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i agree with sneaky pete those reched so called algea eaters have caused my fish a fare bit of greif last time i had one so i fed it to the dovii

actualy i once stupidly put a yabby about 12cm or 5" in with little goldfish and he killed a few but anyway my point is that he escaped twice and on the third time i never saw it again, good thing too

Last edited by goldfishkeeper at 04-Jun-2005 15:34

Keep in mind 10" is only applicable to wild specimens. We have a five year old in our pond and several at work, and they are 6"-7".

Yes, CAE's get very very large.
Do NOT listen to people in large chain stores, they only want to sell you the fish, they dont care whether you have to return it later, it all means more profit for them.
Here are a couple profiles on your fish:
[link=http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/cae.xml]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/cae.xml" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]
[link=http://species.fishindex.com/species_3707gyrinocheilus_aymonieri_algae_eater.html]http://species.fishindex.com/species_3707gyrinocheilus_aymonieri_algae_eater.html" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]
[link=http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/algeater.htm]http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/algeater.htm" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]



It just goes to show it is helpful to find a fish you like, then come back to the internet and do some research to see if your fish will be the same as the people in the pet store say.
I have often overheard workers in stores such as Petcetera (very much like petsmart) say such things as "Oscars only reach 8 inches" "Yes, a common pleco would be just fine in a 10g tank" "No, I dont think an adult Jack Dempsey would ever bother Neons" "Of course you can put 4 goldfish in a 5g tank, they only grow to their environment".
Remember, most of the people these pet stores hire have no knowledge whatsoever of fish. Most of them are chosen because they have previous retail experience - not pet experience.

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Wow. I haven't been back in a while.

Well. All my ghost shrimp are gone. And now...so is my AFD (definitely and AFD and not even a purchase--he hitchhiked in the shopping bag). Anyhoo. He ate dried tubifex worms and flakes the fish didn't get.

EVERY time I feed my fish frozen food, somebody gets a horrible disease and dies. It's never the same, but it always happens.

Whoever said "check behind your tank"--I checked again. I pulled the table out and lo & behold I found at least 2 shrimp and a tetra in the dustballs.

I'm highly disturbed that you're all saying my Gold CAE is going to get 10" long. Petsmart told me 3-4". I'd have never gotten it if I thought it was going to be a freaking pond fish. But her size hasn't increased since I got her (maybe 2 years?).

My snail is a canaliculata and is about the size of my fist, smaller than a baseball and bigger than a golf ball. As far as I can tell, she stopped eating 8 months ago. I'm sure she's eating something but nothing I can see. Certainly no longer the veggies she used to love.

Tetra: the tetra is as small as a neon, maybe 1-1/2" long, it's all a metallic tangerine color with a little black on the tail. Seems a little territorial but not aggressive. Digging around on the web it looks like she's a silver-tip.

LOL Mystery Tetra
Can we get some info on the "Mystery Tetra" please?
Size, color, body shape, likeness to?
Thanks
My money is on the CAE


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The largest of the four hymenochirus species commonly sold reaches up to 2.5", if not slightly larger. I still say it was the mystery tetra.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 05-Jun-2005 18:47

Sonic -
I think that there is a great deal of difference between a teeny tiny ghost shrimp and a 4 inch molly!
Again I wouldnt be surprised if you also have an African Clawed Frog.

I have tried to feed my frogs earthworms, and they are incapable of ingesting something as large as a ghost shrimp without choking. After having to physically remove the frog and remove the worm from his mouth before he died, I would be very hesitant to assume an ADF of mature size can even eat ghost shrimp.

here is a comparison picture, because I feel a lot of people do not know the difference between an African Dwarf Frog, and an African Clawed Frog.

AFRICAN DWARF FROG (MAX SIZE 1.5"





AFRICAN CLAWED FROG (POTENTIAL SIZE 8-10", USUAL SIZE 6"





AND, Heres a pic of a pair of nice large ones.
A person I know has 1 almost twice the size of these 2
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it was the ADF. mine ate 4 ghost shrimp. they can usually get them down pretty fast and leave no remains where fish pick at it and carry it arround.

