I had been mulling around the idea of adding a dat to my 150G (5'x2'x2') community recently and happened to come across this fish in one of my LFS. He was so confident and interactive I was very interested. On asking the assistant, apparently he had only been brought in by another customer about an hour before. I was impressed by the sheer confidence of the fish ! So anyway I ended up buying him (£30, about $50 I guess).
I'm assuming he is an indonesian dat judging by the barring. He's about 5.5" at the moment. He is hugely greedy, and was instantly eating everything I offered him (mussel, prawn, frozen lancefish) from my fingers (plus a small shoal of smallish tetras I thought might disappear !). THis morning he also started guzzling down NLS pellets.
He has settled in very well with his tankmates. He lives with ...
1 x 7" sev
1 x 4" female Geo.steindachneri
1 x 4" angelfish
1 x 5" moonlight gourami
5 x bleeding heart tetras (all about 2.5-3", and very deep bodied)
3 x platies
1 x 9" tanginyikan spiny eel.
All is peaceful. The sev tried halfheartedly to push him around a bit but he easily held his own and now the sev seems very happy with things.
I have seen this dat yawn, so I am aware of the size of his mouth and I have some concerns for some of the smaller fish in the tank, espec the bleeding heart tetras which are particularly magnificent and I would not like to see them end up as dat food. The platies I'm not too bothered with really. What do you guys reckon the chances of the long term safety of these tetras is ? As I said this is my first dat. If they grow up with other fish, are they less likely to view them as food in the long run ?
My water is pH7.8 and hard. THis seems on the edge of the recommended range for dats, but in my experience so long as filtration and water quality is kept at a very high standard I have found most species can be very happy in water outside the "normally" recommended range. Are there many of you out there keeping dats succesfully in water similar to mine ?
Anyway, here's a couple of pics.
I'm assuming he is an indonesian dat judging by the barring. He's about 5.5" at the moment. He is hugely greedy, and was instantly eating everything I offered him (mussel, prawn, frozen lancefish) from my fingers (plus a small shoal of smallish tetras I thought might disappear !). THis morning he also started guzzling down NLS pellets.
He has settled in very well with his tankmates. He lives with ...
1 x 7" sev
1 x 4" female Geo.steindachneri
1 x 4" angelfish
1 x 5" moonlight gourami
5 x bleeding heart tetras (all about 2.5-3", and very deep bodied)
3 x platies
1 x 9" tanginyikan spiny eel.
All is peaceful. The sev tried halfheartedly to push him around a bit but he easily held his own and now the sev seems very happy with things.
I have seen this dat yawn, so I am aware of the size of his mouth and I have some concerns for some of the smaller fish in the tank, espec the bleeding heart tetras which are particularly magnificent and I would not like to see them end up as dat food. The platies I'm not too bothered with really. What do you guys reckon the chances of the long term safety of these tetras is ? As I said this is my first dat. If they grow up with other fish, are they less likely to view them as food in the long run ?
My water is pH7.8 and hard. THis seems on the edge of the recommended range for dats, but in my experience so long as filtration and water quality is kept at a very high standard I have found most species can be very happy in water outside the "normally" recommended range. Are there many of you out there keeping dats succesfully in water similar to mine ?
Anyway, here's a couple of pics.
