Some new purchases

[andywg]

Well, we've picked up a few of the fish that we are expanding the 6ft tank for. I thought I'd post it here as most of them are of fish you rarely see.

First up are the Spotted Climbing Perch (Ctenopoma acutirostre). These fellows look a little like leaf fish but are less picky about their food. The pic below have captured them (by accident when trying to get the sharks - look near the bogwood)

Next we have a couple of the Bala sharks. The school is now up to 6 with a couple of recent additions. Here we have a coule of Bob and one includes Custard our blind shark (you can see the cloudy eyes) who is the boss and chases away Sharky the 6" shark who is over twice as big

Here's Bob better (Or it might be Roobarb - they are getting a little hard to tell apart).

Finally we have our Pink Tailed Chalceus (Chalceus macrolepidotus) These guys are Characins with needle like teeth that will get to around 8 to 10" when fully grown but are skittish enough to make Bala sharks look relaxed.

Here is the first pair we got hanging out with Roobarb

This picture is nearly ruined by a speeding bala but you can almost make out the gold colouring on the anal and pelvic fins that really makes the fish lovely to look at.

While they may be timid they will eat almost anything they see at the surface, especially prawns and floating carnivore sticks. They soon end up with a lovely rounded belly like this

Last of all, a couple of pics that I feel came out nice. As you can probably tell, I really like these fish

Andy

 

[daudy_dojo]

i like the bala sharks.. i want some soooooooo bad

 

[Paul_MTS]

very nice size sharks!! we had one come into work that looked about that size, 9".

those Pink Tailed Chalceus certainly look like they'll be something special when full grown

what else have you got planned?

 

[andywg]

The basic plan is thus: There'll be balas (currently they range from 2 - 6"), probably 5 Chalceus (looking for two more to spread out possible aggression shown byt the new kid) the two bush fish, 2 butterfly fish, 6 Pictus, a rainbow shark and 2 plecs (a sailfin and an L027c Panaque cf nigrolineatus) and 3 BGKs

All that will be housed in a 6 x 2 x 2 with 2 sump tanks each 24 x 14 wide x 12 tall - aided and abetted by a couple of Vecton UV 25s. The tank will be a little over stocked on the inch per gallon rule but there will be quite a bit of room in there and the sumps can handle a lot of waste. Truth be known I will probably fix a fluidised sand bed onto the sumps to give even further filtration (and attach some form of cut out device to keep the filter going in the even of a power cut).

 

[CFC]

The Chalceus are not C.macrolepidotus but C.erythrurus the yellow finned pink tail Chalceus.


Nice pictures

 

[andywg]

Oooh. I never knew.

Silly lfs.

thanks for the complements.

 

[andywg]

Paul, I think the pictures must be misleading. Our largest shark is only 5.5" (I measured him with a ruler after he knocked himself out in a hyper fit a few weeks ago) and the next two are around 4". But they are getting bigger, all except the blind one who exhibits minimal growth but who definately eats.

CFC, do you have any good info on C. erythrurus as I can't find any where on the web. Most places just group them and C. macrolepidotus together though I can notice how the smaller newer one has clear fins and the other two hve the gold fins.

I am assuming they will reach a similar size (10") with a similar diet (anything in the upper levels of the tank).

Andy

 

[CFC]

The C.erythrurus are basicly the same fish as C.microlepidotus but with different colour pelvic and anal fins. One tip with either fish is to include pleanty of meaty foods in their diet to keep the red in their tail bright and deep, if fed too much on flake and pellet foods the colour fades.

 

[Paul_MTS]

Paul, I think the pictures must be misleading. Our largest shark is only 5.5" (I measured him with a ruler after he knocked himself out in a hyper fit a few weeks ago) and the next two are around 4". But they are getting bigger, all except the blind one who exhibits minimal growth but who definately eats.

yeh they look alot bigger than that in the first 2 pics. we have 4" ones in at work and are nothing like that!!

 

[andywg]

Cheers CFC

Well, the Chalceus (like the rest of that tank) get fed a variation of flakes (the butterfly fish and the Chalceus love them) floating carnivore pellets, sinking catfish pellets, frozen prawn, frozen bloodworm, frozen daphnia, frozen mussels, and an occasional feeding of river shrimp, live bloodworm and live daphnia.

Once the fish in the tank are a bit larger I will start using lance fish as well.

Paul, I think we have managed to get some very deep bodied balas (probably too fat ) and they do look larger in that picture. My lengths do not include the caudal fins BTW.