~~~ THE Super Splendiferous Temensis Growout Thread!!! ~~~

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Hi Gerry,

Thanks for your reply.

One thing that puzzles me is the white spots of Tem over the forehead and back. Some have it and others don't even in the wild. I am trying to figure out what makes them 'spotty'. From the info you have provided we can rule out that pH has anything to do with it. So it boils down to

1.Nature vs nurture? I have 3 tems now which I kept from 4 to 5" when they only have the lateral black stripe. Just couple of months later they are pushing 8" now with some serious girth! One of them is showing some spotting on the forehead. I believe the spots or speckles start from the cheeks. Once the cheeks are 'fully' speckled they move up to forehead, follow by moving down to the back maybe? The other one is moderately speckled and the last one which is the alpha shows little spotting. I will continue to monitor and see what develops.

2.It could be also due to the food. I feed them 99% of the time hikari bio gold plus. I guess they need some market shrimp mix in their diet?

3.Or it could be water change as I don't do water change that often.

My pH is about 6-6.5 and slightly tea coloured, courtesy of katapang leaves. This makes their colours more intense and eyes redder compared to a month ago before the introduction of ketapang leaves.

Please feel free to comment. :)
 
The spots would be genetic, so it's probably a matter of collection locale. It does look like they lose them as adults.

As to katapang leaves, I like fresh malaysian driftwood for a similar effect.
 
ikanyubodoh;4031470; said:
Hi Gerry,

Thanks for your reply.

One thing that puzzles me is the white spots of Tem over the forehead and back. Some have it and others don't even in the wild. I am trying to figure out what makes them 'spotty'. From the info you have provided we can rule out that pH has anything to do with it. So it boils down to

1.Nature vs nurture? I have 3 tems now which I kept from 4 to 5" when they only have the lateral black stripe. Just couple of months later they are pushing 8" now with some serious girth! One of them is showing some spotting on the forehead. I believe the spots or speckles start from the cheeks. Once the cheeks are 'fully' speckled they move up to forehead, follow by moving down to the back maybe? The other one is moderately speckled and the last one which is the alpha shows little spotting. I will continue to monitor and see what develops.

2.It could be also due to the food. I feed them 99% of the time hikari bio gold plus. I guess they need some market shrimp mix in their diet?

3.Or it could be water change as I don't do water change that often.

My pH is about 6-6.5 and slightly tea coloured, courtesy of katapang leaves. This makes their colours more intense and eyes redder compared to a month ago before the introduction of ketapang leaves.

Please feel free to comment. :)
Click to expand...

for one thing,it depends on their genes.
some just dont have it while others do.
but ive also seen that a batch i raised was so much more red and spotty than others (same batch from lfs).
with this batch my water changes werent very frequent at all,and they had a variety of foods from hikari sinking to market prawns.
 
Thanks Gerry and Micheldied that makes lots of sense. My tems from the same parentage already displaying varying degree of spotting! Ha!

In short, when comes to tem spotting, it is all nature rather then nurture. Though the later will help a little.
 
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