Well i think Koi are much tougher and more adaptable anyway, especially in terms of oxygen and Ph levels.
Btw what ph levels and water hardness do you got for your Goonch? And is it me and my browser setting or are the pictures broken? Would be awesome to see your stuff!
In the end the most important question for anyone who wants to keep Bagarius would be: Is there such a thing as a warm-water proven species of Bagarius for their entire lifespan.
Because temperature is the one thing you pretty much can not control entirely without it getting really expensive. You can soften the water, you can get enough current to fill up the capacity for oxygen. But cooling a tank down to like 22°C when you are in a really hot summer of 35° is difficult.
(Of course if you got a nice cold well in your yard, that's a different thing)
koi are tough fish as are carp in general which is why they were introduced into every country in europe as a food source by monks hahaha. but i don't think goonch are a hard fish to care for, i'm just not convinced that a fish that occupies such a wide range of areas can be. i think like i said originally it's a combination of things, seasonal temps, feeding and oxygen levels.
is there a goonch that can survive warm temp all its life?? maybe but without more work done into the species it will be hard to ID a fish. most of the time we can't even ID what type we have let alone where it was collected from and if there are adults in the area??
my PH is fairly neutral (7.4 ish) i haven't tested it recently, but i'm in wales UK is mostly mountain wash off water.
This is a great thread, I think we all should strive for this level of research and care for the species we keep.
thank you very much
Shane is using his experience with reptiles here, it seems we Aquarist are lacking considerably when it comes to temperature specifics.
Its a fact that goonch don't do well in captivity for some reason so we need pioneers to try new things like this.
Well done Shane, get us some feeding videos, pref hand feeding!-)
you hit the nail on the head. i spent most of my early years breeding reptiles, mainly
Morelia spilotes and varnus. both of which require a good yearly cycle to be successful. spending the whole year planning for a breed can be time consuming with a pair, i had 250 pairs hahaha.
i'm a firm believer in our tanks are not about keeping a fish, but more about keeping a mini eco system. these can not survive without a yearly cycle because things burn out to quick.
when i first got into fish (used to feed my reptile habbit) a friend gave me a hard time over all the things i was putting into my tanks to keep them stable. he had alot more experience than me and so i took what he said and never forgot it. he said one day when we discussing a algie issue in my tank, " shane, i have had blue green algie in my tank for a year, its killed some of my fish but i just stick to my routine" when asked why he replyed " because a lake dosn't get a load of chemical dumped in, it just sorts itself out over time. your fish tanks will stabilize again if you just stick to a routine". i have never dumped anything in my long term tanks since and never really had any problems. it spurred me to also venture off the beaten track from time to time to try and keep thing.
feed video is hard because its at night and he won't move if the lights are on. if i get myself a gopro i could probably set it up to capture him.
Pics are broken for me too.
The temp is tricky, as the OP has pointed out.
-- At different ages fish occupy different parts of rivers with different temps.
-- Then come geography and climate.
-- Then season changes.
-- Then come the depth.
-- Then what feeds the rivers - shallow springs and tributaries which are warm or glaciers and how long it takes for cold water to warm up and
-- if the flow is largely laminar, the cold water can remain largely unchanged flowing below the warm surface waters - so the river morphology matters.
They say big goonch occupy deep holes within rivers.
i have read they can be +10m deep. as you pointed out there is alot of factors in play. keeper are quick to defend amazonian fish for being hardy because of the wide range of water types feeding the main river, but this is the world over. in the amazon there are fish found only in areas where two water types come together, that is so specialised it take some work to keep them. i dont think this is the case with goonch i think its all about the oxygen levels, but that is the bit that is affected by flow, temp, depth. also i have been thinking about the feeding more, in reptiles its known that starvation periods give you healthy reptiles, they don't gorge in the wild and feed very sporadically. on a standard captive feeding regime most build fatty deposits on the liver and die young ( especially if feed heavy to get to breeding size and then breed year after year), actually most of my snakes only feed for about 4-6 months out the year, growth was recorded as slower than other keepers but i had much leaner snakes and they produced consistent litters every two years. my carpets wouldnt feed until 6 months old, when i looked into it in the wild they hatch just before winter so in the wild they almost go straight into winter cool down.
anyway back on track
so we have had a couple of constant weeks with the average temp of about 20'c.
today the shed is sat at 24'c water is 24'c and outside temp is 20'c no heating on at all.
the goonch is very active now, and seems to have moved to a new location unless distrubed then he goes back to his corner. i think this is a hunting location as its 90' to the flow and facing the largest open space. he is now eating fillet fish, maybe half a fillet a night.
all the plants have bounced back into life (anubis and java ferns) they also seem to have benefited form a cycle. all levels are stable.
photobucket is being a pain it want me to pay for usage and im tight hahaha i'll get some pic on my phone an upload them direct.
thanks again
shane
