View Full Version : another pic
santoury
02-28-2007, 1:02 AM
Here's an albino dolloi. Sorry about the lousy photo... laptop camera LOL
Bogwoodbruce
02-28-2007, 2:07 AM
Cool, but i think that i prefer the normal colouration.
Is it yours? (how big is it?)
santoury
02-28-2007, 1:51 PM
I'll admit I prefer the natural colors as well, but then again, I have them in 3 colors ... pink (albino), black, and gray. The black is my favorite.
He's about 2 feet now. And yes, he's mine.
Wow 3 dolloi's that's nice... you must be spending tons on food.
I actually have a weak spot for albino's. how big are your other one's and what do you feed them?
santoury
03-01-2007, 4:16 AM
Not to brag or anything, but because you asked about feeding them.... I have over 30 lungfishes, and yes, it's a lot of work. BUT the great thing is I currently live on a college campus, and get all kinds of meats from the cafeteria under my meal plan, so I am always bringing them all kinds of goodies to munch on without taking a penny out of my pocket. In addition they get dog food, cat food, fish pellets, and the like. The beauty of these guys is that very little is wasted. Just give them a chunk, and you know that chunk will be eaten, not broken up into many little pieces that need to be cleaned up after. It's the poop that's altogether a different story, though!!! Major poo!
The sizes range from 3 inches to over 2 feet long. The guy in my avatar is my biggest. His yawn tells me that he could in fact inhale a kid's hand whole... scary thought, that. Tell me about yours!
E_americanus
03-01-2007, 10:00 AM
Not to brag or anything, but because you asked about feeding them.... I have over 30 lungfishes, and yes, it's a lot of work. BUT the great thing is I currently live on a college campus, and get all kinds of meats from the cafeteria under my meal plan, so I am always bringing them all kinds of goodies to munch on without taking a penny out of my pocket. In addition they get dog food, cat food, fish pellets, and the like. The beauty of these guys is that very little is wasted. Just give them a chunk, and you know that chunk will be eaten, not broken up into many little pieces that need to be cleaned up after. It's the poop that's altogether a different story, though!!! Major poo!
The sizes range from 3 inches to over 2 feet long. The guy in my avatar is my biggest. His yawn tells me that he could in fact inhale a kid's hand whole... scary thought, that. Tell me about yours!
what exactly are you feeding them from the cafeteria? you do know that terrestrial proteins are not as good for these fishes and can lead to other health problems in the long term...they are also being set up for lateral line issues. food on a college campus is very fatty (and quite unhealthy in many cases) and definitely not a good choice for feeding any predatory fish.--
--solomon
santoury
03-01-2007, 12:05 PM
They MAINLY get fish pellets, fish, and shrimp, and krill. - the cafeteria meats are just a temporary delicacy, so to speak. Turkey, Chicken, ham, beef, - but as I said, just a treat. Maybe once every two weeks actually.
Reading back, I did make it seem like they ate this all the time. Oops.
This is my Albino Dolloi it's over 90 cm now.
got it September 2005 at 40/45 cm
It's main diet is Goldfish. I buy between 50 and 70 goldfish each month.
It eat's about 30/40 in the first few days. I suplement it with chicken, nightcrawlers, sometimes pellets for Japanese koi and algae ,,pellets".
I'm getting a new tank for it, in a few weeks. main tank is 130X50X50. (cm)
I have the waterlevel on 30cm. The tank is filtered on an wet/dry biofilter.
Bogwoodbruce
03-03-2007, 9:20 AM
Great looking lung, thats one big fish.:WHOA:
E_americanus
03-03-2007, 11:24 AM
This is my Albino Dolloi it's over 90 cm now.
got it September 2005 at 40/45 cm
It's main diet is Goldfish. I buy between 50 and 70 goldfish each month.
It eat's about 30/40 in the first few days. I suplement it with chicken, nightcrawlers, sometimes pellets for Japanese koi and algae ,,pellets".
