Five 2.5'-3' nigers and three 10"-18" granulosus in 4500 gal

thebiggerthebetter

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Dec 31, 2009
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Naples, FL, USA
Currently we have one male and four female 2.5'-3' Oxydoras niger swimming in one of the 4500 gal, three rescues and two that I raised myself. The two of mine I bought around 3 years ago at ~3". They are 2.5' today.

The first rescue is named Gill and has been with us for 2 years. It had spent 25 years prior to that in a 6'x2'x2' where it reached 34" and could barely turn around. When you see Gee in the video, you will note that its tail and caudal peduncle are disproportionately undersized w.r.t. its body. That's likely from not being able to swim for 25 years. The water test logs of the previous owner also showed that 0.25 ppm ammonia was typical and 0.5 ppm was not rare over the 25 years. This speaks to an amazing resilience of this fish. I was afraid it wouldn't be able to adjust to new water after all this time in rather poor water but, surprisingly again, it's done well in our tank. It was heartbreaking to see how it had to learn to swim again. Nowadays, it hogs food and has grown a huge beer belly as a result as you will see as well :)

Another rescue is called Spike and came from a 400 gal tank from our colleague Sean in Ft. Myers, FL, who donated all of his fish to us. This was in Spring 2016. Spike was about 2' and quite round / stubby and it has quickly added 6"+ in our 4500 gal tank.

And a third rescue (from about 1.5 years ago) appears to be the only male in this quintet because it has the thinnest build, smallest circumference. I wonder if you can spot it in the video. His name is, unsurprisingly, Maniger. Close to manager... hehe... of course he is not... Gee is... He was about 16" at the time of transfer from his hometown of Orlando FL and today is 2.5'.

Also, I bought three ~3" Pterodoras granulosus from snookn21 back in Aug 2015. Their varied growth surprised me. They are 18", 13", and 10" (eyeball) today. The 18"-er's sides are very wide and it resembles an (american) football.

Needless to say they all are huge vacuum cleaners. They'd rather clean up only pellets but when they realize that pellets are no more and baitfish is being served now they, perhaps begrudgingly, suck in the fish too. They are very gentle giants, never hurt any tank mate or their kin.


Gill in its prior tank 6'x2'x2', where it lived 25 years:

Niger, Gill's pics from Richard Davis-1.JPG Niger, Gill's pics from Richard Davis-2.JPG

Gill in our 4500 gal, photo from 1.5 years ago:

Niger, Gill Aug 6 2015.JPG

The pair I raised, 3 photos from Feb 2015:

Niger, Feb 2015  1.JPG Niger, Feb 2015  2.JPG Niger, Feb 2015  3.JPG

Back from 2010-2011: 5 year old 3' niger named Hoover I bought from George Fear (Shark Aquarium) in 2010 for $300. This was back when we used to live in Rochester NY. Hoover is in a 4000 gal 40'x6'x2.5' basement pond.

Hoover and his Company - the other two nigers, the very first ones for us, rescues, one is named Cactus and the other other, the smallest at 1' is Yozhik. I lost them on the move to FL in 2011.

Niger, Hoover 1.jpg Niger, Hoover 2.jpg Niger, Hoover 3.jpgCactus (2).JPGCactus and Mr Pictus.JPGCactus.JPGCranky Sr and Yozhyk.JPGGroup 1.JPGgroup 3 (2).JPGGroup 5.JPGHoover 1 (2).JPG
 
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Adhie Nugroho

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 31, 2016
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Central Java, Indonesia
Currently we have one male and four female 2.5'-3' Oxydoras niger swimming in one of the 4500 gal, three rescues and two that I raised myself. The two of mine I bought around 3 years ago at ~3". They are 2.5' today.

The first rescue is named Gee and has been with us for 2 years. It had spent 25 years prior to that in a 6'x2'x2' where it reached 34" and could barely turn around. When you see Gee in the video, you will note that its tail and caudal peduncle are disproportionately undersized w.r.t. its body. That's likely from not being able to swim for 25 years. The water test logs of the previous owner also showed that 0.25 ppm ammonia was typical and 0.5 ppm was not rare over the 25 years. This speaks to an amazing resilience of this fish. I was afraid it wouldn't be able to adjust to new water after all this time in rather poor water but, surprisingly again, it's done well in our tank. It was heartbreaking to see how it had to learn to swim again. Nowadays, it hogs food and has grown a huge beer belly as a result as you will see as well :)

Another rescue is called Spike and came from a 400 gal tank from our colleague Sean in Ft. Myers, FL, who donated all of his fish to us. This was in Spring 2016. Spike was about 2' and quite round / stubby and it has quickly added 6"+ in our 4500 gal tank.