ADFs - while they certainly appreciate live or frozen foods - do not NEED them. My sister has them and they gladly chomp on sinking shrimp pellets and the like. They're not the swiftest of creatures (physically or mentally, some times) and would have a hard time catching a fish, unless it decided to swim into the frog's mouth. They're adorable, but the brightest bulb in the box, they're not.

They don't see terribly well (or rather, don't depend on sight), and use scent to find their food. The issue is that they're not terribly fast at finding it.

By process of elimination (unless the molly decided to fall asleep with her tail in the frog's face!), it has to be the CAE.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

ok mabye thats what they had... Hey im a fish keeper not a frog keeper. But my care info was right...right? i dont know iv never kept frogs before so i just took a wild guess LOL

C.J.T

Last edited by C.J.T at 04-Jun-2005 18:12

I LOVE MY 55GALLON REEF!!!!!

They will and do occasionally nip fins. It is not unheard of.

C.J.T --- I believe you are confusing her ittby bitty ADF with an African Clawed Frog.
African Dwarf Frogs only grow to less than 2 inches at maturity, and would be incapable of damaging any fish but the smallest fry.
I have had ADFS for a long time now, and I assure you, they are incapable of injuring fish.

African Clawed Frogs on the other hand- (known for having clawed seperated toes on each foot), grow to 8 inches+ and are aggressive fish eaters. This is probably the frog you had. They are very very different creatures.


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I keep CAE both at the store and at home (sort of--they live in a friend's pond which I mantain, and are, therefore by all means, my fish). They do not feast on fins. Though seemingly quite aggressive, they have relatively weak jaws and rely on negative pressure rather than muscle to keep them grounded in heavily currented water. If you keep your CAE well fed with a protein heavy diet (they are, by nature, scavengers, and prefer crude protein over plant matter, which is why they are often so inclined to latch onto fish).At the store, we feed our 8"s with night crawlers, bloodworms, prawns, and fish, and they are kept with five to six inch goldfish, bitterlings, and small suns. In fact, they are incapable of fully closing their mouths. Instead, they "retract" them, so to speak. Also, in the confines of the aquarium, few CAEs reach even 10", much less past twelve. This is rare in wild specimens as well. I believe the culprit to be your frog or the mystery tetra, both are likely fin nipping candidates, and at the LFS, our dwarves will on occasion, munch on guppy fins.


Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 04-Jun-2005 16:03

hey wait a minute aren't CAE coldwater?
cause my lfs sell them in the un heated tanks
then again maybe they like to stech the rules

I have a 10g tank containing:

1 apple snail
1 golden CAE
1 Silver Lyre-tailed Molly
3 Tetras (two glo-lite & a tangerine colored one)
1 African Dwarf Frog
1 ghost shrimp


Somebody chomped off one end of my mollie's fin. It eventually grew back but then got chomped off again. And the next day the other side of it was gone as well. She seems perfectly healthy, I DON'T think it's fin rot. It looks bitten off. There & then gone, sheared edge.

Not only that, but 2-3wks ago I got 6 ghost shrimp. They were growing. And I thought, "oh sh**, I thought they stayed tiny-- I have too many". I watched them with glee, day by day. 1 o 2 seemed to be missing but I thought nothing of it because they were probably hiding. A couple days ago I could only find 2. Now can only find 1. I pulled everything out of my tank and there's no carcasses. I don't have any gravel so there's just some plants and rocks. Nowhere to hide. I checked the filter. WHAT IS GOING ON?


The frog was a hitchhiker from the pet store when I got a couple tetras (ie, he was not an intentional purchase). He seems benign.
Apple Snail (pomocae canaliculata) is over a year old and barely eats or moves around anymore.
The CAE maybe?? The tetras are too small. The ghost shrimp is about 1/2" long. Do they eat each other? I remember that the 2nd to last one was bigger than the one survivor...

