Safe To Integrate Carnivores?

[guppler]

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm interested in opinions of people who have had dwarf African frogs and loaches in comunities. My loaches are a coolie and a yoyo. It's hard to imagine them actually killing much, because they aren't very big, especially the coolie, but I have kept them separate because my main comunity has some very small critters in it sometimes.
My 29g(us) has mostly cories now with 1 tetra, 2 white cloud mountain minnows, 1 marbled hatchet fish and however many male guppies are big enough to breed and not currently designated for breeding and not sold. I'm actually ready to sell all but 3 of the corries too, because the rest were born in the tank and look just like their mom only not as big yet. They haven't laid eggs for a while, but there are still some pretty small fry (maybe a couple of months old) that mostly hide in the gravel or under things.
The "carnivores" seem pretty happy upstairs in a warm 10g with simple spnge filters, but I often wonder how they would do in the bigger comunity and if they would need much more space before I give them more friends. I'd like to get at least 1 male frog to go with my 1 female, and probably at least 1 more yoyo loach and at least a couple more coolies eventually. Right now the betta (male) is usually the only 1 out of the 4 in that tank I see with out turning out the lights or searching. That's Ok, but I wonder if some of them would like others of their own species to hang out with, and I would like to find bright green coolie eggs in the weeds. I'm not sure I'd put the betta in the comunity even if I did put the others in, with all those pretty guppy tails. I had a female betta bully and tear tails off of female guppies once, but Sunny hasn't really bothered anyone yet.
All my tanks are pretty heavily planted right now, and I have other good hiding places too, but I don't know if the hiding places would help nocturnal hunters more than young endlers and cory fry. I think the yoyo is a little longer than my biggest corry already and I don't know how much more it will grow. I also want to get more hatchets and see if they will breed. (I had 4, but 3 died, so the poor thing tries to flock with the minows.) In a way I'd like to put all the tropicals together and just see what happens. (maybe including female guppies if I had a bigger tank) Then again I don't know how much I want to trust the carnivores, especially if those cories get frisky again. On the other hand, if I didn't have carnivores in the other 10g, I could use it for hatchlings. I tried a breeder box last time for the cories, without much success. (I think most of the hatchlings just slipped out between the slats into the main comunity.)
One of these days I may even get ambitious enough to try starting over some of my tanks to eliminate pesky snails. I have some good snail eaters in mind, but it's hard to get them to control snails without putting them right in with the fry. I wish I could go brackish, but the cories would not like that, and they are in almost every tank now.
So maybe the basic question is Do I keep fry guys out of the comunity or keep potential fry eaters out? And then, how likely are my "carnivores" to eat small fish?

 

[guppler]

would I get more response if i wanted to throw in a puffer after reading some other posts? He'd probably eat my frog or something, but I think he'd like the snails.
Probably I'm just kind of longwinded and complicated or something. Ok I'll give it some time.

 

[guppler]

still no answers?

 

[kimmers318]

I can't tell you for sure if adf's would be okay with khuli or yoyo loaches but I do know after having the 3 I have I personally wouldn't try it. My frogs are busy all day and snap at anything that comes near them, which I understand is probably because they don't see real well and just jump at whatever could be food. Since my khuli's (in another tank) stay mostly on the bottom, and my frogs primarily hunt the floor I would be afraid that they would be jumping at the khuli's too much. Try a google search for the adf's and see if anyone has any info from past experience with keeping them. I know they go well in most community tanks, I just wouldn't chance it with my bottom dwellers for the above reasons.

 

[Erised]

No clue about frogs seeing as I don't keep them.
Kuhli loaches should definatly be fine in your tank, the chances fry will get eaten by them are probably smaller than the chances of them getting eaten by their parents. Not quite sure about yoyo loaches, but it won't eat anything other than fry. Then again, if your guppies do breed they'll eat most of their young themselfs, and if none of your fish eat it you'll end up having about 200 fry every 2 weeks or so. Quite sure that's not what you want either.
A puffer is a definate no. They are species only fish and are a risk in any community tank. Yes he'll love your snails and eat them all within a day (not kidding). He'll also nip your other fish and will quite likely end up killing them in the end. Be it a day from adding or 3 years from adding. They're predatory fish and it will play up one day.

 

[sparrow6190]

I can't tell you for sure if adf's would be okay with khuli or yoyo loaches but I do know after having the 3 I have I personally wouldn't try it. My frogs are busy all day and snap at anything that comes near them, which I understand is probably because they don't see real well and just jump at whatever could be food.

Its a fixed action response, anything small enough for them to eat that moves will get eaten, its just instinct.

