Si's Tank Journal

[PDSimon]

Hello

I have a fluval roma 125 with fluval u3 filter, 150w heater and t8 20W lighting. Temperature is currently 25-26 degrees C.

I recently finished fishless cycling and added 2 bolivian rams and 8 kuhli loach which have been getting along great!


Currently ( ) I would like my final stock to be:

2 bolivian rams
8 kuhli loach
8 rummy nose tetra
8 cardinal tetra
5 amano shrimp
1 giant african filter shrimp

Although i'm sure things will change, I may want to add more bolivian rams but i'm not sure at the moment.

I'm thinking of adding some dither fish soon, once I'm sure the tanks pH is stabilised, any ideas would be great. Had quite a big pH crash when I planted the tank with the intention of adding fish which worried me a lot, but I got some fish after a few days and so far my pH has been stable at 7.

I'd love to add a load of rummy nose now but I understand they are fairly sensitive, but it anyone feels that It would be acceptable seeing as that the bolivians have settled in please do!


The rams have been very shy and stressed, the first day they lost all their colour but now ( a few days later) they have quite a lot of colour back, including spots on the anal fin, the red stripe across the top of the dorsal fin and stripes across the pelvic fin. They tend to stay at the back and under the cover of the caves but have been gaining more and more courage as time goes on which is a good sign!


I tried my best to sex the two rams but struggled, hoping for a pair. I think one is the long fin variety and one just the normal. They spend most of their time together (95%!) and they don't seem to fight... sometimes they poke each other in the side but very rarely. Often they'll just float by each other...

stressed rams

them and the kuhlis relaxing:

Anyway,

I would basically appreciate any advise you could offer, especially involving their sex, (I will add better pics asap) and good dither fish - whether I could add some cardinals soon? maybe even rummy nose? or any other suggestions would be great. I have fed them bloodworm twice as they won't come up for flake yet...any suggestions on that will help too.

Thanks for reading.

Heres a pic of the tank

it also has a slate cave under the filter which the rams take turns to sit in!

 

[Nick16]

i would be wary with khuli's and filters... you need to make sure there is no way those Khuli's can get into the filter because believe me they will try!

 

[PDSimon]

I was aware of it and was thinking about putting some netting over the filter outlet but the little ones have been happy chillin' in the sun, some of the big ones have been behind the filter so I havn't been too worried, but if you think I should be I will happily put something over it?

Thanks for the help (again!)

Just fed the rams some blood worm and the kuhlis a sinking tablet, but only a few of the kuhlis came to eat it and the rams ate most of it too, so I moved the tablet closer to the others but only one really ate a bit of it. Is there another way to feed the kuhlis?

I guess it just takes time for them to get used to feeding

 

[Nick16]

yes it takes them a while to get used to where the food goes. you can always ensure it goes nearer to their hideout...

BUT, khuli's are scavengers and prefer to feed at night so i put some tetra prima in for mine just after lights out so they can munch that. (to get it to sink, get a small tub, fill with water, put prima in tub, leave for 2-3 mins, stir for a sec and then it should sink!) then you just pour it into the tank. if it floats it just gets blown everywhere by the filters!

you could distract the rams with some food at the surface or at the other end of the tank... then quickly drop a pellet in. but at night you should have a better chance.

Plus the rams cant gobble all of the prima!

 

[PDSimon]

Cheers Nick. I learnt that from adding a block of blood worm..it blown everywhere and with all the plants it was a bit of a mess. Luckily the rams were hungry and helped clean it up!

unfortunately the rams are quite shy so won't feed off the top yet, although when I dropped a tablet in before they saw it this time so they are starting to learn.

the tetra prima is very simialr to the 'tetra tabimin' that I have "for all bottom feeding tropical fish". I just suppose they just have to get used to routine/placement.

The kuhlis are great little fish, there are hundreds of little holes in the sand from them digging down and eating. Great to watch and they're always up to something anytime of the day or night. Along with the rams always sifting through the sand it means a very clean substrate!

