# Golden cobra snakehead group tank



## TomatoandEgg (22 Dec 2016)

So ive always liked the idea of owning a fish tank and enjoyed looking at the AGA and IAPLC entrants after my father in law got a planted tank last yr. I decided to pull the trigger and purchased a bunch of equipment and a tank.

Ive never owned a fish or tank of any sort but the said screw it i might as well go large (relatively) and bought a 4 foot one. Its a local Malaysian brand. 120 x 45 x 45 15mm.

Then i realised i needed a stand!!! Ordered a custom sized teak piece from a furniture shop, Asked em to open up the back to allow pipes and wires through. The damn thing took 2 months to make and get shipped from indonesia, was torture seeing all my other stuff ready to go but with nowhere to sit.













Bought around 50kg of seiryu stones. Tried arranging them outside the tank. Tried using stacked plastic drainage things to build up height to place rocks on. But i figured it was a pain in the ass to fill with rocks as the holes were pretty small and if i didnt fill em up i was sure my shrimp would find a way inside and end up living inside them instead of outside where i can see them.





I went with lava stones as a base layer as i read so many people talking about aenerobic soil if the aquasoil was built up too high. Since for some strange reason i wanted some serious height. i lined my tank with cardboard to protect the glass and dumped in the lava rocks. 




Ideally i would have used the big lumpy chunky ada soil they use on the greenmachine youtube channel since it looks like it would allow space for air to escape in the deep parts. but i couldn't find any so went with laval rock. Im pretty worried that my glass will be all scratched up when i come to rescape the tank. Have i already ****ed up my tank for future use?

I put gravel on top of the big lava rocks so i could more precisely arrange my seiryu stones . Turned out the gravel ended up going everywhere even after i put my aquasoil on top it ended up finding its way to the surface. on the other side of the tank i skipped the garvel and just mashed my stones into place.

On a side note i used aquarium silicone to stick a couple of the rocks together. I was worried about how to separate them for future use, whether i could get all the silicone off. I tested it by putting them ina 1000f furnace. vaporised that ****! Although the rock looked a bit smaller when it came out... so i dunno, it wasn't a very scientific conclusion.





Followed shamans example of painting on moss. Got us fissidens and mini fissidens and some mini pelia. Here's the equipment:





here's after painting:





us fissidens at the bottom, mini mosses mid way and higher.





Covered in cling wrap and am misting 2 to 3 times a day. The top of the rocks seem to dry out easily so i think they are probably sucking all the moisture from my moss. The bottom of the stones stay wet as they suck moisture from the flooded substrate. 

It's pretty hard to see the moss after painting it on, i'm half expecting nothing to happen and end up with naked rocks in 3 weeks time.





I didn't really have a particular vision for the tank, i just sort of mashed rocks together until got something i figured would look half decent when kinda obscured by moss n plants. i find the best hardscapes out there looks worse when fully grown in with plants because the fine rockwork is obscured , but it works the other way around too, which is good for me! 

Gonna flood in 2 weeks and carpet with hc cuba and put some mini anubias and buceps around the stones.


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## salava8 (22 Dec 2016)

Really nice scape!


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## Maple (22 Dec 2016)

I agree. Great first attempt!


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Dec 2016)

Thanks chaps!  Hopefull the moss doesnt all die on me before i flood it


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## rebel (23 Dec 2016)

I was casually reading this but had to do a double take when I read TEAK cabinet. HOTDAMN! 

Nice scape as well. 

Big project for a beginner. Keep it simple.


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## ian_m (23 Dec 2016)

Errrrr...You will need some diagonal bracing bars on the stand as you have removed the strength of the back panel. Why do you think back panels are fitted ? The stand has no "twisting" strength any more and will be prone to collapsing (left and right) once you get your 250Kg of water and 50Kg of rocks and substrate on top.


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## Greenfinger2 (23 Dec 2016)

Hi T, Great first scape  I agree with Ian your stand will need bracing.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Dec 2016)

Thanks for the kind words and the practical advice. I did ask the shop if it could take 400kg when i asked em to build it and they said no problem weve done tank stands before... i will reinforce the stand haha.


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## Joe Turner (23 Dec 2016)

Fantastic first attempt, very bold hardscape too! The depth of scale is awesome  

If you're already using the Dry Start method, why don't you add some InVitro HC to give it a chance to root before flooding?

