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hi all,

I have a question, yesterday I bought 10 white clouds to add to my 20 colorful danios and 5 coolies in my 46 gallon tank. Once I got them into the tank I noticed some of the clouds had little nips taken out of their back fins. I assumed it to because of the tight quarters at the fish store. My question is, will the fins grow back? I'd like to assume they will. Also is my tank over stock? I don't think it is, but others might think differently.

thanks

OK, first of all, let's address the stocking. If your Danios are a small species such as Zebras or one of the newer species such as choprae, then in a 46 I don't think you're overstocked. However, if your 46 is a tall instead of a long tank, your fishes might feel a bit cramped even though the water volume is sufficient. If your 46 is a long, shallow tank, on the other hand, then I'd say that your fishes should be happy. Let me know what species of Danio you have and I'll be able to confirm this better of course.

Better still, if the fishes you have listed are the ONLY fishes in there, then I'd say you're OK. Allow me in addition to offer my congratulations to you for having decent sized shoals of these fishes - if your 20 Danios are all one species, then chances are they'll be happy enough to provide the patter of tiny fins in fairly short order.

Next, your White Clouds. If the fin damage is peripheral, and doesn't extend all the way to the fin root, then the nips taken out of the fins should be repairable. Damage to fins only becomes a problem if that damage extends to the root of the tissue in the body where the fin begins to grow, as can happen in advanced cases of fin rot. Then, your fishes will have a problem, and any growback could be misshapen.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thank you for the quick response. My danios are zebra danios that have been DNA alterted with jelly fish. I have 10 red, 5 orange, and 5 green. I will be getting 5 blues (hopefully) when my LFS gets them.

The are the dwarf danios (max size 1"-2", not the large danios. Also the tank is a standard 46 gallon bow (36" x 18" x 18" with drift wood, plants, and rocks.

The clouds aren't having any difficulty swimming, so the fin damage isn't major.

What I would like is to have the coolies spawn. I think 25-28 danios and 10 clouds would be ok in my tank. I would maybe get one other fish, maybe a colorful and peaceful ~3 incher to finalize the tank.

Thanks again. let me know if my plan is ok!!

Ah, so they're all the same species. Good for you!

Mind you, that mixture of colurs is going to look a bit garish ... but that's just my taste in colours shining through

25 Zebra Danios, 10 White Clouds, 5 Kuhliis ... hmm, if you're looking for something that will be a nice addition, a pair of Laetacara curviceps, or Flag Cichlids, will go down nicely. As Cichlids go, these are among the most peaceful of the lot - in fact, I am surprised that they are not sold more often, because they are FAR more appropriate to sell to people planning a community aquarium than the likes of Convicts, which are bad tempered and ornery critters with a host of personality and size issues making them a bad choice. Flag Cichlids, on the other hand, max out at 3 inches, are peaceful, colourful, when they breed they are superb, dependable parents, and are probably among the finest small Cichlids you will ever lay your hands on. They are WELL worth tracking down, even if you have to travel 50 miles out to find a pair, because they will be little jewels, and once you've kept them, you will, like me, wonder WHY on earth these fishes aren't MASSIVELY popular in the shops, given that they're hardy, colourful, peaceful, and WON'T set about engaging in bouts of wholesale mass murder, uprooting plants or excavating the substrate to death!

There is another 'pacifist' Cichlid you could try and get a pair of - a West African riverine Cichlid (i.e., it is NOT a Rift Lake fish and so doesn't need hard, alkaline water) called Anomalochromis thomasi that is a BIG favourite of mine. Again, another 'pacifist' species, colourful, maxes out at 3 inches, a dependable parent when breeding, and in breeding dress is utterly gorgeous. I had them as a tteenager, then spent 30 years trying to find the species again after it vanished off the radar for some reason. Now, I've found a supplier, and when the funds are forthcoming, I'm going to treat myself to a few of them.

Get yourself a male/female pair of either of those two Cichlids, and you're sorted.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

The flag cichlid and the African butterfly cichlid are great suggestions, but if you want to stick with the Asian theme, I highly advise you to look for badis. They are the Asian equivalent of the South American apistos, being similar in both temperament and beauty, only they are actually anabantids, rather than cichlids. The only problem is that they are fairly uncommon in the aquarium trade, so you might have to work hard to get these guys. If you live in the US, they are occasionally available on http://www.aquabid.com/, so have a look on there every once in a while. For some examples of badis species, check out this link (although the pictures just dont justify the beauty these fish are capable of obtaining)-http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/identification/specieslist.cfm?famcode=619&areacode=

Correction. Badis badis is a fish that looks superficially like a Cichlid, but was originally classified as belonging to the Family Nandidae before being moved to its own Family, the Badidae. Unlike the Anabantids and relations, Badis badis does not possess accessory air breathing organs, and the Nandids are its closest relatives, followed more distantly by the Tiger Fishes such as Datnioides microlepis.