 

[Nick16]

yeah, i need to change my tank layout because the wood i have is sitting to flush to the substrate so they just hide in the 1cm gaps. i havent seen mine in about a week....

 

[PDSimon]

Thats unfortunate! I managed to count all 8 of mine yesterday which surprised me, I expected them to disappear for weeks. The little ones are starting to realise they can dig right into the sand now you can see little tails sticking out of the sand.

 

[meguro]

id guess that the ram on bottom in 1st pic is male, and the ram in 2nd pic is female. if u want them to spawn u may need to add more smooth flat surfaces for them, i would suggest some nice stones if u can find any suitable as i think they would look less out of place in ur set up.

my rams hardly ever go above midwater and never feed from the surface how tetras and angelfish do. but u could probably "train" them to do that. mine hardly even come to midwater actually, i just dip my hand in up to my elbow and feed them that way, or otherwise i use sinking food.

as for adding the other fish, if u just completed ur fishless cycle its probably better to get a few more in there so u dont lose as much bacteria. i added rummynose and neons sooner than i should have and they were fine. but it does depend on how healthy u buy them, the rummynose had good colour in the shop so it was obvious they were in good condition. they should also help to make the other fish less shy.

i would probably either leave it with 2 rams, or add the others u plan to add sooner rather than later so the size difference isnt too great. though from my experiences it doesnt seem to matter. but if they become a pair the tank will be much less stressful if theyre the only rams in it.

whats the dimensions of ur tank?

ur light might not be strong enough im not sure, but so far it looks quite good. and if the plants grow/fill out, will only look better.

 

[PDSimon]

How long did you leave it until you got fish? Its been just over a few days now... so there will be still some excess bacteria I imagine but I am wary of it being too soon to add such sensitive fish. The fish at the LFS are all in great condition...

The dimensions are 80 wide, 35 deep and about 40 tall, its more accurately a 108L tank rather than 125L. I was aware of the lights but they seem to be doing the job so far, growth on most plants

Cheers for the help

 

[PDSimon]

Added 5 amanos today, Was worrying a minute ago because I could only find 2... then found the other 3 hiding in a hole under a piece of wood. Only saw cos their long whiskers were sticking out was quite funny when I added them, I expected them to be all shy so made them a cave but they spent about an hour swimming in the current.

Heres one on a hygrophila difformis leaf

Also got 5 free MTS (I think they are those?)

Nice pic of my longer finned bolivian

sexing pics... the one with the longer fins bosses the other one around a little, nudges its side occasionally... rather than lip locking. Not the best pics sorry the longer finned one is more brave so I'm not sure if any of those pictures are of the other one

 

[kaivalagi]

Looking very good so far Si, I would leave it for a few more days atleast to see how things pan out...I am not sure on sexing those rams but hopefully you do indeed have a male and female and fingers crossed they get it on in time. They are very young right now so only time will tell...

Definitely get some slate in there, maybe a fairly small chunky piece just to the left of center between those 2 pieces of bogwood? If you put another piece more upfront in the middle that would be nice too but a bit of seclusion would be best

You ought to try and feed your rams with something other than blood worm now, all my cichlids munch on catfish pellets (sinking) but also pick off floating cichlid pellets too. If you need to sink cichlid pellets do as suggested above and leave some in some tank water in a cup for a good 10 minutes, them if need be squeeze the air out of them so thay sink...then put them in the tank. I'm using Hikari pellets, they do mini size pellets and although I haven't found any yet they do make sinking cichlid pellets too...
Pellets, flake and some deshelled mushed peas etc will provide what blood worm can't in terms of nutrition so it's important you mix the food types. I usually give blood worm/brine shrimp once or maybe twice a week if I feel generous
The fact that they are eating the tablets too means they are not being fussy so you should be in a good situation for other foods.