Best of luck, Joe


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## ian_m (23 Dec 2016)

TomatoandEgg said:


> I did ask the shop if it could take 400kg when i asked em to build it and they said no problem weve done tank stands before... i will reinforce the stand haha.


Will more than likely take ten times that weight pushing straight down. But pushing it to left or right will most likely just fold, as there is no diagonal bracing and/or back panel.


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## Costa (23 Dec 2016)

Wait how did you paint the moss? Scape looks great, I think you went overboard with the rear right hand slope


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Dec 2016)

ian_m said:


> Will more than likely take ten times that weight pushing straight down. But pushing it to left or right will most likely just fold, as there is no diagonal bracing and/or back panel.




how should i brace it exactly? i've never done any wood work before!



Costa said:


> Wait how did you paint the moss? Scape looks great, I think you went overboard with the rear right hand slope



just chopped it up mixed with yogurt and water and used a paintbrush! Yes i find the top right too busy too, but i figured once the moss and the carpet grows i may have wished i had more rockwork to show through all the green. So i stuck a few extra bits on and figured i could always pull em out if it ends up looking too busy.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Dec 2016)

Joe Turner said:


> Fantastic first attempt, very bold hardscape too! The depth of scale is awesome
> 
> If you're already using the Dry Start method, why don't you add some InVitro HC to give it a chance to root before flooding?
> 
> Best of luck, Joe



i dunno i'm scared it will all melt, whereas with the moss i figure its more hardy. Although i'm pretty sure some of my moss has dried up and died...  misting 3 times a day on the higher points now


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## ian_m (23 Dec 2016)

Bracing like this at the rear, instead of the rear panel, will stop it collapsing sideways.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Dec 2016)

Thanks mate i will do that!


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## ian_m (23 Dec 2016)

Could also use a thick sheet of wood in centre 1/2 - 1/3 of rear of the stand. This is what most commercial stands do so as to allow rear pipe and cable access. Equally as good at preventing sideways collapsing.


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Dec 2016)

I have some sleepers lying around,  if i cut one about and inch thick and stick it horizontally at the back (so the rear becomes  only 60% open)  and use a bunch of corner brackets to screw it in will that do?


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## ian_m (24 Dec 2016)

Vertical "sheet" of sleeper might be better as it will take some weight of the top. Again like is done on most commercial tank stands.


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## ian_m (24 Dec 2016)

Like this as done by Juwel and Eheim.


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Dec 2016)

Your diagrams are so helpful. Thanks, Ill sort it out next week before i flood it!


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## ian_m (24 Dec 2016)

Be very careful placing sleepers or other preserved wood near your tank as the preservatives used, maybe creosote based, are extremely toxic to aquatic life.


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## TomatoandEgg (3 Jan 2017)

Ian, who knew woodwork was so bloody difficult. Took ages but i managed to reinforce my tank with 3 bits of wood as per ur diagram! Thanks for the advice.






Setting up the pump filter chiller took a long time. Stupidly i didn't read the instructions on the filter and put the rubber ring seal on wrongly so flooded my apartment when i turned it on. Wife was totally unimpressed i had to use all our towels to quickly soak it all up.





So i noticed a lot of my moss was disappearing, i think it was drying out too much in places and getting too wet in others perhaps? Not sure since i've no experience with this but i decided to flood the tank just to save the moss that hasn't died. I figure i can drain the tank in a month and tie some moss in places that it failed to grow in, the traditional method.

Quick detour to raid the father in laws old tank! anubias buceps and HC borrowed and off home to get to planting!





 

flooded, almost everything stayed in place. A few HC clumps lifted out a bit but i'll re secure later







 









Wonder how long the water will take to clear? any tips on water change volumes and frequency?


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## Berlioz (3 Jan 2017)

Fantastic job! The water should clear up pretty quickly, usually in the first 24 hours.

I think you'll get different answers for water changes with new soil. Some people don't do them, others daily for the first few weeks. I usually shoot for 2-3 big ones a week for the first fortnight. After that I find any nutrient leach settles down.


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## TomatoandEgg (3 Jan 2017)

yeah im more likely to go your route. daily changes sounds like a lot of work!


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## ian_m (3 Jan 2017)

Could you try your pictures from post #22 again please, as not all of them came through.


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## TomatoandEgg (3 Jan 2017)

ian_m said:


> Could you try your pictures from post #22 again please, as not all of them came through.




Sorted!


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## KipperSarnie (3 Jan 2017)




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## Maple (3 Jan 2017)

Love this scape!


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## George Kulangara (3 Jan 2017)

Great scape, can't wait to see it develop!


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## Costa (3 Jan 2017)

I just noticed the CO2 cylinder on its side. It shouldn't be like that, it must be standing


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## TomatoandEgg (4 Jan 2017)

Oh no! Mine doesn't fit in upright. Ive put it diagonal. Ill need to buy a shorter fatter shaped tank when this one runs out. Thanks for the tip.


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## Costa (4 Jan 2017)

I believe the cylinder itself can be ruined if you don't have it vertical. I would ring the place you got the cylinder from and ask just to be on the safe side.


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## ian_m (4 Jan 2017)

Costa said:


> I believe the cylinder itself can be ruined if you don't have it vertical


Doesn't matter really what way up the CO2 cylinder is, you are using so little gas that there is b*gger all chance of liquid CO2 making it into the regulator. If you really want to "waste a worry", all of you guys using fire extinguishers you should really be using them upside down, so you only let gas out. There is a dip tube in fire extinguishers that lets out liquid CO2 when used to put out fires.

I ran my FE for months, on its side in a magazine rack, no issues.


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Jan 2017)

Any idea what the 2 pronged bright green spindly things are?

Not sure how my snail got a hole in its shell! 

So half my fissidens and mini pelia died during my dry start. Any idea how to attach to the base of my rocks? Fissidens is so small to tie with a line


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## CooKieS (9 Jan 2017)

The two spindly are riccia, you can remove them, because it spreads fast and everywhere...

The Hole on the snail is probably due to  low gh/kh, they'll need dry salts like some shrimp to help.

Finally, for the fissidens, just put some superglue and glue it to the rocks


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Jan 2017)

ok thanks! the riccia on google images looks kinda nice!


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## sgdiscus (10 Jan 2017)

Fantastic job!


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## TomatoandEgg (15 Jan 2017)

Some pics. 





















The hc is growing a bit. Not sure how fast or slow its supposed to go.

Lots of gsa on the rocks and glass. A bit of gunky algae on the sand and inbetween rocks. Been doing 50% water changes every 3 days. 1 amano died a few days in. They all molted together one night and one little fella turned white and died. Put some duck weed on the surface to absorb nutrients.

Also superglued some us fissidens around the place.


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## Nuno M. (15 Jan 2017)

The hardscape is very appealing,

Lower the light intensity to half, and you will have plenty of light for your plants selection, and will be able to manege tings easier


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## TomatoandEgg (16 Jan 2017)

tx for the tip.

is 2 bubbles per second enough co2?


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## TomatoandEgg (15 Apr 2017)

So since my last update i left for a 1 month holiday. I left my tank in the hands of my father in law! Upon my return i found i had lost almost 2 inches of height from the top of my scape. The tank had been treated to a water change but wasnt topped up enough...so the water from the outlet careened down onto my substrate shifting from the top to the bottom! Also about 15 of my fish died whilst i was away. I was very sad my 10 celestial pearl danios got wiped out. I was left with 2. I suspected ich. But no way to be sure.

This was it when i returned after i topped up a few inches of water






This is how the carpet was looking. Hanging on by its fingertips





I decided i would suck up all the displaced substrate and dump it back on top. So i pulled out most of the plants on the upper levels drained the tank and tried to siphon the soil from the floor. I ended up sucking up half the sand and mixing it all together so tossed it all.

I had leftover aquasoil and sand so i decided to top up with that. I had soaked the aquasoil for a week prior to this in case i ended up needing it. Id change the wayer every day. I read about new soil leeching ammonia so i figured id try and let it lose some before i put it in the tank.

Replanted the HC  or maybe its MC im not sure. Basically setmyself back to how it eas end of december. Only now it was mid feb. Also got a few more rummy nosed tetras to keep the survivors company.






Everything was going well. I bought 15 cardinal tetras. However each morning 1 of them would die. Before bed the tip of their tail or dorsal fins would be opaque and they would be swimming seperately from the school. By morninf they would be dead. The rummies started dying too.

I figured it might be tetra disease. So i began fishing out suspect characters before bed and putting them in a seperate tank. They would be dead by morning. I figured maybe i had something in the water that was to blame. Maybe something viral or bacterial. Or maybe my filter wasnt mature enough to handle the bioload..

