How many species of Dorado are there?

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Well I've spent the past hour or so scouring the interwebs looking at pics of golden dorados. I've noticed a correlation between the apparent type of water in which the fish was caught and the coloration of the fish.

It is my observation that:

Fish from apparent blackwater have the richest gold coloration

Fish from apparent clear water have strong gold coloration and silvery sides with bold stripes

Fish from apparent turbid water have weak gold coloration and bold white sides with indistinct stripes.

The fish we have in our tanks seems to match the color of the adults caught from clear water. Is anyone who owns a dorado willing to soak their tank in tannins for a month to test this?

Thoughts?
 
The subject of water.......:swear:

I have a hard time understanding water cause it seems I know only enough to be dangerous. What exactly is blackwater and what effects does it have on the water? The different kinds of water, HOW are they different. What would we need to stick in them as far as instruments to give us the numbers to know they're different?

Assuming PH varies? But what about stuff like TDS/ORP, KH, and all the stuff I have no idea about? What is it that meakes one kind of water different from the rest?

I'd be down to blackwater a tank if someone wants to send me enough to do it..... lol Both my larger systems have drips. Well over 100 gallons per day ran through the little guy (currently 500, probably 700+ by next week) , the big system probably 200 ran through a day and the total water volume is over 1K, and there's at least one preggo ray in there so not sure I'd be willing to start monkeying with that water.... BUT I do have a half dozen AC 110s here and a spare pair of 180s..... :) Also have an RO unit here.

I'm litterally almost to a breaking point when it comes to dealing with water. Many of my rays here suffer from pattern degregation. I want to blame the water, but raykeepers insist it doesn't matter. I think it does. BUT I don't know what it is I need to be monitoring or what it is that's bad for them. I know we have liquid rock for water, but I've only looked at PH and TDS which is 8.2-8.4 and TDS around 320. The PH has never strayed from where it's at, wether the tank is drip fed or maintained by regular waterchanges. Even if maintainance lacks it doesn't move.
 
One thing Black water has not, or has in very low quantity ( microsiemens ) is Conductivity. It is linked to the allmost absolute lack of dissoved minerals...

I will go as far as to admit ( i have already, somewhere else ) that I once completely neglected a big Discus tank, with a cartload of wood, and "dark water extract"....

Discus were absolutely swonderfull and thriving.

One day i checked the PH.....: 2.5.

:)
 
DB junkie said:
The subject of water.......:swear:

I have a hard time understanding water cause it seems I know only enough to be dangerous. What exactly is blackwater and what effects does it have on the water? The different kinds of water, HOW are they different. What would we need to stick in them as far as instruments to give us the numbers to know they're different?

Assuming PH varies? But what about stuff like TDS/ORP, KH, and all the stuff I have no idea about? What is it that meakes one kind of water different from the rest?

I'd be down to blackwater a tank if someone wants to send me enough to do it..... lol Both my larger systems have drips. Well over 100 gallons per day ran through the little guy (currently 500, probably 700+ by next week) , the big system probably 200 ran through a day and the total water volume is over 1K, and there's at least one preggo ray in there so not sure I'd be willing to start monkeying with that water.... BUT I do have a half dozen AC 110s here and a spare pair of 180s..... :) Also have an RO unit here.

I'm litterally almost to a breaking point when it comes to dealing with water. Many of my rays here suffer from pattern degregation. I want to blame the water, but raykeepers insist it doesn't matter. I think it does. BUT I don't know what it is I need to be monitoring or what it is that's bad for them. I know we have liquid rock for water, but I've only looked at PH and TDS which is 8.2-8.4 and TDS around 320. The PH has never strayed from where it's at, wether the tank is drip fed or maintained by regular waterchanges. Even if maintainance lacks it doesn't move.
Click to expand...

Blackwater is when water is heavily stained with tannins to create a tea-like effect. This water will be dark, very clear, acidic and will have almost no hardness.

Clear water is relatively neutral water.

White water (what I was calling turbid water in the above post) is water that is very hard, often dirty looking and has an alkaline PH.

I believe that the type of water you maintain your fish in will effect the type of coloration it will develop. I've been researching this for a while in an effort to figure out the mystery of the black Goliaths.

