Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Ikan Jelawat - The Sultan Fish
Recently, things doesn't seem to work quite well... After 2 weeks of reservist and no changing water and TLC, my cardinals in my 4ft tank were down with ich, the whitespot disease... Soon, I realised that my cherry barbs and Yoyo Loaches were also scratching their bodies on the sword leaves! *Sigh*... I can't treat the tank cos of the plants, Yamato shrimps, decorative snails and the loaches...
Oh well, on the bright side, if they were to perish, that will make the job of rescaping the tank MUCH easier... Just let my SAE survive!... *Pray hard*... :)
Ok, since the tank is sick, may be I should do an intro of another tank instead... This is a 2.5ft tank, sitting now in the service balcony. It recieves the evening sun direct and the water temperature can be rather high. There is no lighting, except for natural daylight. The filtration is an overhead filter and I am currently using an emersed pennywort as a nutrient absorber.
If you noticed, the tank floor is littered with 'rubbish', clothes pegs, used clay pots, plastic pipes, drift wood, etc... I meant to keep it that way... Looks like a river bed... Keke... Anyway, as the tank is in the service balcony, where we hang clothes to dry, clothes pegs keep dropping in! As the tank is tall, 2ft deep, and the fish is jittery, it is better to leave the fallen stuff inside. :)
The plants inside the tank? Only Java Fern managed to survive... Trying Java Moss now. I have A LOT from my 18" moss tank. So, if it succeeded in suriving in this tank, I will introduce more. :) The tank also has a lot of Hygrophila sp., H. polysperma and H. difformis. The H. Polysperma, surprisingly, is not doing well at all! I think the fish is getting to it. I am hoping the H. difformis will make it. They are all previous cuttings from the 4ft tank. No other plants can survive in this tank.
The fish inside the tank includes 8 Ikan Jelawat, Leptobarbus hoeveni, the Sultan Fish, a food fish from the Malay Peninsular, said to be able to reach 2ft long! They had stayed at 6-8" for 2 years liao... A lone goldfish joins them as a companion. There used to be more goldfish, all transferred to this tank from the 4ft tank when I converted it to a planted tropical tank.
In fact, all the fish in this tank were from the 4ft tank. The Sultan Fish were transferred here cos they grew too big in the 4ft for comfort! I tot they were red-lined rasbora (Rasbora borapetensis) but they keep growing and eating up my plants!
Anyway, they are too jittery for their own good. They are easily scared and when scared, they are powerful jumpers and you can often hear them hot themselves on the glass! There are only 8 in my tank now... 3 jumped out of the tank and straight down 14 floors!! *Yikes*
I recently bought some swordtails to keep with them, thinking that with some ditter fish around, they might calm down... Mistake! The swords were so scared, they hid most of the time! Now I am wondering if the swords will survive at all! Think will get a pl*co and some grass (feeder) shrimps for these fish...
I am now looking at improving their environment... Will try to drill some holes in the area meant originally for a florescent tube. Water form the overhanging filter gets in the area, anyway, causing current leaks often when there was lighting. I am intending to direct the flow of the water from the overhanging filter to this compartment and then plant this compartment to use it as a nutrient absorber. A natural filter! :) Hope it works!
Ok, pictures:
