Large Pleco

I don't normally see the largest pleco in my community tank because he generally comes out at night and is tucked inside a tree trunk during the day.

But this morning I found Mick Jaggerfish hanging on the side glass, so I snapped these photographs.

In this one above, you can see his reflection in the glass. He is approximately 15 inches long.

And in the second photograph, it was taken from outside the tank looking in. He gets along very well with all the other fish, and helps to keep the algae from forming on the glass.





An Update on Emmie Lou

You might recall the white marble angelfish that was born to Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick a few months ago. She was the only survivor in that particular clutch of fish, though both before and after, that couple had several clutches with many survivors who have since grown to adulthood.

Because I spent so much time and effort trying to keep the sole angelfish baby alive, I decided to keep her and I named her Emmie Lou. She was introduced to a community tank where I have a good proportion of females to males. I was hoping that she was a female (difficult to determine until she was older) because another male in the tank could be problematic with possible territorial issues.

I'm very happy to say that Emmie Lou is doing great and yes, she is a female. She is younger than any of the other angelfish in the tank, so her size is much smaller in comparison. But here she is with a male blue marble and a male koi angel.

It's feeding time and you can see the food floating on the water's surface.



Clutch Number 10

Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick have laid a 10th clutch of eggs. You might recall that they laid a clutch just a couple of weeks ago. However, none of those eggs survived. Sometimes I think the parents look at their offspring like a batch of cookies.

"Oh, we can do better than that," the mother says.

"I agree," says the papa. "Let's eat these and start over."

They have used the same amazon leaf for this latest batch. You can spot them easily because they are stark white.

Stevie Fishnick is a platinum angel with a gold crown.

If this clutch is like their others, about half of the fish will be black marbles like their papa, and half will be gold marbles - a golden or white background with black marbling.

Emmie Lou

Emmie Lou is between three and four months old now, and doing great. Like a typical female angelfish, she is small for her age. She spends more time alone, and now that she's discovered that food is plentiful, she no longer eats like it's her last meal.

Because she is a female, she has been more readily accepted into the community tank.

Had she been a male, she would have faced territorial issues from the other two males in the tank, who are constantly vying for a particular female's attention.

You might recall that Emmie Lou was born at my house (the 8th clutch of Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick), below. She is considered a blond marble - a cross between a black marble and a platinum angel. Crosses between black marbles and golden angels are also considered blond marbles.

Spotting the Female Angelfish

Adult female angelfish tend to be smaller than their male counterparts. Their bodies are not as thick but more svelte.

They can often spend more time alone and when it's feeding time, they don't usually push their way to the top as the males do. There are usually more males than females that survive out of a clutch. This could be because the females are not as assertive, even at a young age, so they don't grow as quickly or as strong as their male counterparts.

The angel above was originally named "Alfred". I noticed this one was hanging back, away from the others, and did not eat with the rest of them. I began feeding this one individually but realized when it became an adult that it is a female. She has been renamed Alfreda. She still spends a great deal of her time alone, staring outside the tank. She is almost two years old. Angels can live to be ten years old.

You can have any number of females in a tank, but when you have only 1 or 2 females and several more males, there can often be a display and posturing between the males as they compete for the female's attention (and eggs).

Females tend to become aggressive only when they are protecting their eggs or their young.

Spotting the Male Angelfish

It is nearly impossible to determine whether an angelfish is male or female when they are young. However, as they age, the males develop thicker bodies, tend to be larger than the females, and they often - but not always - have a hump on their heads.

If you are in a pet shop and you see adult angelfish, you can rest assured the females will not have a hump. The males will tend to be more assertive in a tank, and they can become quite aggressive if they are mating or defending their eggs or young.

Angels Ready to Sell

There is quite a discrepancy in the sizes of the angels as they continue to grow. The largest angels have bodies larger than a quarter, and they will go to the pet shop first.

Having the larger ones gone will give the smaller ones more of a chance to grow and flourish. They should then gain weight much faster and will be able to go to the pet shop in about 2-3 more weeks.