What's the dealio? Has anyone ever noticed alien abductions in their aquarium? Everyone seems to get along just fine all day long. But I wake up and people are missing.

Last edited by Koi Keeper at 03-Jun-2005 18:16

I had a CAE and i lost cories, and several other fish to it
Caught it sucking out eyeballs, and will literally attach itself to your fish and eat them alive.

Just my experience from them.

A cana applesnail grows about the size of a baseball and a bit big for a 10g. If your snail is only around 2inches or golfball size it's a brig not a cana. No real difference besides size and brigs tend to prefer more meaty foods such as fish flakes over vegetation than the canas. Large applesnails like canas have been known to trap guppies and eat them but it's not all that common.
CAE are large and agressive. The older and bigger they get the worse they are and the less algae they eat. They have been known to kill fish on many occasions and are a more likely suspect than the snail.
If your frog actually is a dwarf frog and not a clawed frog he won't harm any fish and is unlikely to even harm a ghost shrimp.
Shrimp often die when molting. They shed off their hard covering and are soft and vulnerable. Make sure you have a good hiding place for the shrimp while they molt or they can be easily injured. Adding a small amount of clear marine iodine(not colored iodine for wounds) will help the shrimp and increase their survival rate while molting.

The damage to the molly is likely the cae and a small chance it's the snail but I wouldn't count on that. The shrimp could be killed by anything if they don't have a place to safely molt and molting itself can cause death especially if there isn't much iodine in the water.

It might be that your African dwarf frog has been having mid-nite snacks on your fish and shrimp. I say that cuz my friends had a frog for a "science thing" a few years ago and when they "Learned all they could" they added a minnow, a couple tetras and i think some shrimp in an 8gal hex. Now they should have gotten a bigger tank, scrached the fish, got more frogs, and done patial waterchanges (which they did'nt). So they wake up one morning and find a minced monnow (with pieces missing). Each day they see less and less fish and a more and more satisfied frog till they have no fish or shrimp and a hungry frog. then they have an algae bloom that is so thick that it looks like pea soup and the frog dies. So i'd reccomend you move your remaining fish, shrimp, and snails into a seprate tank or if you are short on funds, go to your LFS and pick-up a box lookin' thing with holes in it and put is in your tank with the ADF inside it and save for at least a 10-15gal and have yourself a frog farm. Also your CAE could be a problem so do what i did (un-intetionally of course) put a PVC pipe in the tank and when cleaning day comes take the pipe out and wut it in HOT water and watch what floats out , Happy fishkeeping bro!

P.S. always feed your frogs on live or frozen foods. they like brineshrimp, blood worms (although the can carry parasites),or other meaty foods.

Enjoy! C.J.T

Last edited by C.J.T at 04-Jun-2005 10:34

Last edited by C.J.T at 04-Jun-2005 10:36

Last edited by C.J.T at 04-Jun-2005 10:42

I LOVE MY 55GALLON REEF!!!!!

yes if he is four inches then he is your problem...i have a jouvinile CAE and he is no threat..although my cories have resorted to the top of the tank....



Peter

20 GALLON LONG CURRENTLY EMPTY ~~~~ 10 GALLON W/ STRIPPED CONVICT

Sorry- No insult intended. I just find CAE's to be very ugly fish - I think mostly because of the "ugly" nature of their personality. I am not big on aggressive fish.
Yes, that fish will be way too big for a 10g tank. They usually reach 8 inches in the aquarium or larger, so it needs at least a 50g tank to be happy for its whole life.
Its probably getting very angry at other fish in its tiny territory. Definetly capably of eating a fish nearly its size. My sister had one, killed a full grown oranda when it was only 4 inches.
CAE when bye bye really quickly.
I dont think that fish is a good choice for your tank.
He needs more room.


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