Email Wes and you’ll get a fair price and options for shipping. You’ll always get what’s advertised and the correct fish.
Fish above look like gatf, tatf and vatf based on first pic. My guesstimation.
Thoughts on my 3 ATF situation
- Thread starter SSJ Crit
- Start date
Fish above look like gatf, tatf and vatf based on first pic. My guesstimation.
I think you’ve not gotten to much of a response because your asking about availability and prices... we aren’t the ones importing them to really know. Vendors have to price fish based off of how many they get Alice etc.
As far as ID
Chicxulub
is the best at it. I’m usually accurate but I have to go back and forth from the sticky. If you’ve no response when I get out of work tonight I will do so for you and give you my opinion.
As far as tank size, with atf it was said before they need huge aquariums. But it seems they still die from ramming the sides in them. For example a guy with a 3ft gatf lost it in a 30,000g tank or pond because it rammed the side. Padding doesn’t seem to help as Viktor still lost his. You phil is currently trying something new with a rounded tank. I say all of this to say it was decided that the smaller tanks may be better because it doesn’t allow them to build Up the speed to commit suicide. The sticky has recommended tank sizes for each species which you can go off of.
Now that being said you have a gatf as stated. The other two I wouldn’t be so keen on saying vatf as there are many similarities between the smaller species. But if the guys say so and if they refreshed there thoughts with the sticky than I see no reason to challenge that until I have look myself.
Back to tank size. In the long run you’d probably want a 8x3. I know you’re probably wondering why I say this because the sticky says gatf need larger. It is very likely once they reach around 1’ the dominant fish will kill the others. Your gatf is likely the first to go.
As far as ID
Chicxulub
is the best at it. I’m usually accurate but I have to go back and forth from the sticky. If you’ve no response when I get out of work tonight I will do so for you and give you my opinion. As far as tank size, with atf it was said before they need huge aquariums. But it seems they still die from ramming the sides in them. For example a guy with a 3ft gatf lost it in a 30,000g tank or pond because it rammed the side. Padding doesn’t seem to help as Viktor still lost his. You phil is currently trying something new with a rounded tank. I say all of this to say it was decided that the smaller tanks may be better because it doesn’t allow them to build Up the speed to commit suicide. The sticky has recommended tank sizes for each species which you can go off of.
Now that being said you have a gatf as stated. The other two I wouldn’t be so keen on saying vatf as there are many similarities between the smaller species. But if the guys say so and if they refreshed there thoughts with the sticky than I see no reason to challenge that until I have look myself.
Back to tank size. In the long run you’d probably want a 8x3. I know you’re probably wondering why I say this because the sticky says gatf need larger. It is very likely once they reach around 1’ the dominant fish will kill the others. Your gatf is likely the first to go.
I think you’ve not gotten to much of a response because your asking about availability and prices... we aren’t the ones importing them to really know. Vendors have to price fish based off of how many they get Alice etc.
As far as ID
As far as tank size, with atf it was said before they need huge aquariums. But it seems they still die from ramming the sides in them. For example a guy with a 3ft gatf lost it in a 30,000g tank or pond because it rammed the side. Padding doesn’t seem to help as Viktor still lost his. You phil is currently trying something new with a rounded tank. I say all of this to say it was decided that the smaller tanks may be better because it doesn’t allow them to build Up the speed to commit suicide. The sticky has recommended tank sizes for each species which you can go off of.
Now that being said you have a gatf as stated. The other two I wouldn’t be so keen on saying vatf as there are many similarities between the smaller species. But if the guys say so and if they refreshed there thoughts with the sticky than I see no reason to challenge that until I have look myself.
Back to tank size. In the long run you’d probably want a 8x3. I know you’re probably wondering why I say this because the sticky says gatf need larger. It is very likely once they reach around 1’ the dominant fish will kill the others. Your gatf is likely the first to go.
I have dissected that ATF tiger fish care/ID 3.0 sticky he wrote up as it is a nice fun read and I'm very clear on all the information he included about their habitat in the wild as well as about tank sizes and the preferable habitat we could create for them at home.
I even read his other threads and another one I found very useful is the pellet training guide which I'm currently trying to do right now with some tinfoil Barb's.
However, the only saying I cannot figure out is the identification of the two smaller fish I have pictured on the top even though I've tried comparing from the pictures on the ID thread and trying to find the hobbyist and scientific diagnostic traits listed. It's probably just because of my untrained inexperienced eye.