Badis badis is a very interesting fish, being extremely variable in colouration (in fact it's said that no two individuals have the same colour pattern - they're unique like fingerprints) and sharing some Cichlid style habits. It's a small fish, but one that has some specialised needs. Before taking this fish on, be advised that it should have live foods fed on a fairly regular basis if it is to remain healthy, and it's likely to fare best in a species aquarium or an aquarium with companions that are relatively slow moving and won't compete too vigorously for food.

Oh, and the situation with respect to Badis is becoming interesting - apparently Sven Kullander revised the Genus, and now a dozen different species are recognised, along with fishes belonging to a new Genus, Dario. Watch this space for more information ...




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Sorry for my misinformation. In both of my aquarium encyclopedias, it classifies badis as anabantids.

Step 1 : Get a copy of Ye Olde Innes Book. You'll find the Nandids beginning on page 329, with Badis badis as the first species listed on page 330. This information is now out of date: the fish has been moved into its own Family, the Badidae, and the Genus Badis has since been revised by Sven Kullander of Cichlid taxonomy fame - there are now no less than twelve different species belonging to the Genus now!

Step 2: Check your encyclopedias and make sure that they don't mention Nandids or the like in the small print. It's possible that they've been lumped in with the Anabantids because the authors thought it was too much fuss to bother devoting an entire chapter to a Family of fishes comprising fewer than 10 species

Having said that, the Anabantidae as defined in Innes' day has now been split up - the Anabantidae now contains only the Climbing Perches, the African Ctenopoma species and a couple of oddball relations. Most of our favourite "Anabantids" as were have now been moved into a new Family called the Osphronemidae (some authors mistakenly state that the new Family is called the Belontiidae), and this Family now covers Betta, Colisa, Trichogaster, Trichopsis, Sphaerichthys, Macropodus and a host of other familiar Gouramis. The Kissing Gourami has now been parked in its own unique Family, the Helostomatidae.

Mind you, if you think that's confusing, try delving into catfish taxonomy - several major authors cannot even agree on how many Families of catfishes there are, let alone agree about the finer grained divisions such as Genus! About the only factor they DO agree upon is that all catfishes belong to the Order Siluriformes, and that the type Family for the Order is the Siluridae. Beyond that, you're looking at all kinds of mayhem when it comes to classifying catfishes ...

The catfishes are not the only Ostariophysans to undergo taxonomic upheaval - the characins have undergone Family splitting too - into such gems as the Erythrinidae (Trahiras, Pirate Fishes and Sabretooths), Lebiasinidae (Pencil Fishes), Gasteropelecidae (Hatchet Hishes), and so on. Originally, the term 'Ostariophysan' was derived from the old Order Ostariophysi, which contained all the fishes that possessed a Weberian apparatus (this is a set of modified vertebral bones that transmit vibrations to the inner ear of those fishes that possess them): now, the fishes in this group belong to different Orders, the principal ones being the Characiformes (characin type fishes), the Cypriniformes (carps and allies, including the Loaches) and the Siluriformes (catfishes) - I'll have to look up whether 'Ostariophysi' is now a MirOrder, a GrandOrder, A SuperOrder or a MagnaOrder (it might even be a Cohort)!

Incidentally, a full breakdown of the currently accepted divisions of granularity in Linnaean taxonomy can be found here. Enjoy



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Wow, who knew taxonomy could be so confusing

I knew that Anabantidae was a family in and of itself, but I thought that the phrase "anabantids" describes all gouramis and relatives. I am currently looking at one of my encyclopedias right now and the "anabantids" section is broken up into 4 subcategories- bettas, paradisefish, gouramis, and bushfish. Badis, along with the nandids, happens to be in the bushfish subcategory.

You're thinking of the term "Anabantoid", which is different than "Anabantid". Anabantoids include all fishes in the suborder Anabantoidei (climbing perches, gouramis, bettas, pikeheads, etc), while Anabantids are only fishes in the family Anabantidae (Ctenopomas and climbing perches).

