Cubans
- Thread starter pharmaecopia
- Start date
E_americanus;5018510; said:
Thanks
That's good to know about the scalation as well.
Thanks you Hao as well.
Seem to be getting some very fast growth on these guys. 3 are about a half an inch bigger after only 2 days. Still being allowed to choice feed as well as being hand fed strips of fish daily.
pharmaecopia;5025452; said:
excellent! are they still in the 20gL tank or have they been moved? just trying to remember the tank stats and regime.
i had to replace all the sponge filters with power filters about 1-2 weeks into the study portion since they were not hacking it with the waste (there were slightly larger fish though).
i really wish i had several 50g breeders to grow these out in...just to see what the max growth may be in case it increases with larger volume of water (although part of my assumptions is that this is not a HUGE factor).
if you get the chance (when you do end up moving them or handling them), you should try to get a weight on them, as this is one of the main measures of growth used in culture studies, etc...it can be pretty variable, but apparently previous research focuses more on weight than length as references (and we know that CBGs get quite chunky...that's a scientific term
) ----solomon
E_americanus;5025648; said:excellent! are they still in the 20gL tank or have they been moved? just trying to remember the tank stats and regime.
i had to replace all the sponge filters with power filters about 1-2 weeks into the study portion since they were not hacking it with the waste (there were slightly larger fish though).
i really wish i had several 50g breeders to grow these out in...just to see what the max growth may be in case it increases with larger volume of water (although part of my assumptions is that this is not a HUGE factor).
if you get the chance (when you do end up moving them or handling them), you should try to get a weight on them, as this is one of the main measures of growth used in culture studies, etc...it can be pretty variable, but apparently previous research focuses more on weight than length as references (and we know that CBGs get quite chunky...that's a scientific term
--solomon
They are still in the 20L. Tank at 82F doing daily water changes from 30 to 60%. The hornwort is really growing well in there as are the pothos, but going to have to remove most of the hornwort because it's starting to restrict the movement of the gars. Might be looking to up the water changes even more when the plants get removed.
I still have the sponge filters in there, with the daily water changes they are still cutting it as far as waste load. I'm also scooping out any waste that I see.
What would be the easiest way to get the weight?
Definitely very chunky gars, the biggest one looks to be pretty close to the longnose I picked up as far as girth, and it's not even half the length.
pharmaecopia;5025689; said:
hey Kevin,
will answer in short for now -
- yeah, the daily water changes will definitely help, so that's probably keeping those sponge filters running at top shape now too. i am jealous of your plant growth...running the powerfilters in the small tanks definitely doesn't encourage plant growth (we had tremendous growth of water sprite in our SPG experiments, which were driven by sponge filters).
i've basically been keeping water changes to once a week, 50% and counting on the powerfilters to do the rest...partially because of time constraints and also to keep things somewhat consistent with previous work. our temps are the same, so that is good - i based mine off the very few (but somewhat recent) published studies on early-life stages of CBG, where they kept them right around 28C.
- as for weighing, if you have access to a balance or any sort, that would be best...not sure a typical scale will be sensitive enough to the weight of a small fish, but you could try. we have one that we borrowed from our lab, but i guess i don't expect they are always readily available. we have also used fish scales from shops like Cabela's, but those are for larger specimens. perhaps we can come up with something creative...in the mean time, length would be better than nothing, and for that you can just take them out and put them on a measuring tape or board...we do this all the time with our fish experiments and it definitely doesn't harm the gars (just keep them wet!)--
--solomon
Took them out of the tank to get some truer measurements of them today. The biggest is 8.5", then there are 2 at 8" and one at 7.5". They have averaged 2.5" of growth since I took their first measure on Mar 22nd.
Since this is in the media lounge might as well post more pics. These are from yesterday and today.
Wow! Looking good and bulky! 