I think I just bought some *very* expensive feeders...
- Thread starter Geeky1
- Start date
I find that "feeders" are unreasonably expensive in the US, based solely on Northeast experience (NY, MA, NJ, CT,...). I have also run into a lot of sub-par breeding, which is why I try to breed my own food as much as possible when in the states. I have never heard of single shrimp being sold for more than 50 cents, that seems ridiculous to me. However, I only deal with a limited number of retailers.
Your arowana should love the shrimp Geeky. How are you finding the agression between it and the cichlids? Im assuming its a silver, so he should get pretty nasty soon
Your arowana should love the shrimp Geeky. How are you finding the agression between it and the cichlids? Im assuming its a silver, so he should get pretty nasty soon
Yeah, it's a silver. For right now, he seems to be totally passive. It's actually kind of funny- the Cichlids seem to be scared sh*tless of it. Everything else in the tank (Rainbowfish, the Cichlids, 2 cories, and a clown plec) sees the Arowana coming, and they just get the hell out of the way. Nothing in the tank is small enough to be eaten (the Arowana is a bit smaller than I thought- I measured it roughly, and it's more like 3-4", and everything else in the tank is at least 1", and tall enough that it can't get them in its mouth).
I haven't seen the cichlids pick on the Arowana at all, and I haven't seen the Arowana go after any of the fish in the tank. Most of the fish stay near the bottom of the tank anyhow, so the Arowana has the top more-or-less to itself.
The Spilurum cichlids are pretty peaceful anyhow. I'm stuck with a 10 gallon for right now (it's a bit overstocked, but it's insanely over-filtered, too, so...) This page says the minimum tank size is 25 gallons. I've got 3 1.5-2" long ones in the 10, and they're quite happy. All 3 of them eat, they chase each other sometimes, but not excessively. None of them are harassed enough to show any signs of stress, so...
I haven't seen the cichlids pick on the Arowana at all, and I haven't seen the Arowana go after any of the fish in the tank. Most of the fish stay near the bottom of the tank anyhow, so the Arowana has the top more-or-less to itself.
The Spilurum cichlids are pretty peaceful anyhow. I'm stuck with a 10 gallon for right now (it's a bit overstocked, but it's insanely over-filtered, too, so...) This page says the minimum tank size is 25 gallons. I've got 3 1.5-2" long ones in the 10, and they're quite happy. All 3 of them eat, they chase each other sometimes, but not excessively. None of them are harassed enough to show any signs of stress, so...
:shake:
The complete stock list at this point is:
1 3-4" silver Arowana
3 1-2" Spilurum cichlids
5 1-2" Celebes Rainbows
1 1.5" Dwarf Rainbow
2 ~1.5" Julii (I believe- I've had them forever and I can't remember for sure anymore) Corys
1 ~3" Clown plec
Sooo, it's about 27" of fish. The generally accepted rule is 1-2" per
gallon, but just because that's the accepted standard does not mean that it's actually relevant to anything.
My first setup in this tank had a huge number of fish in it... I started out with a few white clouds, fancy guppies, some bronze cories, etc. I also ended up with a couple of goldfish from a science class.
So, it originally had something like 3 2" goldfish, about 30 0.5-1" common guppies (I started off with like 5, but you know how guppies are...) about 4 1.5" or so fancy guppies, 3 or 4 white clouds, 4 bronze cats, and like 8 Otos. I think I had a siamese fighting fish in there, as well, but I can't remember if I took him out later on or not.
Regardless, the tank was certainly overcrowded in terms of the amount of space the fish had, and the goldfish kind of drove everything nuts, but:
-I never had any diseases with that tank
-The plants grew very well, despite the goldfish
-All of the fish appeared healthy- no torn fins, not emaciated, etc.
-They all ate well
The way the tank is now, the plants are growing like crazy (I just pulled out the plants to trim them; some of the stems on one species of the plants I have in there (I'm not sure what it is; it's the broad-leaved thing in the foreground of the attached pic) had grown all the way across the tank and were growing out the hole in the lid where the eheim siphon tube exits the tank. The total length was around 32". In a 10g tank, that's enormous. I ended up cutting them way back and getting rid of a lot of the extra, because I just didn't have room for it. My largest Amazon sword was in excess of 8" in diameter before I pruned it back.
Beyond the fact that the plants are growing very well, the fish are all quite healthy. They eat well, they show no signs of stress, no torn fins, nothing. The cichlids do squabble on occasion, but for the most part, they leave each other alone, and I have never seen them get into a serious fight. They chase each other around a bit, but that about covers it.