I'm getting a new tank for it, in a few weeks. main tank is 130X50X50. (cm)
I have the waterlevel on 30cm. The tank is filtered on an wet/dry biofilter.
awesome fish! at 90cm that thing is steadily making its way towards its wild max! great looking fish--
--solomon
Bogwoodbruce
03-03-2007, 12:21 PM
Aren't lungfish cool, if only i had one............
awesome fish! at 90cm that thing is steadily making its way towards its wild max! great looking fish--
--solomon
The wild max is 120cm isn't it?
Well it is my goal to take it to this level, it is still growing. And it did not slow down yet. I'm curious when it will slow down. It has been growing at the same rate ever sins I got it. But it's "personality" does keep changing. When I first got it, it was a bit shy, and when I would clean out its tank I could push it out of the way. This changed when it reached aprox 60cm. When ever it sensed my hand was in the tank (it's blind) it would attack so hard I was afraid it would go through the glass. Till it reached aprox 85 cm it/he was real active it kept swimming from left to right along the front glass. Lately it stopped doing this and became more relaxed.
It did improve on his hunting skills now that I feed allot of goldfish.
I noticed he looks the healthiest when I used to feed it goldfish. So I made this his main diet.
It is a bit expensive though but I do think it is worth it.
santoury
03-03-2007, 2:05 PM
Lots of people on MFK advise against feeders as they can carry all sorts of parasites, etc. This is why I have avoided this and use feeders only as a treat. But he looks great. Dolloi are actually what I think to be the slower growing lungfish (Not sure about the Aussies?) but they don't "slow down" LOL I find that their growth is directly proportional to how much they eat. Very interesting. When they eat, they grow, when they don't, they just stop growing, and in fact get a "little smaller" I've found.
I, too, have noticed the aggressive levels increasing with size/age. They seem to have brutal bites - have been very very careful with their mouths near me! Lots of people have said how bad a bite is, but I don't know, nor do I want to, know how bad it actually is!
mr firemouth
03-03-2007, 3:32 PM
nice lungfish i have a 12 inch annectens
Lots of people on MFK advise against feeders as they can carry all sorts of parasites, etc.
Has anyone on this bord had some negative experience with live feeders and lungfish?
mr firemouth
03-03-2007, 4:41 PM
i dont use live feeder i always had problems with ick with my piranhas
E_americanus
03-03-2007, 4:46 PM
Lots of people on MFK advise against feeders as they can carry all sorts of parasites, etc. This is why I have avoided this and use feeders only as a treat. But he looks great. Dolloi are actually what I think to be the slower growing lungfish (Not sure about the Aussies?) but they don't "slow down" LOL I find that their growth is directly proportional to how much they eat. Very interesting. When they eat, they grow, when they don't, they just stop growing, and in fact get a "little smaller" I've found.
I, too, have noticed the aggressive levels increasing with size/age. They seem to have brutal bites - have been very very careful with their mouths near me! Lots of people have said how bad a bite is, but I don't know, nor do I want to, know how bad it actually is!
im curious as to both dolloi keepers here, grif and santoury,
how long have you had your P. dolloi, and in the case of santoury, what is the longest you have kept an individual dolloi?
great fish, and yes, the feeders debate is a valid one, but it seems to me that places outside the US have better methods for keeping feeders than we do, so at the very least, the feeders out there may be a bit healthier than ours.
and in response to the question about AULs, they grow quite fast in their early years...all the individuals i have kept for at least a year have grown close to 18" or larger in just that first year-1.5 years.--
--solomon
im curious as to both dolloi keepers here, grif and santoury,
how long have you had your P. dolloi, and in the case of santoury, what is the longest you have kept an individual dolloi?
I got my dolloi in September 2005. It is my first and only lungfish.
I will be getting an other one though. As soon as my new tanks are in I will be looking for an albino P Aethiopicus.
My feederfish are from Israel. I do select my feeders after I have bought them. If one looks kind of iffy I'll take it out.
