GarLab I [The Tank] - Cuban Gar study
- Thread starter E_americanus
- Start date
thanks for the comments all - i just got back from vacation and the fish have definitely been growing and chowing down! one of my roommates had to pick up 100+ feeders on two different occasions while i was gone since they are blowing through them fast (just added another 100+ today).
will hopefully get some new pics tomorrow or the day after. interesting variations in pattern as a few individuals are much darker, and others are more typical.
thanks, hopefully i will get some new shots of GDII in the near future...i need to wipe the interior glass though!
the Cubans actually vary quite a bit in how fat they are (as i am sure you have noticed with your fish) - they are quite fat right after feeding and then slim down pretty soon thereafter because they process the food so quickly. i didn't feed them before the measurements so as not to stress them out. i would guess that my fish are around the same L-W ratio as yours, however, i'm probably looking at a bit more variability too.
temps have been standardized to 28C (+/- 1C) and maintaining 50% water change 1x per week. may not be measuring these guys weekly as in the SPG experiment, but we'll see.--
--solomon
will hopefully get some new pics tomorrow or the day after. interesting variations in pattern as a few individuals are much darker, and others are more typical.
xander;4956779; said:
thanks, hopefully i will get some new shots of GDII in the near future...i need to wipe the interior glass though!
the Cubans actually vary quite a bit in how fat they are (as i am sure you have noticed with your fish) - they are quite fat right after feeding and then slim down pretty soon thereafter because they process the food so quickly. i didn't feed them before the measurements so as not to stress them out. i would guess that my fish are around the same L-W ratio as yours, however, i'm probably looking at a bit more variability too.
temps have been standardized to 28C (+/- 1C) and maintaining 50% water change 1x per week. may not be measuring these guys weekly as in the SPG experiment, but we'll see.--
--solomon
Pejelajarto;4971407; said:Find Intern
no kidding!!! if this were at SNRE then i definitely would...unfortunately that lab is currently the wild west in terms of controlling variables these days! rest assured we will be taking advantage of what we can when fish need to be monitored out there after the summer.
will email you more about this in the near future, but looks like we will have a good amount of space at Saline-MDNRE [aka GarLab II] (just moved the TPGs back to a big round tank today).--
--solomon
just wanted to put up a quick updated shot of the setup and update on a couple things (some of which may be relevant to others keeping the YOY CBG). i have some new videos to add too...testing out my new field camera that actually shoots in HD (my old one fried on a trip, my g/f very generously replaced it for me 
)
the CBG update:
- i had to replace all the sponge filters with powerfilters (150gph). given the high feeding rates and large amounts of waste, the sponge filters just were not cutting it.
- water changes definitely helped, but i was bumping up to 2x 50% each week, which was getting a little crazy for all 4 tanks plus the usual siphoning/netting of waste. the new filters should cut down on this quite a bit - still plan on water changes at least 50% 1x per week.
- this is something to keep in mind as they are producing more waste and eating more than LEP spp in the same setups, this coupled with the fact that CBG tend to be a bit more sensitive to water quality, i would suggest closely monitoring WQ and/or bumping up water changes and filtration as the fish reach 6-8"+
--solomon
PS--
tanks in view in the photo, starting clockwise with the lungfish tank w/ CBG setup below:
100g lungfish tank (above)
4 x 20g L CBG tanks (below)
270g "Gar-Den II"
120g MI native fishes tank (plus 1 FLG)
120g original "Gar-den"
videos coming soon!
)the CBG update:
- i had to replace all the sponge filters with powerfilters (150gph). given the high feeding rates and large amounts of waste, the sponge filters just were not cutting it.
- water changes definitely helped, but i was bumping up to 2x 50% each week, which was getting a little crazy for all 4 tanks plus the usual siphoning/netting of waste. the new filters should cut down on this quite a bit - still plan on water changes at least 50% 1x per week.
- this is something to keep in mind as they are producing more waste and eating more than LEP spp in the same setups, this coupled with the fact that CBG tend to be a bit more sensitive to water quality, i would suggest closely monitoring WQ and/or bumping up water changes and filtration as the fish reach 6-8"+
--solomon
PS--
tanks in view in the photo, starting clockwise with the lungfish tank w/ CBG setup below:
100g lungfish tank (above)
4 x 20g L CBG tanks (below)
270g "Gar-Den II"
120g MI native fishes tank (plus 1 FLG)
120g original "Gar-den"
videos coming soon!
xander;4986689; said:man that room looks incredible sol!! if im ever in your area you HAVE to let me take a look @ it!!
haha funny to see you sacrificed the lounge area to make way for more tanks
thanks xander, you're welcome any time when you're up our way in the US!
yeah, it's pretty ridiculous at this point - one of my roommates is a fish ecology master's student and bought the other 120g (mainly sunfishes, 1 FLG that i gave him, and a stonecat madtom at this point). when a previous roommate moved out we moved the couch from the basement to the livingroom...so naturally we filled it in with tanks
what you don't see on the other side of the new 120g is a 50g breeder i have set up for feeders...which will likely be soon replaced with a 130g pond setup
ok here are some videos (sorry for all the background noise, and since the new camera doubles as an underwater camera it makes weird sounds while zooming...next vids will have to have soundtracks!) :
you can watch in HD depending on your connxn!
the original Gar-Den:
[YT]m6AoG9r3xKo[/YT]
and Gar-Den II:
[YT]-j8sDh2zbyg[/YT]
I'm glad to see that all of your gars and other fish are doing well, Solomon! How are all of the Cuban gars (new and old) doing?