And a third rescue (from about 1.5 years ago) appears to be the only male in this quintet because it has the thinnest build, smallest circumference. I wonder if you can spot it in the video. His name is, unsurprisingly, Maniger. Close to manager... hehe... of course he is not... Gee is... He was about 16" at the time of transfer from his hometown of Orlando FL and today is 2.5'.

Also, I bought three ~3" Pterodoras granulosus from snookn21 back in Aug 2015. Their varied growth surprised me. They are 18", 13", and 10" (eyeball) today. The 18"-er's sides are very wide and it resembles an (american) football.

Needless to say they all are huge vacuum cleaners. They'd rather clean up only pellets but when they realize that pellets are no more and baitfish is being served now they, perhaps begrudgingly, suck in the fish too. They are very gentle giants, never hurt any tank mate or their kin.


Gee in its prior tank 6'x2'x2':

View attachment 1224444 View attachment 1224446

Gee in our 4500 gal, photo from 1.5 years ago:

View attachment 1224448

The pair I raised, 3 photos from Feb 2015:

View attachment 1224450 View attachment 1224451 View attachment 1224452

5 year old 3' niger named Hoover I bought from George Fear (Shark Aquarium) in 2009 for $300. This was back when we used to live in Rochester NY. Hoover is in a 4000 gal 40'x6'x2.5' basement pond. I lost Hoover on the move to FL in 2011.

View attachment 1224454 View attachment 1224455 View attachment 1224456
beautiful nigers..so sad you lost hoover viktor..and gow blessed are they to be found by you..
and yes, why the most of niger's are pellet vacuum??my friends only eat pellet too, he ever tried with fillets, shrimps, etc but, his niger always throw it up again when it realize that it's not his/her favourite pellets..

and vik, may i ask you?do you have any facebook or some social media that i can contact you?i've watched almost all of your thread and i have something to ask you, if you don't mind..because from what i knew, you're expert at my question..
i hope you wouldn't mind.
thank you viktor.

-adhie-
 

Yellowcat

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Feb 17, 2010
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Great video, such a wonderful mix of fish, would make a great screen saver! Kept most all of the large doradidae species in the past and hated to have to sell them when they grew too large….
 

monkeybike

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Mar 13, 2015
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I'm amazed at Granulosus growth rates, mine has gone from ~3" to 12" in under a year with moderate feedings
 

thebiggerthebetter

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Dec 31, 2009
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Naples, FL, USA
beautiful nigers..so sad you lost hoover viktor..and gow blessed are they to be found by you..
and yes, why the most of niger's are pellet vacuum??my friends only eat pellet too, he ever tried with fillets, shrimps, etc but, his niger always throw it up again when it realize that it's not his/her favourite pellets..

and vik, may i ask you?do you have any facebook or some social media that i can contact you?i've watched almost all of your thread and i have something to ask you, if you don't mind..because from what i knew, you're expert at my question..
i hope you wouldn't mind.
thank you viktor.

-adhie-
Thanks, mate! To me it appears the answer may be very simple - the nigers get to pick and choose when offered both kinds simultaneously or when they are not too hungry. When mine are hungry or when they realize the pellets are not coming and today is a fish day, they start taking baitfish, cut and whole, off the bottom. It may take them a few minutes and they too may expel the fish out of their gills at the beginning.

My social media is this forum and email :) No FB. If you for some reason don't want to address your question to the whole forum, you could use PM (private message) or email feature. I don't mind at all, if I can really help, which is far from always being the case. That's what we are here for - to build up each other.

But most usually I am for asking the whole forum. As a community, we possess a million times greater knowledge than any one of us.

Great video, such a wonderful mix of fish, would make a great screen saver! Kept most all of the large doradidae species in the past and hated to have to sell them when they grew too large….
Thanks, Kirk! Yeah, they are so gentle and would feed from your hand like a cow. I am glad there are people like you on PCF that are ok with communities like mine are. PCF as a whole is not overly friendly to such unnatural fish keeping and their reasons behind it are quite understandable too.

I'm amazed at Granulosus growth rates, mine has gone from ~3" to 12" in under a year with moderate feedings
I appreciate the datum, bro. It sounds more or less in line, no? Maybe I don't understand what amazed you. If I averaged the growth of my trio, they'd go from ~3" to ~14" in 1.5 years. So that's not that much slower than yours, albeit I understand I probably feed more. The thing is that I think I quoted the granny sizes under a lasting impression that my smallest was always the smallest. When I stare at it today, it's almost caught up to the medium sized one, so 10" should be more like 12"-13". But it's splitting hairs :) All in all, I think we are on par. These are no quick RTCs, neither slow mahseers :) They seem to be in between their cousins - quick-growing nigers and slow irwinis, albeit may be closer to the irwini pace.
 
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justarn

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Great read cheers dude.
 
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