Our girl's long-awaited 5x11' pond move happened a couple of weeks ago and she seems to have settled-in nicely. She went in at a "normal" bleached-out silver, most of the red lining to scales & fins faded with maturity and her lip-barbels largely gone. Otherwise was in very good nick, but then dropped an eye & smashed her lip & a remaining barbel with a series of head-bash jumps the week before her move - annoying. Move happened rough/badly but otherwise uneventful, and without further (notable) injury.
Here we are ~2weeks in the lilies & mahogany-leaf blackwater: lip has headed & she's added a notable amount of length. Eye-drop is reduced to just a little bit, to what it was before this recent bad bash. Tone has darkened a lot & red along fins & scales has come back strongly, albeit a bronze-auburn -vs- the red of her youth. Most interesting is that the blunted barbels are >2" sweepers again. Absolutely gorgeous - I'd love to have glass sides to this thing, but so it goes.
The pump/filter's not set up yet & there's an O2 drop by the AM over still nights (before plants kick it back up with light). The black mullet, swordtails & dragonflies are puckering at the surface and she's cruising along sipping the upper-most layer & (seems) comfortable. It's glassy-still, so I'm able to observe the surface water btwn the barbels - there's a V-wave of surface water/tension to the "sip" lips as though the barbels are concentrating that highest-O2 water to the point she's drawing it in - is this possible? described? Anybody looking for a geochem or limnology PhD topic?
She's never had a huge food-drive but not eating these smaller fish has me a little worried. She'll take a lizard or roach, particularly at night, but otherwise I think/hope she's keeping condition on the (abundant) hellgrammites... which would help to explain returned reds. Do they filter-feed? - ostracods are thick.
Photos aren't coming out with the dark fish, dark bottom & deep & dark water... trying still, will post if anything.
Filter's nearly done - had much trouble finding a suitable drum. Found something vaguely-so & now need to make the media.
Here we are ~2weeks in the lilies & mahogany-leaf blackwater: lip has headed & she's added a notable amount of length. Eye-drop is reduced to just a little bit, to what it was before this recent bad bash. Tone has darkened a lot & red along fins & scales has come back strongly, albeit a bronze-auburn -vs- the red of her youth. Most interesting is that the blunted barbels are >2" sweepers again. Absolutely gorgeous - I'd love to have glass sides to this thing, but so it goes.
The pump/filter's not set up yet & there's an O2 drop by the AM over still nights (before plants kick it back up with light). The black mullet, swordtails & dragonflies are puckering at the surface and she's cruising along sipping the upper-most layer & (seems) comfortable. It's glassy-still, so I'm able to observe the surface water btwn the barbels - there's a V-wave of surface water/tension to the "sip" lips as though the barbels are concentrating that highest-O2 water to the point she's drawing it in - is this possible? described? Anybody looking for a geochem or limnology PhD topic?
She's never had a huge food-drive but not eating these smaller fish has me a little worried. She'll take a lizard or roach, particularly at night, but otherwise I think/hope she's keeping condition on the (abundant) hellgrammites... which would help to explain returned reds. Do they filter-feed? - ostracods are thick.
Photos aren't coming out with the dark fish, dark bottom & deep & dark water... trying still, will post if anything.
Filter's nearly done - had much trouble finding a suitable drum. Found something vaguely-so & now need to make the media.
