The majority of threads compiled thus far have been people asking how to get their unstable Indo's stable, most of the responses being it's hit or miss or some other theorized reason and most of the responses interestingly come from those who have problems keeping their Indo's stable. In this thread Strollo and I would like to hear from those who've got stable Indo's and why they believe their Indo maintains stability in their care.
I for one had been keeping Indo's way before I joined MFK and since joining have kept 4 more between joining and now. When I used to go to the LFS in the past(Dats used to be more easily found in LFS's back in the day) the Dats where all unstable but they where also very skittish in bare tanks huddled in a corner obviously stressed by their trip and or tank. How ever when I brought them home I found that their color stabilized as their comfort and confidence level increased anywhere between 3 days to a week or so. I also never had a problem breaking them off live. As a matter of fact it wasn't until recently when my interest in Dats was rekindled and I started browsing the Dat section that I even became aware that so many Dat owners had problems with these 2 issues.
Now why have I had such success getting stable Indo's? Why I can only guess but I can tell you what makes sense to me logically as well as the conditions that each where kept in.
-I've never kept more then one Indo Dat per tank. I have mixed species such as Silvers and Indo's but never kept two Indo's together.
-I've always been an avid supporter of hides especially plants and all my tanks have had plenty of places for the Dat to retreat to.
-My tanks are maintained at around 7.4 ph, 4-8 dGH of course other parameters are at acceptable levels and a temperature of 80 or better.
-My tanks flow is pretty significant as I run 3 large powerheads as well as 2 canisters on every tank. I do this to increase surface agitation and gas transfer to compensate for keeping the fish in higher temps.
-I do water changes twice a week on average.
-Once the fish reach 4-5 inches in size I decrease feeding to every other day generally.
Dominance-Now one might assume dominance affects stability which it does but I've kept Indo's most frequently with fairly aggressive and larger fish. One such comm. included a 14 inch Lei and Silver Aro, 10 inch Green Terror, 10-12 inch Vulture Cat and TSN/ACHARA hybrid. The Dat was trounced often by the Terror and maintained stability for one year despite this as he grew from 4-8 inches. Another Comm. had the 3 Silver Tigers who where more rambunctious then my Indo and whooped on him quite often. Despite this and him being moved to 3 different tanks with different heirachrchies and different fish he maintained his stability from 1 1/2 inches till the 6 inch mark. So while I do believe dominance can help a Dat maintain his stable coloration I don't believe it's necessary.
Natural Cues-I believe above all else this is probably the greatest influence on Indo's. Most fishes coloration is affected by tank decor and contrast from light colored tanks creating a whitening of a fishes to dark colored tanks creating darkening of fish. Remember a fishes primary instincts are survival and fitting in with their surroundings either to avoid predation or be a more efficient predator. So why don't more people believe this tank decor to be the primary reason behind Dat coloration? Honestly you got me. Dats are ambush predators who adopt a sit and wait approach for the most part in predation, as such we can assume logically that camouflage plays a significant role in their survival both at avoiding predation as well as preying. We might also logically assume that the black coloration is meant to represent the shadows and the light coloration surrounding substrate perhaps vertical growing vegetation or root systems of water growing trees. So with both those logical assumption we might also assume that in order to elicit a stable coloration in Indo's the decor of the tank should be high contrast(with dark and light) have plants so they can act more naturally by adapting to a coloration pattern similar to their habitat, your tank. This set up could also logically work on even subordinate Dats as in such a tank in order to avoid predators or aggressive tankmates it would still behoove the Dat to remain stable to better camouflage with his habitat and avoid detection.
Now this is just my 2 cents on the matter but I'd like to hear more from others. If you've had a stable Dat please feel free to share what you think made the Dat stable along with some pics. Perhaps if we can find the commonality between our set ups and experiences we might actually arrive at a reasonable conclusion about what causes Dat coloration stability and please don't worry if your post is no where near as long winded as mine, every little bit of experience will help in our understanding.
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