Feed the kuhlis after lights out before you go to bed, they'll get their food then for sure.

And yes, those are MTS you have, looks like quite a nice shell pattern on those! You'll be lucky to see them more than once a week though

 

[meguro]

bottom pic left female, right male.
3rd pic is female
2nd pic is male
and i think 1st pic is another shot of the female?

i wouldnt use hikari sinking cichlid gold for them, the smallest size available cant be eaten by these fish until theyre full size. i would continue to feed them the algae wafers and look at a different cichlid pellet. i used a good one ages back but i couldnt ever find it again and never bothered to take note of what the name was. so now i use hikari micro pellets and micro wafers instead of the one i can no longer find. i still feed them flakes and algae wafers etc.

 

[PDSimon]

Looking very good so far Si, I would leave it for a few more days atleast to see how things pan out...I am not sure on sexing those rams but hopefully you do indeed have a male and female and fingers crossed they get it on in time. They are very young right now so only time will tell...

Definitely get some slate in there, maybe a fairly small chunky piece just to the left of center between those 2 pieces of bogwood? If you put another piece more upfront in the middle that would be nice too but a bit of seclusion would be best

You ought to try and feed your rams with something other than blood worm now, all my cichlids munch on catfish pellets (sinking) but also pick off floating cichlid pellets too. If you need to sink cichlid pellets do as suggested above and leave some in some tank water in a cup for a good 10 minutes, them if need be squeeze the air out of them so thay sink...then put them in the tank. I'm using Hikari pellets, they do mini size pellets and although I haven't found any yet they do make sinking cichlid pellets too...
Pellets, flake and some deshelled mushed peas etc will provide what blood worm can't in terms of nutrition so it's important you mix the food types. I usually give blood worm/brine shrimp once or maybe twice a week if I feel generous
The fact that they are eating the tablets too means they are not being fussy so you should be in a good situation for other foods.

Feed the kuhlis after lights out before you go to bed, they'll get their food then for sure.

And yes, those are MTS you have, looks like quite a nice shell pattern on those! You'll be lucky to see them more than once a week though

I hope they're a pair

I'll have a look around for a bit more slate.. Have only got thin roofing slate which is all smashed up now...

Thanks for the info... do they eat courgette and stuff like that too? The tablet they're munching away at on the picture is a proper sinking tablet rather than algae wafer so should be pretty good.

The kuhlis take a while to realise their is food their but seem to have cleaned it all up...

It was quite good because I just found them in the bag with one of the amanos... so all free

bottom pic left female, right male.
3rd pic is female
2nd pic is male
and i think 1st pic is another shot of the female?

i wouldnt use hikari sinking cichlid gold for them, the smallest size available cant be eaten by these fish until theyre full size. i would continue to feed them the algae wafers and look at a different cichlid pellet. i used a good one ages back but i couldnt ever find it again and never bothered to take note of what the name was. so now i use hikari micro pellets and micro wafers instead of the one i can no longer find. i still feed them flakes and algae wafers etc.

Thats confusing! because the 2nd and 3rd pictures are the same fish... the other one kept hiding. The last pic on the right is that same fish too. Not quite sure which pic the first one is of.

Cheers, I will probably get some pellets of some sort soon enough.



Everyone who reads this should look at the last pic, above the rams on the bottom of the wood I only just saw it and i was looking ages to see where they were yesterday haha.

note for me: pH 7-6.8

 

[meguro]

well tbh i was really only giving my best gues for pics 1 and 3 as i never really use those angles to determine sex. and in the one pic where the fish is at a nice angle, his ventral fins are close to his body =) but im fairly certain pic 2 is male, and that the female is left, male is right in last pic

 

[PDSimon]

Awesome, I think you're right because behaviour wise the 'male' long finned ram annoys the other ram by poking it in the side but then they follow each other around all the time resting together and sifting through the substrate together so it seems like they're best mates if not a pair!