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Thanks for clearing that up Natalie, I guess i didn't notice the "O" in anabantoids

About the only major Family (in terms of species count) that has remained relatively intact (though internally it has undergone tremendous revision in the past 30 years) is the Cichlidae. No one has yet suggested that the Cichlids should be split, and there is more or less universal agreement, as far as I understand, that the Cichlidae is founded upon reasonably sound phylogenetic grounds after Dr Humphrey Greenwood published a paper in the 1970s arguing that the original criteria for determining the Family required an overhaul. In particular, Greenwood latched onto the problem that in Cichlids, dentition is not necessarily a reliable indicator of phylogeny, as was previously thought, because the Cichlids have proven to be remarkably adept at moving into new niches and undergoing radiative adaptation. During this radiative adaptation (and the accompanying speciation that has followed in its wake) Cichlid dentition has proven to be surprisingly malleable. Dr Paul Loiselle discusses this in some of his Cichlid Room articles - Cichlids have a habit, annoying to the taxonomist, to develop what are known as 'ecophenotpyes' with respect to tooth structure - on the one hand, closely related Genera can have significant differences in dentition due to diet, while Genera that are only distantly related can have similar dentition through convergent evolution. Careful examination of the development of dentition in newly hatched fry through to adults to ensure that features found in collected adults are not the result of environmental factors and are in fact inherently charactersitic of a given fish, we have since learned, is vital when undoing some of the past mistakes where Cichlids are concerned, so there will be more upheavals within the Family to come, though a critical examination of this feature, described again by Dr Loiselle in the Cichlid Room article on the demon Neetroplus nematopus, has led to that species being confirmed as belonging in its own, niche Genus. Incidentally, the same article mentions that 'Cichlasoma' panamense was originally, and wrongly, placed in Neetroplus on the basis of having incisor-like teeth similar to those of Neetroplus nematopus, but in the case of panamense, the tooth shape is modified by wear during use, and the wear pattern just happens, courtesy of an awkward coincidence, to mimic the tooth shape of Neetroplus nematopus - the fry dentition is, however, strikingly different.

If you think that this particular collection of cases is bad enough, just wait until you delve into the melting pot that is African Rift Lake Cichlids - for example, even though Dr Ethelwynn Trewavas spent the best part of 40 or 50 years studying those Cichlids, and did much to place Aulonocara on a sound footing, there is still much to be done even within that Genus, let alone within the 1,200 or so other African Rift Lake species! Indeed, the exact status of some Aulonocara species (including one or two that were the subject of Trewavas' own work) remains open to furher determination. Sadly, Dr Trewavas died only a couple of years or so ago (and she was well into her nineties) but despite having devoted a large portion of her life to those Cichlids, there was still a lot of work outstanding in her "in tray" - chances are the full story of the phylogeny of the African Rift Lake Cichlids will not be fully elucidated for another two to three centuries ...

Then of course, you have to bear in mind that previous taxonomists had to rely upon dissections and a fair amount of informed speculation in order to construct the Linnaean framework for the fishes we have with us today, and that some of that work may well go completely out of the window once DNA analysis techniques are refined to the point where we possess (if this ever becomes possible of course) a series of 'acid test' for phylogeny.

Confused? Watch this space - and enjoy the intellectual fireworks.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks for the great info guys. I think I found what I want. Silver Tip Tetras. My question is, are these a good addition to my 20 danio, 10 cloud tank? From what I read it would be. How many would be suitable? I was thinking about 5? Any comments or suggestions.

Thanks

If you can fit them in there (and in a 46, with the other fishes cited as the existing stock, this is going to be doable, as it were) I'd run with 8.

Silver Tip Tetras are an interesting species. Because, they'll give you something other than shoaling behaviour to look at. Particularly if you have plants growing in the aquarium and they exist in a range of sizes. If you have a mix of light and dark foliage, even better, because this will show off the silvery fin markings to advantage.

Silver Tip Tetras are classic examples of the tendency of several Characin species to engage in what I've termed 'part time territoriality'. What happens is that as the fishes mature, the males in particular adopt 'landmarks' in the aquarium, and position themselves beside these for the purposes of displaying - firstly, to set up a pecking order among the males, and establish which one is going to be first in the queue with the ladies, and second, to show the females how wonderfully fit they are to breed with. I've documented this behaviour in depth in the past with Lemon Tetras, and Silver Tips exhibit it too, though the actual details of the display processes differ - Silver Tips tend to stay on a level keel instead of adopting a head-up posture as male Lemons do when challenging each other. However, Silver Tips engage in ritualised 'combat' as do Lemons - the males will make darting passes at each other if they come too close. You will have to watch closely to see that the darting passes ARE ritualised, and that the fishes don't come to blows, but this, I assure you, is the case. All of this venting of steam, needless to say, is the run up to the main event, namely spawning.

Incidentally, 'part time territoriality', in which the Characins adopt 'landmarks' and start behaving more like Cichlids (but without the torn fins and casualties!) is a feature of several species - usually those which have prominent high contrast markings of one sort or another on the unpaired fins. Lemons, Rosies, Black Phantoms, Red Phantoms and Serpaes are all likely to exhibit this. One fish I've experienced that differs from the norm here, incidentally, is Beckford's Pencil Fish - mine didn't content themselves with ritual combat, but went into Melanochromis chipokae mode and systematically extermianted each other ...

If your aquarium has decent plant provision, then Silver Tips will be an entertaining addition. They will also compete adequately with your other vigorous fast swimmers for food.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002