I get a good deal on my feeders. 10 for 5 euro's
i dont use live feeder i always had problems with ick with my piranhas
Mr firemouth what is ICK?
mr firemouth
03-03-2007, 6:08 PM
it is a bacterial infection
E_americanus
03-03-2007, 11:30 PM
it is a bacterial infection
ick/ich is not a bacterial infection but a parasitic infection. it is best cured with increased temperature, salt, and if needed a formalin and/or malachite green treatment.
it will look like small white dots, almost like grains of salt on the fish. lungfish tend to be highly resistant to ich, and i have never actually seen one get ich, even if other fishes in the tank had it. bichirs and gars (also primitive fishes) are also highly resistant to ich (in other words, you generally have a bad case if any of these types of fishes are showing up with ick).--
--solomon
santoury
03-03-2007, 11:47 PM
The dolloi I've had the longest, I've had for about 6 months. Just wondering if there was a specific reason you asked - are you finding they are more delicate? If you are implying this, then I would agree with you. They do seem to be a little more prone to skin issues than the others.
E_americanus
03-04-2007, 1:55 AM
The dolloi I've had the longest, I've had for about 6 months. Just wondering if there was a specific reason you asked - are you finding they are more delicate? If you are implying this, then I would agree with you. They do seem to be a little more prone to skin issues than the others.
i was curious mainly to get a reference point from both of you on your experiences with the fish, as a fellow lungfish keeper, its always interesting to get an insight from others keeping these animals.
secondarily, however, i was also curious as to your growth assumptions/observations regarding the dolloi...in 6 months of keeping a dolloi it's not necessarily safe to make assumptions about growth patterns...especially in a long-lived fish over a relatively short period of time.
i have noticed that dolloi seems to be much shyer than the other African species, as have many others. i thought the growth noticed by Grif's specimen was definitely interesting, especially since the dolloi i have kept grew rather slowly in spite of eating a decent amount and having a tank all to themselves. either way, different hobbyists will experience different things...still, be careful on making broad generalizations based on such a relatively short period of observation (however, observations are observations...just don't necessarily pass them all off as broadly applicable pattern).
as for sensitivity, other than the species being shy, i noticed no difference in their susceptibility to infections...having kept all the lungfish species, i would say the P. amphibius seems to be more susceptible by far, and this is anecdotally referenced as well in a couple sources. they seem more prone to water quality issues, and as oddball and i can attest to, they don't seem to bounce back as well as their seemingly more robust cousins--
--solomon
ick/ich is not a bacterial infection but a parasitic infection. it is best cured with increased temperature, salt, and if needed a formalin and/or malachite green treatment.
it will look like small white dots, almost like grains of salt on the fish. lungfish tend to be highly resistant to ich, and i have never actually seen one get ich, even if other fishes in the tank had it. bichirs and gars (also primitive fishes) are also highly resistant to ich (in other words, you generally have a bad case if any of these types of fishes are showing up with ick).--
--solomon
I can vagely remember I read somewhere that Lungfish are real sensitive to medication.
I do have some experience with ick/ich but not with my lungfish but in Japanese koi. But I have never treated them myself. Here in the Netherlands we have several vets who are specialiced in treating fish. They come by your house tranquilize and examine the fish. look for paracites under their microscope. Or they check the faeces for bacterial infection.
About the growth of my dolloi, I notised that whenever I would clean out his tank from algae (did this every week) it would eat less the following day. and his skin would turn a bit red. Wich indicates it experienced stress. So I stopped doing this and now I only do a 30% waterchange each week with treated water. And sporadic clean the glass walls.
It's the same with different types of food. I use the collor of his skin as an indicator.
santoury
03-04-2007, 3:31 AM
I have definitely noticed a much slower growth in my dollois as opposed to the annectens. The aethiopicus are pretty slow as well. The SA's and the Annectens are my fastest growers. Keep in mind I don't feed them "a lot" by our standards of feeding "a lot" per se. They get fed a couple times a week or so. But the slow growth has been true for each of my dolloi. I am definitely surprised at the other albino's growth. I am wondering, then, if my albino dolloi will grow faster, too, but I have not had him that long yet. The dolloi also are very shy compared to the others, but they are in fact the most aggressive towards nets, tubes, hands...
Interesting stuff!