Newbie with a 200l for Colomesus asellus

[InvertPlanet]

well if they are about 3-4cm that is about it....

an MBU ... yea... get ready for a BIG tank and dome serious heavy equipment to treat their teeth.


You could always take it down a notch and get a fahaka.

[jesper]

Sad to hear about the size...I've red "upwards 12-15cm", i hoped for 8-10cm

Still all seems to thrive, getting a steady diet of homebred ramshorns and bloodworms.

That is until yesterday!

One sap, not the smallest but 2. i think, allways have been and still are showing the brightest and nicest colours, well it seems like "apathic" if you understand, drifting along the waterway, sinking/swimming to the bottom and lays down there for a while

Today i took it, along with 4gallon and quarantined it!
Served a few bloodworms but it wont eat

put an airstone inthere too....what to do now, my heart aches for the little geezer

The other 4 behave and look normal...3 kuhlis and 2 plecos look as allways

You're right about the fahaka/mbu
It's just..These fish are so cool in like every way, so beautifull, so specialized and and and...I LOVE 'EM

[jesper]

Thers a dealer with fahakas here, em, like 600km both ways, he wants like 65€ a piece...6cm

[InvertPlanet]

How's that little SAP doing? Are his teeth over grown? Usually bloodworms are like crack for those guys.

[jesper]

He's not good at all

For a while, just after moving him to the quarantinetank, it looked like he freshened up a bit but no, later on last night i had to help him out from behind the filter and same thing this morning.

Teeth are fine, short and even!

He wont touch neither snails nor bloodworms...I'm afraid i will loose him...

I'll get home for lunch today and if theres no improvement i'll have to let him go as i cant stand watching him suffer...

[jesper]

forgot to mention...even thou his teeth are fine they do seem a little dirty?
Towards the sides theres some dark stuff on the teeth but two of the other four saps look the same?

Is it something i should remove?

[InvertPlanet]

Originally Posted by jesper

forgot to mention...even thou his teeth are fine they do seem a little dirty?
Towards the sides theres some dark stuff on the teeth but two of the other four saps look the same?

Is it something i should remove?

Not really sure. With out a pic it is hard to tell. The internal edges are serrated so stuff gets trapped in there quite easily. It is my opinion that they rub their teeth against objects to actually clean them. Just my personal theory.

[jesper]

Unfortunately i lost him last night

When i got home he was at the bottom and not looking good so i did what i now think i should have done a day earlier...

I have noticed they sometimes like stick their mouth in the sand and kind of rubs the mouth...you could be right about the cleaning...I will try to get a pic.

[jesper]

One sap and I

Lots have happened so here's an update.

Of the original 5 sap's only one remains and oc it's the one who's been the topdog from Day 1

Im slowly going Into a lowend brackish at .003 now and the sap lives in perfect harmony with the original kuhlis+2, the original ancistrus and for the past 2weeks a 2" nigroviridis!!
Its amazing but im sure its only cuz the nigroviridis are same lenght as sap only fatter. No nipping no chasing observed at all and actually, im pretty sure i caught them resting together in a cave earlier today

The nigroviridis are only there temp as im setting up yet another tank where i'll try to create a biotop for like 4 or 5 of them. ( or more?)
Its a 240G tank with about 40G background filter, pumps round 1400 G/H
In the process of checking tank be4 struggeling it to the designated area in my basement

Hope to have pics of the tank in a weeks time


Bout the dead sap's...
First 2 lost to ip, other 2 i dunno, both showed slow worsening of "stability" when swimming, like wiggeling from side to side, still eating but ultimately having a very hard time moving at all, surfacing etc. And i ended up finishing the 2. Of Them off myself as to end suffering.