 

[Iron Man]

If this helps any my adf's used to every once in a blue moon lunge and snap at my apple snails if they got in the way. All it did was stun the snails (due to the surprise). No harm being done they would just come back out their shells and scoot away.

adf's are harmless to what they can't swallow.

 

[guppler]

hmm..
It's actually sounding more and more like I can integrtae most of them. As for the frog eating the coolie, well squiggle and Miss Piggy have been in the same tank for months now, and there are plenty of hiding places, and I don't think Squiggle would fit in miss piggy's mouth. She did lunge at a small apple snail the night I brought them home, which had me a little concerned, but I just took the snails out, and now I only have 1 or 2 snails left that I think would be in danger from any of my current critters, except the smaller snails, which i think scrape their shells, increasing the erosion that they get from low ph and Ca. (I't's getting to be less and less fun keeping those yellow snails in their separate critter keeper and remembering to feed them but not too much, and taking out the super stinky dead ones now and then, and trying to figure out how to make their water better for them.)
Ok maybe I'll keep Sunny and Miss Piggy out of the main comunity. they'd be Ok in a relatively simple set up. Maybe when I get some of my grown up fry rehomed I'll quarantine a few new loaches with the ones I have and then integrate. i hope it won't get too hot for them upstairs. i'm still a little tempted to see how Sunny and Miss Piggy would do in the comunity, but It would by scarey with my little gupler guys. Most are more Endler than Guppy sizewise. It sounds like the loaches wouldn't really be worse than anything already in there.
Thanks for comments everyone.

 

[kimmers318]

Sorry everyone....I didn't mean to make it sound like I thought the adf's could actually hurt the loaches, but that it might get annoying for the loaches to constantly be jumped at. My little guys jump at my dwarfpuffers....no blood, no foul, but I know it sure does seem to piss em off! Mostly at feeding time is when I see this sort of thing. I know if I had someone constantly jumping at me it would get annoying....but then again, isn't that sorta what having toddlers around all the time is like?!

 

[guppler]

Sorry everyone....I didn't mean to make it sound like I thought the adf's could actually hurt the loaches, but that it might get annoying for the loaches to constantly be jumped at. My little guys jump at my dwarfpuffers....no blood, no foul, but I know it sure does seem to piss em off! Mostly at feeding time is when I see this sort of thing. I know if I had someone constantly jumping at me it would get annoying....but then again, isn't that sorta what having toddlers around all the time is like?!

Yeah, but miss piggy has other critters to pick on too, especially if I let her into the 29g with the little guplerguys and cories and all. I have seen her and Sunny sort of swim warily past each other looking like they're thinking about doing something.

 

[kimmers318]

Make sure to let us know how it all goes.....I for one like my little frogs, they are a nice addition to my dwarfpuffer tank always running around.....and the loaches I have so far in other tanks are great too, so ya never know what may end up starting another tank around here!

 

[guppler]

Make sure to let us know how it all goes.....I for one like my little frogs, they are a nice addition to my dwarfpuffer tank always running around.....and the loaches I have so far in other tanks are great too, so ya never know what may end up starting another tank around here!

Your dwarf puffers don't eat your frogs???
They would probably nibble my betta, wouldn't they?

I still want to do it, but I haven't gotten around to selling the extra fry yet, and I was thinking since nobody had spawned in the comunity for a while, it was a pretty good time to try it. Then I found 17 little cory eggs on the wall. I thought it was probably from some kids messing around and thwy might not evwen be fertile, but the next day I looked with a magnifying glass, and it looked like at least half had moving babies inside. I hadn't decided what to do about them or where I could put them if I wanted to rescue them by the time I went to bed that night, and the next morning it was too late. I suspect most hatched and fell right down into the gravel, where they can survive surprizingly well. They only needed to go about 3-4 inches, but Pinki (my male albino cory) and at least 1 gup were right there staring at the wall in the same corner, almost the way my goldies hovered under the mystery snail eggs the first time they hatched, so I don't know what to expect. In away I want to just leave them alone and if they live fine, and if they don't fine, but I am curious to see if I get any albino kids. I figure Pinki has to be homozygous for the rescesive albino trait, and BC is almost certainly homozygus fro bronze, based on results so far, but that would mean their kids are all heterozygous, so any 2 kids should make about a quarter albino and any of the kids with an albino, like pinky should be half and half. I don't want too much inbreeding, but I haven't raised or even hatched albinos yet so far as i know. Then again, it's already too late to really watch these closely, and i probably will have another chance. I doubt a few more mouths would really make a big difference in the fry survival rate anyway. Besides, it's getting up around 100f outside now, and my room is usually not much below the outside. I have seen all 4 of the long term quarantine critters recently, even though some of them hide for days on end, except maybe when I'm sleeping. Lmost half the tank is filled with this dense jungle of anacharis or elodea type stuff. The frog sometimes climbs around in it, and squiggle squiggles through and hangs out where nobody else can even reach. Hideeyo is almost always under something or chasing someone else away. Sunny mostly hovers around the relatively clear spots looking for mana from heaven.
I don't know if I want to move critters before i make a trip to the lps, but I should at least do some calling around in the morning. Btw, any suggestions on how many more coolies, yos, and frogs to add, and are upside down cats going to be simmilar? (I'm not sure I'm getting some right away, but I might, and I keep being tempted by dwarf gouramis too, if I happen to see them.)