I decided on a 2 pronged attack. 1. Buy some more plants to suck up ammonia and also help my my battle vs algae (which was pissing me off. Gsa on the glass and this dark green 2mm long fuzz on the rocks,  and bga...which ill be dealing with shortly) and also 2. a trip to the lfs to buy some medicine.

Of course being in malaysia all the meds are made in china and no ingredients are listed. I google them and csnt find any mention of them here or on the other euro and US forums. I want to avoid copper to keep my shrimps alive etc. The best i can find is one that promises to be aquarium inhabitant safe and promises not to stain the water any colour.

I get home and dump in the plants...








And then the meds...





Wtf if thats not staining the water i dont know what is.

12 hrs later. 2 carbon packs into the filter and the green was gone. The amanos didnt die. So the medicine conyained no copper. They did however turn greeny blue. However i think that was actually because they ate my bga.





My fish stopped dying Last week. I lost about 15 more fish in march. In retrospect i  actually think i had too high a bioload for my filter bacteria to handle.





I also had bga popping up in the tank in march. At first i didnt realise it wasnt regular algae so i scooped it out and dumped it in my fishtank for the shrimp to munch on. Not a good idea apparently. Luckily my shrimps are malaysian so they have stomachs of steel.

I took my pump a fluval 406 apart. Cleaned the polishing pads and doubled my flow. Added more filter material. The stock material amount is tiny. No wonder my fish kept dying?  Going to add some nitrates and do a 3 day blackout to get rid of the bga but since reducing my photoperdiod and cleaning the filter it seems to me receeding. Will see how it goes next week.

Fauna is currently
15 rummy nose tetra
 20 cardinal tetra
8 forktail blue eye
4 celestial pearl danio
2 boraras brigittae
1 khuli loach
1 ghost catfish
6 amanos

Added a breeder box for some shrimp. Gonna add some blue cherrys and red wine crystals.

Tank in a tank. Metatank.




Brightness +50%. I picked up some real deep blues. Love these little guys.


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Feb 2018)

update coming soon. this was the final tank shot before i poured 3 bottles of bleach in a nuked it all (i netted the fish first


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## sciencefiction (9 Feb 2018)

Tank looked great!

Why are you pouring bleach


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## alto (9 Feb 2018)

Agree - tank turned out pretty awesome 

As to the dying cardinals - I suspect disease - loads of cardinal tetras were shipping through 2017 with some sort of disease, sometime shipments came in mostly DOA, other times, they slipped away on a daily basis until maybe 5-10% of the initial batch stabilized & seemed healthy


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Feb 2018)

ok so basically a few months in i was having a lot of trouble adding livestock to the tank.  I would add 15 fishes and 10 would die. species didn't matter ( although ottos and cories were immune for some reason) but what would happen was each day one or 2 fish would separate from the school, develop edemas on their tails, lose colour on the edema, have trouble regulating their buoyancy and by the next morning they would be dead. I figured it was tetra disease or maybe my tank wasn't cycled properly because after 6 months the fatalities dropped to zero. about a year in i got bored with small fish and added some dwarf snakeheads. things were fine, no snakehead related deaths except 2 blue eyed fork tails. so then i added a few channa aurantimaculata and then the tank crashed super fast. everything started to die, my fish were melting.

at first they looked like this




and then this. his bloody lips fell off 





After they all died i figured i probably had a bacteria in the tank the whole time, something like columnaris. super healthy fish could fend it off but once i added new big fish the bacteria population multiplied and overwhelmed everything.

I netted the remaining fish ( a few tetras cories etc) and dropped 3 big bottles of bleach into the tank.



Everything immediately melted. i left the filter and chiller running for 24 hrs with the bleach water. I then siphoned all the water out, filled it up again and then ran the tank for about 5 hours with a hose pumping water in and another hose siphoning water out. put in dechlorinating stuff, did a few water changes over the next 2 days and was satisfied the bleach was gone. Dishwashed the rocks and was ready to roll


New scape. i wanted something more grown in, with more placed for the fish to hide and some driftwood! last tank was kinda open and boring after a while. i like having to look for the fish, its like where's wally/waldo. i was aiming to put some snakeheads in again so i wanted plenty of plant cover. i wasn't stressing about rock formations so just kinda whipped it together one afternoon. The first tank  hardscape took ages in comparison and i dont think time spent equated to a better composition anyway.






