within a few weeks.
The synodontis seem to like algae wafers more than their dedicated catfish pellets. Would it be an issue to feed them solely algae wafers or would that not meet their nutritional needs?
Tanks looking pretty empty at the moment. I think later on in the month I'll start looking for a large peaceful fish in my local fish shops like kribensis or keyhole cichlids. Maybe gourami too. I don't know yet.

 

[NickAu]

 
The butterfly fish is taking pellets daily now. The only thing that stands in his way is his enthusiasm. He's always so keen that it takes him 3-4 tries to get the pellet in his mouth

Great to hear.
 

 
The synodontis seem to like algae wafers more than their dedicated catfish pellets. Would it be an issue to feed them solely algae wafers or would that not meet their nutritional needs

I honestly do not know, But I think a varied diet is always best. My betta never gets the same thing 2 days in a row. 

 

[TallTree01]

Cheers nick, I'll be sure to switch it up every once in a while.

So, today I tried offering the butterfly food at the surface of the tank and he completely ignored it, me being eager to get some sort of result offered it to him by hand and it was gobbled in seconds. Any suggestions on how to get him to take food from the surface? I'd be fine with hand feeding him for life but it'd be nice to have him able to eat from the surface in case I'm not available to feed him.

I barely see the synodontis at all now. So little to the point where I'm beginning to question their existence . The food I put in is always eaten by the end of the day but I never see them eating it. Would it help if I reduced feeding to 2-3 times weekly to encourage them to venture out from their logs and rocks?

The plants are all growing amazingly. So much so I might have to trim some of them in the near future. The lace fern now covers half of the surface which is great as the butterfly is less confined now. I'm very eager to get some more active fish.

Do you think platies or sword tails will work with the butterfly fish? I realize fry will be eaten but will adults thrive?

 

[Ninjouzata]

Glad your butterfly fish is eating! Not sure on the synos other than what I've read on seriously fish which says they're omnivores so I would think they'll need more than just algae wafers.
 
Also not sure on the platy/swordfish compatibility, but dont they have different water requirements anyways, as in they should be kept in hard water while the ABF is best in soft water?

 

[NickAu]

 
Any suggestions on how to get him to take food from the surface?

Yes.
Give it the food but dont hand feed it, drop the pellet into the tank, If it eats it fine................. see where I'm going with this?
 

 
The food I put in is always eaten by the end of the day but I never see them eating it.

Set a feed time that suits you EG. 7 pm drop the food into the tank but make sure it is in the front of the tank, after a few weeks your fish will come to the front of the tank at feeding time.
 
When I feed my fish I feed at the same time each day, I tap the tank gently and my betta comes to the left hand top of the tank to get her food, Even my loaches are starting to learn when and where to come out for food.
 
 
I even managed to train snails to come to the top of the tank for blood worm.
Sadly these 3 are no longer with me.
 

 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/438039-my-snails/

 

[TallTree01]

That's an area I'd not considered. I usually disregard pH and the like for most fish unless they're wild caught or really sensitive. I'll steal clear of livebearers if I can.

That's a proper idea nick. I'll set aside a time and feed them at that time everyday. For the past few weeks I've been feeding them at all sorts of different times.

 

[TallTree01]

I'm getting very worried about these catfish now. I've been checking the tank and have not seen a single synodontis since I started looking almost 45 minutes ago. There's 9 of them in here. I've set an alarm to 1am tomorrow morning. At this time I'll awake and check for catfish in the dead of night, when they are supposedly at their most active.

 

[TallTree01]

I had a look in the tank last night for a good 20 minutes, just me, them and a torch. I found not a single catfish. Today I decided to search for them in case of any living ones. I assumed that I had misjudged the butterfly and he had eaten them in the night.
I lifted up the log to see if there were any carcasses or anything. They were all underneath it hanging upside down grazing off them wood. They looked a bit like termites in rotting wood. I'm pretty sure all nine are still alive and they looked healthy too. They'd certainly been eating the pellets I'd laid out for them.
I'm not entirely sure where to go from here. I suppose there's not much I can do, perhaps when they feel more relaxed they'll journey out.
I'm very relieved they're all ok, I wouldnt forgive myself had I accidentally fed the catfish to the butterfly.

I've been doing some reading looking for a fish that can live in acidic-neutral waters, tolerate being kept in a group and won't nip the butterfly. They also have to be around 2-3 inches when full grown. If anyone knows of any such fish I'd be much obliged.

A few different species I've been thinking of are
5 dwarf gouramis - 1 male and 4 females. Are these known to be overly aggressive? Would I be better off to just get females? The main concern here is if they'll nip at the butterfly. I'm fairly certain that they're too big for the butterfly. If I get a large group will it be less likely to nip the butterfly?
Other gourami sorts - like pearls, honeys, sparklings or moonlights. Would I have to worry about sexes with these?
Apistogramma - I'm not sure what species are available or if they should be kept in harems or pairs. I'm guessing males won't get along too well.
Kribensis - Ive heard these can get nasty when breeding so if I go with them I'll probably only get one.
Keyholes - I'd love to have a keyhole or two. The problem is availability. I've not seen any for sale for ages.

 

[LyraGuppi]

I'd be careful with top dwellers, like the gourami. The butterfly could be pushed around, or threatened. Not sure about the others.
 
The tank looks great, though, and glad those catfish are okay!

 

[Ninjouzata]

Definitely give them time to get used to the tank. I've heard of some fish taking up to a year or more to start venturing out.
The blue phantom pleco I got from FishManic has taken that long to start revealing himself more and is still a rare sight to see
 
I agree with Lyra, would be really wary about putting other top dwellers in with the ABF. Also not sure on the others, sorry. :c

 

[TallTree01]

Cheers guys, I'll keep away from gouramis. I'd forgotten that they build bubble nests.
I've had some spectacular news. I have to travel into Melbourne tomorrow so I rang up the fish shop there to see if they had any of the species. It turns out they have keyholes in stock! I've not seen these in store in ages. Tomorrow when I go in I'll look to get a group of 4 or a pair if I can find one that looks mated. These are very peaceful so I've heard and are large enough to deter the butterfly fish.
If in future the keyholes get aggressive to one another I can rehome the aggressive one.
If anyone has kept these guys I'd love to hear of your experience.

 

[TallTree01]

I was amazed at the quality, I've come home with a beautiful pair of keyhole cichlids. They're absolutely stunning. They're inseparable and have taken some pellets this morning.
I've taken some pictures, not the best quality but I think they're quite nice.





The male is the larger one shown.