The smallest ones, two black marble angels, are not quite a dime in diameter, even though they are from the same clutch. Had the parents remained with them, they would have killed those to give the larger ones a better chance. But these can flourish as well and live long and happy lives. I've seen it happen!

Batch Nine

I've decided to number the latest batch of eggs Batch Nine. Yesterday I posted some pictures, and today I have this short video of Stevie watching over the eggs. The video was taken as I was looking down into the tank.

The angels prefer to lay their eggs on amazon leaves. This time, they selected a leaf where I see only the back of it when I approach the tank. This gives the eggs more privacy, for sure!

As they get close to hatching, the parents will clean other leaves and adhere the babies to the leaves by their heads, where they will dangle until they are large enough and strong enough to pop off and swim.

Meanwhile the Honeymoon Suite is Working...

As the current batch of angelfish fry get large enough to sell, Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick are starting yet another family.

I found these eggs on the red amazon plant. This is Stevie watching over them.

It might look at if she is simply watching them (kind of like watching water boil) but she is performing a very important function. The pectoral fins are fins that are on either side of the angelfish's body. They are constantly in movement, and when Stevie is watching over the eggs as she's doing in the picture above, the movement of those pectoral fins actually fans the eggs. This keeps fungus from forming on them. Fungus, as you might guess, will kill the eggs.

When the parents are removed after laying the eggs, an air tube can be placed directly under the eggs to keep the water moving around them. This will also prevent fungus. As a last resort, a chemical can be added to the water to kill the fungus, but I don't like using that method.

I prefer to keep both parents with the fry until after they have hatched and are free swimming. However, I have learned if they remain together for too long, the parents will kill the weakest and smallest of the group, in order to ensure survival of the strongest and fittest. So I separate them a few weeks after the fry are free-swimming.

Here is Lindsay and Stevie together, watching over their eggs.

This is a 20 gallon tank, and these two angels are the only ones in the tank - plus their eggs.

Alpha and Omega

With a clutch of fish, some emerge as alphas and some as omegas.

Alpha angelfish are almost always male. Within a few weeks, they are twice the size of their brothers and sisters. They are the ones that learn the quickest and are the pushiest when it comes to food and survival.

Omega angelfish can be female or very passive males. They are the smallest angelfish and usually stay away from the others in their group. You'll often seeing them going their own way - when their brothers and sisters are crowded at the surface of the water to eat, they are at the gravel level, or hiding amid the landscape.

If I'd allowed the parents to remain with their young, they would have killed and eaten the omega angelfish in order to give the largest and more robust babies a better chance at survival, which also means less competition for food.

Because I separated the parents very soon after their babies hatched, it gave all the fish - even the omegas - a better chance at survival, because there are no predators and there is plenty of food for all. In the video below, you'll see the variety in size between the alphas and omegas.

Discrepancy in Sizes

As the angelfish babies continue to grow and flourish, some have established themselves as alpha fish while others languish far behind.

In one batch of fry, there are always some who will quickly become twice as large as the others. They are the ones who come to the surface first, who are less afraid of danger and who eagerly await my visits to their tank with food in hand.

Others will end up very small. These could be females, or they could be omega fish. They tend to hide behind the plants longer, are less eager to come to the tank glass, and are far less adventuresome. They spend much of their time near the bottom of the tank.

This is normal with a batch of fish fry. However, as time passes, the smaller ones will catch up, though the females will typically remain smaller than the males. Eventually, they will all be quite accustomed to human faces and the food humans dispense.

I have begun feeding them finely crushed dry flakes in conjunction with the dried brine shrimp and First Bites. They will soon transition to the flakes and dried shrimp, and then almost exclusively to flakes, as I ready them for their new homes.

Friday Friends - Lucy and Teddy

Lucy Loo (yes, that spelling is correct) loves her Teddy Bear.

The Newly Renovated Honeymoon Suite

I wanted to separate Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick from their latest batch of babies before they began culling them - meaning before they began to decide who was fit to be their offspring and who was better off as sushi.