So, if the fish aren't showing any signs of stress, they eat very well (including the Arowana), and the plants are happy, I fail to see the problem.
I've kept all sorts of things that people said couldn't be kept in a 10 gallon tank with no problems what-so-ever.
For example, the last setup I had was discus. I tore the tank down a while back, and in the middle of cycling it, I saw 3 baby Turquoise discus that the LFS wanted $19 for. I'd been toying with the idea of keeping discus for a while, and $19 for all 3 of them was a steal, so I bought them.
I finished cycling my tank with Discus. How many did I loose? 1, 2, all 3? Try 0. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Anyone who has trouble keeping Turquoise Discus is either:
a- An idiot
b- Not willing to provide the attention required, which is no more than any other fish.
I cycled the tank with them, and then I kept them for a few months before deciding that they were getting too big for the tank and that I wanted to try something else. However, for the 6 months or so that I kept them, they grew very well, and they ate everything they were offered, including flakes. I never had a problem getting them to accept the flake food, ever. They never got sick, even when I accidentally left the heater unplugged all night in a 65*F room. No ich after that, no nothing. They were NOT happy about being that cold, but once the tank warmed up again, they were all fine. For all intents and purposes, keeping Discus is no different from and no more difficult than keeping Angelfish, at least in my experience.
I've had baby Angels in there, as well. I've also had a basically full-grown pearl Gourami. I had a fairly small (4") Elephant nose for a while as well, and it was very happy in there.
Basically, my point is that just because something is generally accepted as being something that should not or cannot be done doesn't mean it cannot or should not be done.
So, for right now, it's fine. My siblings have finally gotten interested in aquariums, so I took them to the pet store today and got them set up. There were a couple of things that caught my eye- tiger barbs, checkered barbs, white clouds, neon tetras and guppies, in particular. I've had them all before (except the Tetras), but I may end up selling what's in the tank now (except the catfish) and replace them with a fairly large school (~10-15) of small neons, guppies, white clouds, checkered barbs or tiger barbs...
1 3-4" silver Arowana
3 1-2" Spilurum cichlids
5 1-2" Celebes Rainbows
1 1.5" Dwarf Rainbow
2 ~1.5" Julii (I believe- I've had them forever and I can't remember for sure anymore) Corys
1 ~3" Clown plec
Sooo, it's about 27" of fish. The generally accepted rule is 1-2" per
gallon, but just because that's the accepted standard does not mean that it's actually relevant to anything.
My first setup in this tank had a huge number of fish in it... I started out with a few white clouds, fancy guppies, some bronze cories, etc. I also ended up with a couple of goldfish from a science class.
So, it originally had something like 3 2" goldfish, about 30 0.5-1" common guppies (I started off with like 5, but you know how guppies are...) about 4 1.5" or so fancy guppies, 3 or 4 white clouds, 4 bronze cats, and like 8 Otos. I think I had a siamese fighting fish in there, as well, but I can't remember if I took him out later on or not.
Regardless, the tank was certainly overcrowded in terms of the amount of space the fish had, and the goldfish kind of drove everything nuts, but:
-I never had any diseases with that tank
-The plants grew very well, despite the goldfish
-All of the fish appeared healthy- no torn fins, not emaciated, etc.
-They all ate well
The way the tank is now, the plants are growing like crazy (I just pulled out the plants to trim them; some of the stems on one species of the plants I have in there (I'm not sure what it is; it's the broad-leaved thing in the foreground of the attached pic) had grown all the way across the tank and were growing out the hole in the lid where the eheim siphon tube exits the tank. The total length was around 32". In a 10g tank, that's enormous. I ended up cutting them way back and getting rid of a lot of the extra, because I just didn't have room for it. My largest Amazon sword was in excess of 8" in diameter before I pruned it back.
Beyond the fact that the plants are growing very well, the fish are all quite healthy. They eat well, they show no signs of stress, no torn fins, nothing. The cichlids do squabble on occasion, but for the most part, they leave each other alone, and I have never seen them get into a serious fight. They chase each other around a bit, but that about covers it.
So, if the fish aren't showing any signs of stress, they eat very well (including the Arowana), and the plants are happy, I fail to see the problem.
I've kept all sorts of things that people said couldn't be kept in a 10 gallon tank with no problems what-so-ever.