The day before yesterday I converted my 150 to a blackwater setup to see what happens with Max's colors. I'm using peat moss stuffed into a lady's stocking and then put into an AC110. The water running through the AC110 and over the peat moss spreads the tannins through the tank and has stained my water nicely, after two days the tank is starting to look like a medium iced tea in color. I've not noticed any change in Max's colors yet, but I suspect a fish will need to live in these conditions for at least a month to even begin to see a change. I'm not sure if the blackwater would change the color of the fish because of the tannins or because of the soft, acidic conditions.

If I get the change I want out of Max from the blackwater, I'm going to continue to run the peat and add carbon to remove the tannins but keep the soft, acidic water. If he starts to revert back to normal coloration in soft, acidic water without tannins, then I have my answer. If he retains his colors, then I have my answer.

I'm also convinced that there are two different strains of GATF, one that can turn black and one that cant. I've noticed different morphologies on the jaws, tails and fins, but I don't have any real proof yet.

But I digress. I suspect the same principle that I'm attempting to test with Max will prove to be the catalyst that will make a Dorado show vibrant coloration as well.
 
I just think, Rob, that one month is not enough to show any palpable results.
 
Miguel said:
I just think, Rob, that one month is not enough to show any palpable results.
Click to expand...

You're probably right. I prefer the look of a blackwater setup though so I'm probably gonna just keep my tank black. :)
 
My thoughts, ponderings, and rants from the last 5 years are all 100% in line with what you're believing Rob.

I'll make a long story short. My rays patterns go to hell when they hit my water. Ususally they are from the river (fresh imports), but occasionally I get rays from hobbyists. The guy I used to get rays from had similar water to mine. He suffered crazy losses going from the river to his water. He switched to RO. No more crazy losses. I pay through the teeth for nice rays that looked nice there. Toss them in my liquid rock and it's all down hill from there. When I get rays from hobbyists with water that's actually capable of crashing (PH) same thing, they go to hell. When I get them from hobbyists with harder water there's less change. The raykeepers say water doesn't matter, only consistancy. I disagree.

I bought an RO unit and planned to start slowly mixing tap and RO, but alas, the problem of the room needed to mix..... 2 seperate vats, for up to 300 gallons a day usage.

I do know that my water is mineraltary army tank. PH down works for hours, then bounces right back. PH can't even be accurately tested with kits. I had to buy a meter and swore that 8.4 was burned into it until I do a water change, then if I put the probe into incoming water on a tank that hasn't had a WC in a while it might drop a tenth or 2, but bounces right back up.

Imagine watching $1K rays turn into $300 rays right before your eyes. I'd give anything to solve this problem, but am torn between my own personal beliefs and that of much more experienced raykeepers, and am scared to death to start messing with altering the water in fear of the rays health. Simply too much invested, but yet pattern degregation drives the price down, so it really is a lose lose situation for me, and another losing part is the stress. I'm a little young to be on blood pressure meds cause I've got a friggin ongoing problem I'm scared to do anything about, that's doing nothing but depreciating my stock.

Hows the water in Africa? My African fish seem just fine, but then again they aren't rays, so it's much harder to see how the patterns are, but I've always had crazy good luck with Odoe, and my MBU is gorgeous. Tor also seemed to thrive. The Brycon here have grown like nothing I've ever seen...... Turbid water fish? The Dorado do seem to grow pretty quick too.....

Toss diet in there as another variable and....... This guy has a headache. :( But, if it's any corelation, I don't feed pellets. Mostly Talapia and shrimp, occasionally homemade gel food supplemented with flake food and pellets. Patterns do seem better then when I was feeding primarely smelt....
 
This is what I received from an Argentinian exporter:

Im Agustin and im the exporter of the salminus that you are showing. Im on a trip now, but if you want to ask me anything about that, feel free to do it.
There are at least 4 salminus species here and in brasil, and in both countries the wild fish is banned or quoted for export. The fish from brasil are almost all captive bred and usually they export Salminus cf hilarii, a more slender fish from high parana basin and pantanal, also it grows less than the S. brasilensis/maxillosus (i and some researchers here still think that here in argentina we have another specie). Anyway, we have a little quota for wild fish, for that the fish is expensive and you will see in the size of 30 cm and up that the fish will start to show the big head, the strong yellow colour and with good conditions they develope quite well in captivity...About the pictures that you mention from fishing magazines or sites, fish from areas with strong current and a lot of food available (populations near river dams or populations from mountain rivers that are used from another species to breed) growth very big and tall, much more than the ones of the big rivers (same drainages)
 
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:goldfish:
 
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