So I renovated their honeymoon suite, a 20-gallon tank directly above the Infant Tank but positioned where they could not see their babies.

In the beginning, they sulked. They clearly missed their babies and all the work that went into laying the eggs, transferring them to clean leaves to hang by their heads, and then vigorously defending them from me every time I went near the tank.

But I know the babies are much better off without their parents at this point. Tomorrow, learn why.

Friday Friends - Lucy and the NBC Nightly News

Each evening I sit in the living room and attempt to watch the Nightly News with Brian Williams. Every night when Lucy hears his voice, she begins running around the living room, tearing through the house, jumping on the back of the couch, and running in circles.

Here's a video I took of her:

The other Jack Russell, Eddie, sits and watches her go crazy.

When the Nightly News goes off the air, she calms right down.

I wonder what it is about the NBC Nightly News that has her so animated?

Blue Marbles

Here is a video of a pair of blue marble angelfish in a community tank. They share this tank with the two blue angels I videoed last week. The blue marbles have staked their claim on the right side of the tank while the blue angels claim the left side.

But when the four sleep, they drift all over the tank.

Eddie Sings

I took a break from writing and found Eddie, the Jack Russell, sitting next to my desk. His favorite song is the Andy Griffith song, and I sang it with him several times. But when I pulled out my iPhone to film, he became shy and hid for a bit under my desk.

He does start to sing, though!



The Blues

Here is a fun video of my two blue angelfish in a community tank.

They are my largest angelfish, along with Lindsay Buckingfish, the black marble in the Honeymoon Suite. These angelfish are ten inches tall.

Symptoms of a Sick Fish

Because fish have such short lifespans, I can spot a fish who is naturally nearing the end of it's life versus one that has a virus or bacterial infection.

In this video, I have a white long-skirted tetra in the tank with a variety of tetra and angelfish. Symptoms that she is nearing the end are:

(1) Weight loss

(2) Staying away from the other fish, often hiding

(3) Not eating with the others and having no appetite

(4) Swimming with the nose up instead of the usual horizontal swimming

(5) The eyes will often look much larger as the fish loses weight

In a case such as this, it's important not to treat the entire tank with antibiotics or other remedies, as you'd be treating all the healthy fish. Treating healthy fish means they will develop an immunity to the remedies and when they need them, they will be ineffective.

Instead, the two choices are: allow nature to run its course or remove the affected fish from the community tank and place her (or him) in a hospital tank. For the average sized fish, this can be as small as one or two gallons. For an angelfish, it should be 10 gallons. This allows you to treat the sick fish with smaller doses.

Angelfish Thriving in Betta Tank

Well, these unlikely tank mates are getting along just fine.

The three angelfish are doing very well and are swimming around much more than they did under the overprotective care of their parents.





In the video, you can see the golden double-comb betta resting on the bottom of the tank. He's been that way for several weeks. He comes up and eats, and also checks the surface for air every now and again, but seems to be content resting on the bottom.

The betta hasn't tried to bother the baby angels, and they have not bothered him at all.

This tank is only 2.5 gallons so the angels can't stay there for very long. Once their bodies grow to the size of a quarter, they will be ready to go to the pet shop and then to their forever homes.

I believe the black angel is a male. I am not sure yet about the two white marbles.

Babies Growing and Flourishing

As the babies continue to grow, they have become more active. They've discovered they have no predators in the tank so they are swimming further from the safety of Mama's and Papa's fins. They have beautiful vertical fins now. The height of the fins is directly related to the amount of space they have in which to grow, and it sets the stage for the rest of their lives. With Papa, Lindsay Buckingfish, being ten inches tall, these babies have good genes.

The blue thing in the upper corner is a way to clean the algae off the glass without me having to put my hand in the tank. With the parents vigilantly defending their babies against any perceived threats, I really don't want a fish bite when I'm just trying to clean. The blue cleaner has two parts - one on the inside and a magnetic one on the outside. That way, I can move it around on the outside of the glass and the corresponding piece on the inside cleans off the algae.