For example, the last setup I had was discus. I tore the tank down a while back, and in the middle of cycling it, I saw 3 baby Turquoise discus that the LFS wanted $19 for. I'd been toying with the idea of keeping discus for a while, and $19 for all 3 of them was a steal, so I bought them.
I finished cycling my tank with Discus. How many did I loose? 1, 2, all 3? Try 0. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Anyone who has trouble keeping Turquoise Discus is either:
a- An idiot
b- Not willing to provide the attention required, which is no more than any other fish.
I cycled the tank with them, and then I kept them for a few months before deciding that they were getting too big for the tank and that I wanted to try something else. However, for the 6 months or so that I kept them, they grew very well, and they ate everything they were offered, including flakes. I never had a problem getting them to accept the flake food, ever. They never got sick, even when I accidentally left the heater unplugged all night in a 65*F room. No ich after that, no nothing. They were NOT happy about being that cold, but once the tank warmed up again, they were all fine. For all intents and purposes, keeping Discus is no different from and no more difficult than keeping Angelfish, at least in my experience.
I've had baby Angels in there, as well. I've also had a basically full-grown pearl Gourami. I had a fairly small (4") Elephant nose for a while as well, and it was very happy in there.
Basically, my point is that just because something is generally accepted as being something that should not or cannot be done doesn't mean it cannot or should not be done.
So, for right now, it's fine. My siblings have finally gotten interested in aquariums, so I took them to the pet store today and got them set up. There were a couple of things that caught my eye- tiger barbs, checkered barbs, white clouds, neon tetras and guppies, in particular. I've had them all before (except the Tetras), but I may end up selling what's in the tank now (except the catfish) and replace them with a fairly large school (~10-15) of small neons, guppies, white clouds, checkered barbs or tiger barbs...
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Regardless of common practice when it comes to stocking- common logic dictates that very soom most of those fish are going to have to go. Arowanas get huge - I'm not trying to be a jerk but seriously, why did you put one in a ten gallon?
Oh, I assure you, it won't stay in the 10g. What will happen to it depends. For right now, I'm stuck with a 10g, period. If I get a bigger tank when I go to college this summer, it could end up in there, or I might put it in the tank that my grandparents bought for their office (10'x2'x3'), which is finally going to be here next week. What'll probably happen is I'll let it get to 4-5" and then sell it.
Why did I put one in there in the first place? Two reasons:
1-I like Arowanas
2-I wanted to try my hand at keeping one for a while.
Since I'm stuck with a 10g, instead of keeping only small fish, sometimes I buy very young fish of species that get much too big for the tank, like the Discus, Angels, Arowana, and the Elephant Nose. I'll keep them for a while (anywhere from a month to a year, depending on how fast they grow) and then sell them.
Why did I put one in there in the first place? Two reasons:
1-I like Arowanas
2-I wanted to try my hand at keeping one for a while.
Since I'm stuck with a 10g, instead of keeping only small fish, sometimes I buy very young fish of species that get much too big for the tank, like the Discus, Angels, Arowana, and the Elephant Nose. I'll keep them for a while (anywhere from a month to a year, depending on how fast they grow) and then sell them.
And I just realized I forgot to attach the aforementioned pic... 
Also, I will concede that putting the Arowana in the tank the way it is now is not an ideal situation, but I was in the store the other day, and they happened to have 10 of them, all about the same size, for $9 each. I found the best looking one, made sure it was eating well, and bought it. Ideally, the tank would have nothing but the arowana and the catfish in it, but given the choice between a good looking arowana now for $9 and waiting 6 months or special ordering a similarly-sized one and paying $20-50 for it, I'd rather just buy it now and keep an eye on it to make sure that the cichlids don't start WWIII with it.
Pic (the plant in the foreground with round leaves- not the cabomba, the other one -is the one that had a couple of 32"+ long stems)
Also, I will concede that putting the Arowana in the tank the way it is now is not an ideal situation, but I was in the store the other day, and they happened to have 10 of them, all about the same size, for $9 each. I found the best looking one, made sure it was eating well, and bought it. Ideally, the tank would have nothing but the arowana and the catfish in it, but given the choice between a good looking arowana now for $9 and waiting 6 months or special ordering a similarly-sized one and paying $20-50 for it, I'd rather just buy it now and keep an eye on it to make sure that the cichlids don't start WWIII with it.
Pic (the plant in the foreground with round leaves- not the cabomba, the other one -is the one that had a couple of 32"+ long stems)