 

[guppler]

Ok, I finanlly did it. I moved the yoyo, coolie, frog, and betta into my comunity of mostly corries and guplerguys. It's actually been a few days already. I even left town and came back. things seem to be working out fine, but i don't see much of the hiders and i have no way of knowing if they are eating the tiniest cories, but there are some little ones still swimming around.
I use the fold over type sandwich baggies to move fish in the house. I think I caught Yo first. he swam into a fake clay jar with holes to hide from my hand, so I just scooped the whole jar into the baggie and took it downstairs. The jar wanted to sink, but I hooked the floppy flap of the bag over the edge and held it in place with the lid to make the water change more gradual. I think I caught the frog next. I actually held her in my hand and then filled the bag with water and put her in. I floated her bag on the other side of the tank near the bunks. At some point I got interupted for dinner time with my family. The coolie was hard to catch. I had to chase it around the tank with a net and scare it into the bag. I might have used the same bag that I used on the yoyo because when I went back to check, it had sunk, and I figured I might as well remove the bag from the jar. Hideyo stayed in the jar for a while, then gradually came out for short exporation ventures, and eventually disapeared under the big brownish shell i made in ceramics. The frog bag kept closing up so she wasn't able to get to the air, so i kept letting in water a little at a time and trying to keep the top open, but finally idecided she'd rather just get out. so that bag was free to use for the betta I used the net to direct him to swim into the bag and floated sunny in the middle of the tank where i could watch his reactions to the little gupplerguys who gathered around to look at him. He didn't seem to notice them much. By this time, Miss Piggy was stalking tiny pesty snails at the bottom. I saw her snap at one and miss. that seems to be her tradition every time I put her in a new tank. I rarely see her snap at stuff except right after i've moved her. She swam around and discovered that it was a long way to swim up to the air, but she still likes to spend most of her time on the floor under the big brownish shell. Once coolie was out he swam almost imediately under the little plastc rock with a scuba diver attached by a tether. usually when i see squiggle now, he's swimming from under the diver's rock to under the big brownish shell, and maybe in and out of some of the abundant shell holes. sometimes it lookes like he tries to burry himself in the gravel, which is rounded, but mostly not very small. probably he's just getting his face down in the spaces to hunt for food right where newly hatched cories always hang out until they're big enough to be seen. Sunny spent the longest time in the bag, and I made sure there was food to keep everybody busy when i finally released him. Some of the bolder guppies actually swam right up to him and waved their tails in his face, which i told them was not a wise thing to do, but Sunny, who is about the most docile betta i've ownwed just pouted at them and went off to the bunk bed corner. He spent a lot of the first night exploring the top half of the fish bunks, while a couple of half-grown cories rested just below him. He swam back out into the middle of the guppy swarm just to grab a couple of floating flakes and return to the corner. where he swam loops around and through the bunk tower and stared at his reflection on the wall. I haven't seen him act agressive at all. Sometimes he hovers at the top in the plants, and sometimes he hides under the big browish shell. I've seen him there more than i've seen the others there, in fact more than i've seen most of the new neighbors anywhere. At first I thought I was seeing the yoyo, but it surprized me that it was acually the betta under there. I didn't think it was typical for bettas to hide under things. They are close to the same size and yellowish, but that's about as far as the resemblnce goes. i had seen the two of them peck at each other a little in the 10g upstairs, but i never saw any resulting damage on either of them.
I do need to vacuum soon, because as usual, I've been avoiding it to give babies time to get storong enough to swim away from the vacuum or big enough for me to notice them. I might find loaches hiding almost anywhere, but I have sometimes cleaned the tank pretty thouroghly without encountering one of the loaches and wondered how it could have died and disapeared so thouroughly, only to see him doing just fine a couple of days later. That first night i did turn out the lights a little early and throw in some food for the nocturns, and Hideyo came right ot of a hole somewhere, looking like he felt at home. I'll have to watch in the dark more often. maybe that was one of the good things about having them right next to my bed.