Surinamensis and Hoplarchus came in!!!

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Sarah88

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Sep 27, 2009
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Wilmington, NC
Just got them into the tank, will take pics once they are more settled in, the surinams are 2-2.5in, the largest one is probably pushing 3in :headbang2 the hoplarchus is a big guy at a bit bigger than 6in :D, i can tell the surinams are going to have quite the personality, they are already swimming around together with fins all straight up and sifting through the sand within 5min of being put in the tank, the parrot is still a bit stressed but his trip was a bit rougher than theirs, there was a leak in his bag and there was so little water in the bag he had to be slanted towards his side before the box got here, but overall seems to be fine, and other than that was packed really well and they were nice and toasty!! THANKS JOHN (snookin21)
 
here are some vids i took, please excuse the cloudy water i did a huge water change and changed around all the deco before putting them in to break up any territories and added in those sunken ship parts so that the geos would have somewhere to go in case the larger fish got a little to rambunctious, got some quick shots of the hoplarchus as well but he is still pretty shy, cant wait till he recognizes me as the one with the food and becomes more outgoing haha, he is already showing some gorgeous coloring and this nice red on his breast and lower belly that i havent seen on any other parrots.

and the darn argentea, he wants nothing to do with me when im trying to take his picture and stays in the back of the tank but when im trying to get vids of the other fish he is all about getting in the way lol
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Really nice...love Geo's!
 
Where did the fish come from? I'm pretty sure Venezuelan psittacus show the red chest. Mine is an F2 from Venezuelan stock and it shows red. David (fishspeaker) says they look different than the Brazilian ones.

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thanks guys yeah the geos are from guyana, and the parrot is actually from colombia so i guess they show the red as well as the Venezuelan ones... and yeah ryan yours looks great how big is he? I will have to see if mine is more outgoing today and lets me take a better video of him, he really is quickly becoming one of my favorite fish, i was debating whether to get him since i would rather have started with a smaller specimen but so far im happy i took the risk :)
 
ok so just wanted to do a little update, will try getting another vid later in the day, but i lost the smallest surinamensis the day after i got them :( i dont know what happened, they seemed to be doing fine and it happened in the middle of the day, i havent seen any of the other fish even attempt to chase them so i guess im just chalking it up to a fluke and he must have gotten more stressed out from the shipping than i thought, and i did see the biggest one flaring and tail slapping with one of the other ones on the first day but hasnt been doing it at all anymore with any of them so maybe that was the one he was fighting with and he took him out since he was already stressed maybe he was more vunerable than he normally would have been?

but yeah im actually surprised with the toughness of the parrot lol, he hasnt messed with anybody except the argentea (that i have seen) but i was actually worried about what the argentea would do with a new addition that was his size, since he has been the biggest in the tank for about 5 months now. but the parrot is actually dominating him and while there is no damage, he straight up chases the argentea everytime he sees him until he swims away from him and then when the arg swims away he lets him be until he sees him again, the parrot has also become a little more outgoing but is still pretty shy, as long as im still by the tank he is ok but if i move then he gets scared, i would have rather started out with a smaller specimen since i knew that having grown that large in the wild he may be more aggressive and so far that has been true but do you think he will get used to the argentea and eventually leave him alone or will he continuously want to dominate the argentea even when the arg isnt trying to fight him at all (he did a little flaring and chasing when the parrot first went in the tank but since the parrot won the fight he hasnt even attempted to challenge him)
 
My guess is that the psittacus is only going to get worse as he grows and settles in. Mine has been pretty relentless lately, even though he was fine for the first several months he was here. Once they get it in their minds that they don't like a particular fish, they don't seem to ease up at all. Mine chased my chocolate cichlid for months and then one day just started violently attacking it. I had to finally move the chocolate because it was missing scales and fins.
 
well that sucks but yeah i guess ill just have to keep an eye out for signs of it becoming more serious, right now its really just mild chasing and not physical contact because the arg swims away right away, its really not that bad right now, just thought i would mention it to see if it would escalate or not, but so far there really aren't any split fins or anything its just a little chasing, and the arg is tough, he can hold his own if he decides to, im actually surprised hes getting punked like that from the new guy, hes never been outright aggressive but even when i had a midas juvie and carpintis that were all larger than him, he was always left alone. but yeah i was just worried about the parrot messing with the new surinams but so far he hasnt messed with any of the other fish at all, so, so far so good lol
 
Surprisingly, my psittacus seems to ignore small fish. He did initially try to eat my little 4" pikes when I added them to the tank, but it must've had more to do with their torpedo shape and fast swimming that grabbed his attention because there are other tiny tankmates that he completely overlooks. For instance, I put some 3" rainbow cichlid growouts in my 210g and he never even flinched.

My guess is that the psittacus is only going to bully fish with similar size and shape, or fish that they feel will try and challenge their dominance. If the argentea learns to push back, maybe it will put your psittacus in his place. The few severums that pushed back at mine seem to be left alone now. There are some fish, like my chocolate for instance, who never would push back, and so the psittacus took that as his green light to give them hell I guess.
 
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