Central Mudminnows!

[Umbra]

After thoroughly enjoying Kaosu's threads about the mottled/prickly sculpins, I figured I would make one about my favourite native fish, Umbra limi, the central mudminnow.

I have 11 of them now, I had more before but lost a bunch to an outbreak of columnaris that happened while I was on vacation. I have 2 larger specimens at 4-4.5 inches and a few others at 2-3.5 inches in various coldwater setups in my basement, but I'll be posting mostly about 2 individuals I keep in a 78 degree 8 gal Fluval Ebi on my bedside table with a few small tropicals (growing out, they will be moved to different tanks as they get larger).

Current tankmates include:

2x 1" Polycentropsis abbreviata
2x 2" Aplocheilus panchax
1x 1.5" Stiphodon sp.
1x 2" Yunnanilus brevis (going to be moved to a larger tank soon)

The tank sounds crowded but it really doesn't appear so. The leaf fish remain more/less motionless outside of feeding time and the mudminnows just lurk in the plant thickets. The Aplocheilus are content swimming in the current or lurking quietly among the roots of the floating plants.

Here are some older pictures from ~2.5 weeks ago, they've grown quite a bit since then:

And here is a FTS from the same night:

I have added a few new plants and had to prune the tank twice since these photos were taken, I will take new photos shortly.

Current flora list:

Egeria najas
Mayaca sellouiana
Limnophila sessiflora
Ceratopteris cornuta
Salvinia minima
Pistia sp. "dwarf water lettuce"
Taxiphyllum sp. "peacock moss"
Lomariopsis lineata
Echinodorus ozelot
Pogostemon stellata
Vallisneria nana

The 2 mudminnows have claimed territories and defend them against each other. They completely ignore the leaf fish but will chase the panchax away if they come too close. The goby is completely ignored and just minds his own business while scraping algae off the hardscape/plants. I had a trio of american flag fish in there before but they started to eat the plants so they were removed and replaced. The Cardamine lyrata that was in the tank at the time of the picture has since been removed - it began to look really ratty because of the flag fish's constant mowing. The mudminnows didn't seem to care for the flag fish either and frequently quarreled with them - they seem much more peaceful since the removal of the flag fish. The mudminnows are very inquisitive fish and will investigate even the slightest movements within their respective territories. They are quite tame and will feed from my hands and recognize me as a food source - they are the first to greet me at the front of the tank when they're hungry. They are fed twice daily with something out of the following list of foods:

Frozen mysis shrimp
Frozen brine shrimp
Frozen bloodworms
Frozen glassworms
Live blackworms
Live guppies/rosy reds
Cut up nightcrawlers
Diced market shrimp

I originally had them in a large coldwater tank in my basement, but they were about 1.5" and their larger tankmates (including the larger mudminnows) were starting to stalk them during feeding time so I removed them and brought them upstairs. One of them is a confirmed male - he coloured up almost immediately after being introduced to the warmer water with a light turquoise tinge being visible in his unpaired fins. He is the dominant fish out of the two and holds a larger territory.

If anyone else has any experiences with these fish, post them up!

 

[Owain4]

Awesome tank, I'd love to be a fish in one of your aquariums, look at that menu!

 

[Umbra]

Thanks for the compliment They are very interesting to watch hunt so I always try my best to give them live foods frequently. They may have trouble catching faster moving fish during the day, but overnight they always manage to finish whatever feeders were left over.

 

[Umbra]

A small update:

The female was being shy and not out for pictures, so only got a few of the male. I have to take out some of the floating plants, they're taking over the surface too quickly and not allowing enough light penetration for decent photos. The male mudminnow is now approaching the 3" mark and the female is just a touch smaller. The male mudminnow went through a short phase of aggression and attacked the 2 leaf fish who succumbed to fungal infections shortly after. During that period of time, the mudminnow's unpaired fins were showing some faint turquoise highlights, so it's likely the male went into a spawning phase for some unknown reason. No changes to water conditions or light duration so I can't figure out why that happened, but it passed as quickly as it came and he's now a model resident of the aquarium and even shoals with the female (who he used to abuse). The few ghost shrimp I had in there for clean up are now gone so I'm assuming he's large enough to eat them. His coloration is amazing, the pics do not do him justice. The lighter portions are a bronze/gold and the darker barring is a light chocolate brown with hints of forest green when the light hits at certain angles. When I fix the lighting situation in the tank I'll try to snap some better pics.

EDIT:

Removed some floating plants and snapped a few more pics of the male:

The picture below is the most accurate representation of his colour I could get, he's still a touch more brilliant in person;

Compare the below photo to the photo in my first post, this is about a month and a half's worth of growth with weekly pruning (haven't pruned yet this week).

You can also see some random minnow and the Stiphodon doing his job. The growth on the Lomariopsis lineata has been astounding, as has the peacock moss. This tank is extremely low maintenance and yet even "difficult" plants like Pogostemon stellatus have been growing like weeds with minimal effort. I'm going to start dosing iron soon to get it to turn red/purple. The only plant that didn't fare too well was the Myaca sellouiana, which I'm guessing was out competed by the neighboring Limnophila sessiflora (I removed most of the latter).

 

[Umbra]

Whoops double posted the fts, sorry ><

 

[Gill Blue]

very nice.

 

[pudgeking]

sweet tank! I like the mudminnows a lot