Still In The Bad Week Apparently

[Gankutsuou]

as the topic says... he passed away.

And not for the common reasons you might think.
It's the same problem my peacock eel had.

anorexic. apparently, by looking at his body now, he hasn't eaten since I tossed in live brine to try to get the anorexic eel to eat... dang.... I didn't see him as THAT skinny. that's why it's bad to have a fish who hides in foilage that much I guess....

another factor that could have affected the water chemestry under the radar of test kits would be the bog wood, which could have caused maybe something to come in and iritate him, but looking at his body and how he was acting funny the past 2 days, I'd say a lack of eating killed him.

 

[sic0198]

Elephant Noses are hard to feed.

 

[Gnatfish]

Out of interest, what are your water parameters? They prefer soft acidic water, right?

 

[WILDER]

 

[jayjay]

The most common reason is, elephant nose struggle to feed with competition.

 

[Lynden]

I am sorry to hear about the death.

May I suggest buying a baby one next time? I once had a baby ( <3'' ) and he competed well with the other fish, and even swam at the front of the tank when I was in the room, greedily begging for food. He eventually died when we went on vacation.

I also have had an adult ( >7'' ) Elephant Nose that was the crankiest, most mean-spirited fish I have ever owned. He had the nerve to bite me whenever I put my hand in the tank, and stayed in his cave 24 hours a day. Old bastard.

-Lynden

 

[Gankutsuou]

thanks all. Last week it was 7.0, but since I added the bogwood I should recheck it. But doesn't bogwood turn it soft?

And yes, there's a place that got some baby ones. after x-mas I'll get one. Hopefully he'll be more personable to the environment and not turn out to be super submissive and shy like this guy was.

I still miss the old guy. It feels so empty without his occasional checking of the tank or floating in the plants staring at me. Now it's just the eels taking peeks at me

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

If you get an elephant nose, you should simply not expect it to last- they are one of the most ill-equiped/designed fish to cope with aquarium life, no matter what you do. How much do you already know about these fish ?

 

[Gankutsuou]

tokis - I know enough to have made the profile for them here on TFF
Here it is.

looking at the pictures (as that's how he always looked from the side), I still can;t see him as being skinny. usually all I saw was his side or face, which looked bulky always. but when I had to fish him out, hid body was skinny....

either

A: I didn't let the brine thaw long enough
B: He didn't eat frozen brine period, and only ate bloodworms, which I ran out of a bit ago
C: the only time he might have ever eaten was the 3 day period with live brine
D: he didn't eat after I fed live brine, becoming picky.
E: After the addition of the brochis, he got outcompeted for food.

Those could all be factors leading to the death of him. But it wasn't water quality. nothing went down in my system the wrong way. Kinda sad... I had remodeled the tank around him so he could manuver and hide too.

I knew they weren't competitive and were hard to feed, but I thought, "surely if my peacock eels can get food, he can too." but I was wrong...

so when/if I get the new one, the changes will be

A: a baby one
B: one cube of blood worms and one cube of brine in the tank each night instead of just two cubes of brine.
C: turn of the tank light an hour before feeding instead of 5 minutes to get him out and about more

That should help I'm hoping. and it'd be after I get the 30. so the brochis and portholes would be in there, so competition for food would be MUCH more lax.

edit: and the white hole rock was only in for a week. it's in the 10 now. It got re-replaced by slate, and then bogwood.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

You forget though that;

a. Elephant nose fish are very sensitive to eletrical signals- its how they communicate and find their food after all. But an aquarium which things like filters and heaters running it though creates a lot of stray electricity, and a lot of people believe that it is this constant, stressful electricity that stress elephant nose fish to their deaths.

b. As you know, they are very picky eaters. In the wild they pick up the electrical signals of worms living in muddy substrate at the bottom of deep rivers and eat them. It is very difficult to successfully move elephant nose fish onto dead food, most only accept live worms like blackworms and bloodworms- one of the most common causes of death in elephant nose fish is starvation, often from the failure to feed them well.
It is also very difficult to recreate the same soft muddy conditions elephant nose fish feed in when designing an aquarium habitat for elephant nose fish.

c. They are agressive yet also very sociable fish. They don't like each others kind yet they need their own kind to socialise with. This is a problem since these two needs are in the extreme's, and it can become increasingly difficult to keep them together as they mature without them hassling each other to death- on the other hand though, they do just as bad when kept on their own.
A lot of people have put the cause of this problem down to lack of space- 150gallons is now the accepted minimum tank size for elephant nose fish, since it is recommended to keep them in groups of 5; to find out more, see;

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=357

Most people can only expect these fish to live for around 4months, it is very rare for them to last years even in the hands of very experienced fishkeepers.

 

[Yetti]

Yes, live foods like earthworms make them live for a long time. I used to have a fully grown one 6 years ago. it lived for about 6 years or so in my aquarium, and then I had to get rid of the tank.

 

[Gnatfish]

IMHO, it wouldnt be wise to get another one..

 

[Gankutsuou]

I had heard of them being sociable, but never as a required grouping fish....

and yes, the feeding is hard...

and the electrical impulse is supposed to do other things, and I haven;t heard of attributing heaters and filters to stress...

no. I'll probably skip on a new one.