Big shake up underway, and OMG those Panda Garra’s are tiny…

So, 1st job of the day, shake up the African tank… this is the tank that is near impossible to work on… using a 36” long handled net, I caught the 3 large albino Cory’s, and moved them to one of the empty holding tanks that has fine sand in it… also removed the big white mystery snail, and 1 of the Zebra Nerite snails, as that is the tank we discovered all the baby assassins in, expecting a war between them and the bladder snails

While I was catching Cory’s, I got half of the black Cory’s out of the Asian tank, this involved removing all the hanging plants along the top of the back side, and temporarily removing a big piece of driftwood, as well as one of the bamboo pots… I’d like to move the big Flying Fox as well, to take some pressure of the 5 new Panda Garra’s that I just put in… & I think I was worried, when I added the small spotted Hillstream Loaches, a month back, but these Garra’s are the size of a medium male Guppy… the Tin Foil Barbs that go to 7 inches, had that look in their eye… when the 5 Garra’s went in… an hour later, they were all still good…

A break for supper, and I’ll use Mrs to help me, from the viewing side, while I try to catch the rest of the Cory’s, and that Fox, in the Asian tank, so I can get the plants back in, and I’d like to grab that last Zebra Nerite out of the African tank, so that tank can settle down, before the new “Fantastic's” come

These guys are fearless…. All still there after several hours, and supper break

Good luck. Fish show amazing agility when faced with nets. I had to catch all my fish in my 15 gallon tank to move them to the big one (turned the 15 gal. into a shrimp tank) and it took forever. I, like you, had to remove stuff that I could and just had to get to the point where I just hoped the plants still in there survived LOL.

I started out very careful and was swinging that net around like a madman by the end.

Got the last 2 Cory’s out, decided to leave the foxes since they seem to be behaving, and they are from that region, and couldn’t find the zebra snail, so I’ll have to keep an eye out for that one…

@WhistlingBadger … the tea plants are looking good… when I do the plants like this, they go dormant for 4 - 8 weeks… but they are still looking lush… these pictures of them hung on one of the 10 gallons, while I caught fish… now back in place in the Asian tank again

Mine made it for quite a while. The leaves gradually turned red and fell off, starting with the bottom ones. Looks like yours are doing better!

Also, baby panda garra are adorable. Hope the big guys leave them alone. I've never kept silver dollars but I hear they aren't particularly predatory.

These are the Tin Foil barbs… Silver Dollars are in a tank with the Bichir… if the pandas went in there, they would be gone before I could catch them back out

I see it… the angle of the picture, you can’t see the length… 5 of them, from 5 to 7 inches long

Panda babies doing great… swimming up and snacking on the Tin Foils cookies, while they are waiting for them to soften up… those lil guys have nerves of steel… the only fish that seems to pay them any mind is the biggest Hillstream Loach, and he just shoo’s them away like flies… they are starting to darken up, they were pretty pale yesterday

One of the panda babies cleaning the skimmer portion of one of the filters they are very active in the tank, from the gravel to the top of the tank… one thing I was reading, said they can actually climb out of tanks… with all the plants in this tank, it’s not covered, so hopefully they will stay in the tank

1st picture with the new phone… 10 X magnification

You have some air space between the water surface and the top, right? As long as there are at least a few inches of space, they should stay put. But they certainly will try to climb out on wet surfaces. In the wild, they come from intermittent streams and will crawl from pool to pool, looking for greener pastures. Here's an old video of mine, during the first big water change after I got them. They seem to have decided they didn't care for their new home, and were looking for the first flight back to Myanmar. (Also, a weirdly appropriate song was playing on the radio while this was happening)

Yes, and my tanks most all have that plastic frame around the top, that has a ridge sticking out, so it’s not smooth to the top, I think that would stop them

Magnum Man said:

Yes, and my tanks most all have that plastic frame around the top, that has a ridge sticking out, so it’s not smooth to the top, I think that would stop them

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Yeah, I have one in my 55 gallon rimmed tank and never have seen it go past the water line really.

Ram419 said:

Yeah, I have one in my 55 gallon rimmed tank and never have seen it go past the water line really.

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They will climb up moving water, but otherwise they generally don't. By the way, get a few more if you can. They don't school or shoal, but they are rather social. It's really fun watching them interact with each other.

WhistlingBadger said:

They will climb up moving water, but otherwise they generally don't. By the way, get a few more if you can. They don't school or shoal, but they are rather social. It's really fun watching them interact with each other.

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Funny you say that, I recently added the 5 corys I have to the tank and my panda has been best buds with them since. I might get a few more as you suggest anyways though.

Oh, btw @WhistlingBadger, was wondering how you made that water stream. Looks like some sort of clear glass or plastic tubing at top. I might do that for my panda.

Ram419 said:

Oh, btw @WhistlingBadger, was wondering how you made that water stream. Looks like some sort of clear glass or plastic tubing at top. I might do that for my panda.

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I was just doing a water change, using a small filter pump to refill from a bucket.