Hello Crew!
<Gabby,>
I have this insane humanitarian impulse to save whatever animal in distress I come across,
<Ah!>
but unfortunately when it comes to fish I don't have the necessary resources.
<A common challenge, I fear, for many animal lovers.>
I bought a bag of feeders on impulse after seeing two beautiful tadpoles in there and thinking, "NO WAY am I letting these guys get sold for fish food!" And of course, I tried to save the fish, too, but they all died. I had a 5 gallon tank with no equipment to keep them in at school...less than ideal, but better than the tiny tank they were being kept in with hundreds of other dead and dying feeders.
<Indeed.>
I've raised tadpoles before, on frozen lettuce, in a plastic sled full of rainwater,
<Would add some tap water, maybe 50/50, dechlorinated of course. Why? Rainwater is very soft, and the minerals in tap water are important for most aquarium animals.>
but these are bigger and they are in a tiny tank. I would like to know what I should feed them, and whether they will harm my fish if I transfer them to my filtered, planted, heated, aerated and cycled community 63-gallon.
<Bullfrog tadpoles are omnivorous, and like most tadpoles feed primarily on algae and decaying plant matter. But I wouldn't trust them with very small fish, small enough to be eaten.>
Can tadpoles carry fish diseases?
<Yes; especially if kept with feeders.>
I have some snails (lots of ramshorns and one or two tiny MTS), will they eat them?
<Possibly, but probably not.>
Also, on my second try at saving feeders, I got what appears to be a 1" convict cichlid in the bag. I loved him on sight and took the fish home with me so they wouldn't get sold as feeders, but he leaped onto the floor and I pulled him up already dry and gummy skinned, but alive. I gave him a salt/methylene blue dip to boost his slime cover and kill any external parasites. I know convicts are aggressive, but is there any chance he'll get along with my angels, swordtail and betta until I can rehome him?
<If "he" is a "she", then possibly; female Convicts can be relatively mellow. Males are a good deal more aggressive, and while some specimens do settle into community tanks just fine, most do not.>
He's only 1" long and my angels are bigger than that, the betta is always hidden in a huge mass of hornwort and the sword is *fast*.
<Indeed, Swordtails are fast fish adapted to flowing streams. They can actually cohabit with less aggressive cichlids reasonably well given sufficient swimming space.>
If there is a chance, how can I ensure he's parasite and disease free before adding him?
<You can't be sure, so quarantine him, or at the very least, medicate him for Whitespot and Velvet, the two biggest risks.>
I'd like to add him now, because he's looking very stressed from his jump and the move, and he's in a ridiculously small tank ATM. Also, this is unrelated, but I have three angels around 2" long. The two silver pearlscales (my vet uncle said they are a male and a female) keep chasing
after the paraibo blushing angel (male, according to my uncle). The female does the most chasing, but sometimes the paraibo angel will turn around and chase them back. Does this mean they have formed a mated pair?
<Possibly, but Angels are notoriously difficult -- actually, impossible --to sex until they start spawning. Sometimes even they get it wrong, and there are stories of two females mating, both laying eggs together! Anyway, mated Angels tend to defend a dark corner of the tank, usually a tall plant leaf or something upright like that. There is occasionally a bit of mouth-tugging. But serious fighting, chasing etc. seems to be territorial rather than pair-boding behaviour.>
Also unrelated...I have 6 "peppered" cories but 2 of them are of a darker hue, are they still the same species?
<Likely so. This species is very variable. Wild-caught ones can look very different to the farmed ones. But there are also some similar species out there, such as Corydoras longipinnis, though you'd usually have paid a premium price for these lookalike species.>
Sorry for the long wall of text...I am just so confused about this! Thank you in advance!
Gabby.
<Hope this helps, Neale.>
