up with the hatchets

[Magnum Man]

so, I still have a nice shoal of hatchets, spread out fully across this open top tank... I don't think I've had any leapers... this one is easy to see in this spot with no roots...

 

[Innesfan]

This has been a learning experience for me. Hatchets in an uncovered tank but with lots of overhead plant cover. I would not have predicted this happy outcome. Good for you!

 

[GaryE]

I was able to keep several F-1 Epiplatys in open tanks with overhanging Pothos leaves. They were young hatched and grown here, and I took the risk accordingly.
With wilds I had bought, I wouldn't have, but I had a good population. I find they jump like hatchets.

It's also important to run a calm tank. Startle any surface fish and it'll escape. But my strigata hatchets have a tank with an HOB and they could get out. They would have in the tanks I had in my teens. Here, now, there are three types of Pothos vines trailing over that tank, and they seem very calm. I haven't lost one, though they are in a tank any killie could leap out of in seconds.

The little myersi (wonderful fish) have a tight cover. I find it interesting that the broad leaves can be above the lights of the tank, and the traditional leapers aren't leaping.

Finally, I have surface fish who believe none of the birds they imagine lurking in my fishroom can get to them.

 

[Back in the fold]

Very interesting . Leaves above the aquarium calming leapers . I found out early about the much deserved reputation of Killifish as leapers and I take no chances at all . Hatchetfish would get the same precautions . I just don’t think I could sleep at night knowing my aquarium’s were uncovered with Killies or Hatchets in them .

 

[anewbie]

Very interesting . Leaves above the aquarium calming leapers . I found out early about the much deserved reputation of Killifish as leapers and I take no chances at all . Hatchetfish would get the same precautions . I just don’t think I could sleep at night knowing my aquarium’s were uncovered with Killies or Hatchets in them .

Kind of make sense when you think about birds. But the part i don't get is hatchet also jump for bugs so if they spot an insect they are still going to jump...

 

[Innesfan]

But my strigata hatchets have a tank with an HOB and they could get out.
.

Are you saying the pothos fill in the gap required for the return flow of an HOB? And the Carnegiella stay where they are for water changes? That's where I've had issues--HOB and water changes.

 

[Magnum Man]

my tank has 2 hob filters, and water changes have never been a problem, most likely because I'm not opening a big "hole in the sky" I have a J hooked screened suction end, that slips between the plants, and a J hook fill end, that also slips between the plants, so the only way they know it's water change is a minimally invasive pipe, and a lowering, and raising of the water level... no big ugly thing hovering above the tank...

 

[Magnum Man]

water change day today... slipping in the draw tube

 

[Magnum Man]

water fully out... 3 hatchets were visible to me at the surface along the front, at this point...

 

[Magnum Man]

inserting the fill...

 

[Magnum Man]

water changed in 11 aquariums in 20 minutes, and no hatchets n the floor...

 

[gwand]

water changed in 11 aquariums in 20 minutes, and no hatchets n the floor...

Lucky man. I have seven active tanks. My 60 gallon tank takes straight well water. Because the water contains a substantial nitrate level, I use a nitrate binding resin filter. For the resin to bind nitrate, the flow rate can’t be more than 1 gallon every four minutes. So you can see how long it takes for me to replace 30% of the water in the 60 gallon tank. It’s a process that takes me all morning.Lol.

 

[Magnum Man]

this was all RO from my full 100 gallon tank, used about 80 gallons today... I'll have to split them, when the 250 gallon gets filled, that one will have to be a whole tank, by itself...