Other minor things I could not find information on about ATF in general are things like:
Preferable light schedule or preference if there is any.
Preferred water hardness pH and what not.. I could find this information on other outside sources but was hoping to source some from experience people here.
Also would like to know how strong they like the current flow to be although it is mentioned that they don't like uneven erratic current but steady flow which that i understand.
First and foremost, thank you for the kind words toward my work!
Top is gatf, middle is cf "big eye", bottom is probably vatf but could possibly be cf. big eye or cf. fat vatf. Even I have trouble telling them apart in pics at this size, but in person its not really a problem.
In my experience lighting doesn't really seem to matter so long as they're not kept in total darkness. I'd leave my fish sometimes for a couple days in a row under the moonlights with no more of a day/night cycle than what light comes through the window. It never seemed to affect their feeding. The fish didn't seem to care.
I actively ran experiments with water conditioning. At the time, I lived in Missouri which had horribly bad liquid rock, so my water was always really high in gh and kh. Using peat filtration, I was able to dial in my ph from the almost 9 of the Missouri aquifer water to 5 and the color of sweet tea with the peat. The fish didn't seem to care.
The current misconception, which arose through a poor choice in wording on my part about seven years ago, is the greatest failing I've made in this hobby. They do NOT need current, but they're not stressed by it when done correctly, either. When they have current, they need a dead spot and smooth flow. As to how much, so long as it isn't obviously stressing the fish, you're good. The main advantage of current is that it gives them a treadmill of sorts which allows them to burn energy without smashing a tank wall. IME, it allows them to thrive in a smaller tank than that which a large, dynamic predator such as them would otherwise need. It isn't a critical requirement.
The most important part of keeping ATF is a low stress environment with lots of do2 and a concerted effort to keep no3 below 20ppm. Low do2 or high no3 WILL stress the fish to the point of not eating and shedding slime coats very quickly.
Thanks for chiming in and filling in the blanks of some of my information. I appreciate that!
Yes I've heard from another member in here that they too didn't recognize any effect of light preference on the ATF.
As for the current thanks for updating me on that and yes it is a great treadmill for them to burn off some of that extra energy also to keep themselves in shape. I already have mine set up in a rotating current with two different filters in the right spots of the current rotation. They can step off into a couple of dead spots if needed. I also have the current setup to where it blows tiny oxygen bubbles throughout the whole tank.
Good to know about the water condition details I'm going to try to dial it in more to those specs.
If I post better pictures of the bottom 2 do you think it would give you a better idea?
Overall it's been very fun trying to create a habitable environment for these fish to thrive I'm still working toward a bigger tank. All the information you have put out in your threads has helped me tremendously and I have learned a lot from them as well as all of you guys out there who have been posting their information answering my questions thank you guys very much as well.
I only need pics of this fish. Focus on the two spots I circled and I'll probably be able to iron it out for you.
Okay when I get off work tonight I will definitely focus on that spot and post a picture.
I'm just curious to learn... how are you able to identify the middle fish and be so certain of it? Just want to know what you saw so I can learn.
Thousands of hours looking at them. For the most part telling ATF apart is as easy for me as telling the difference between a German shepherd, a malinois and a Dutch shepherd. As adults, it's easy; but as a pup you have to look slightly closer, and with a bad pick of a brown fluffball, it could be a bit of a challenge.
I'm 99.9% certain your bottom fish is a vatf, I just hold myself to a very high standard before I state anything definitively.
Nice! I guess after thousands of hours of looking at them it becomes quite familiar to you.
Here are more pictures of the bottom fish up closely.. It's as if they knew I was trying to take a picture so they kept swimming out of frame lol. It was hard to zoom into the spots you circled but I did the best I could. I also included pictures of the smaller middle fish just in case.. Here's what I got.
Since you have so much experience with the different ATF species and probably have seen them passing through or studied them online I was curious to get your opinion which of the species is the most rare all the way down to the most common that you have seen or heard of.
I do understand that some people on here are starting to figure out there's different subspecies within a species that my differentiate by growth rates and other factors. Also might be discovering different hybrids which is all very interesting I'm excited to see what new information will come forth.
So excluding the hybrid subspecies just talking about the five main species where would you list them from rarest to most common?