bought a few new rocks and filled her up a few inches. i chopped up the moss mixed with water and painted onto the wood and rocks. i misted a few times a day with very dilute fert and water so that it never dried out. Only gave it 4 days for the moss to gain purchase to the wood




Then poured in the soil, planted some stems, mini hairgrass mainly for carpet shoved my old anubias in a bunch of crevices filled it up and left the filter OFF.let it settle for 24 hours and turned on the filter. 90% of the moss stayed put




dumped in 50 yellow neocaridinas, 8 lemons and 20 green tetras. everything that goes into my tank gets a pottasium permanganate bath. 2-4 hrs 2ppm for fauna, 30 minutes 80ppm for flora. Zero deaths so far. the bleach and bathing is working so far. 1 green tetra died in the bath, zero shrimps!





carpet still hasn't grown in but its starting to spread its roots now. once everythings bedded in i'll see about adding some aurantis again!


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Feb 2018)

oh and my driftwood went totally white cos i threw it in while bleaching the old tank, but goes brown/black when its been submerged for a day. weird!


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## alto (9 Feb 2018)

White effect - that's just what bleach does - oxidation (which "kills" bacteria etc) & "bleaching" ie color loss 

(think of how bleach is used for laundry - it doesn't necessarily "remove" stains, it just removes the color ... same with peroxide)

Did you use new soil, or just wash & recover original soil?


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## alto (9 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> i'll see about adding some aurantis again!


Won't they eventually eat everyone else in the tank?


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## TomatoandEgg (9 Feb 2018)

Ahh but why does the white driftwood go brown when put back in water?  

New soil,,and no sand. No more vacuuming the soil off the top! 

I’m not sure if they will. The tetras are so small and elusive. Other tanks on YouTube show them ignoring tiny tetras so that’s what I’m hoping for.


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## sciencefiction (10 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> although ottos and cories were immune for some reason



Thank you for the detailed explanation. It was quite interesting to read although I understand it may have been an extremely frustrating experience.

It just crossed my mind, have you thought about your tank being low on oxygen? What type of substrate did you use, perhaps too much decomposition going on.

Ottos and coryfish can breath air from the surface. In nature they can survive in drying out stagnant pond if it comes to it...


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## TomatoandEgg (10 Feb 2018)

I never really thought of that. I did see the cories swimming up for air but they also do that in their new home which is a super densely planted tank with biweekly water changes. 

I used lava rock to build up the hard scape and had 3 inches of ada soil for plants. Front was all sand. Water changes were done once every few months. Prior to adding the snakeheads the 20 or so fish seemed happy enough. One tiny pinch of fish food per day. Enough for 1-2 particulates per day per fish. No rapid breathing or weird swimming behaviour. No schooling from the cardinals and rummynose so they didn’t appear stressed.  

My understanding of it is that co2 doesn’t displace o2 in oxygen. Given the decent amount of plants and light I figure the o2 levels should be acceptable even if co2 levels were high. as long as co2 levels weren’t at poisonous levels the fish should be ok?  I dunno. Plants did occasionally pearl


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## anfield (10 Feb 2018)

With your first scape, I would have added supports or rocks to maintain the slope. Did you ever check water parameters? You mention water changes every couple of months? In a high tech tank, you need more frequent changes. This could have contributed to fish deaths


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## TomatoandEgg (10 Feb 2018)

The slopes didn’t subside over the course of the 14 months. Apart from when it was only half filled and the cascading water from the filter blasted the top soil down.  I think there were enough rocks to keep it up.  But yes there were no supports under and in the soil. 

I initially had frequent changes. Once every 2 weeks but by the end I went 5 months no changes for the final stretch , no problems no fish deaths. Plants growing nicely, one cap of seachem flourish every month or two and the water was crystal clear the whole time. Any algae issues cleared themselves up with a smaller photo period. I have the testing kits where you take 10ml of tank water and add 5 drops of whatever. Ammonia nitrates ph etc I have 5 and the readings are always 0 except for ph. I have a Tds pen too I think my tank was around 200. My shrimp tank runs at 145. 

When I added the snakeheads the snakeheads started melting. When that happened all the tetras started dying like they had done in the first few months. Same symptoms as before. One aurantimaculata has the same mass as probably 100 or more tetras so you can imagine the volume of bacteria suddenly generated in the tank with 5 sick  Aurantis. It crashed so fast.


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## Smells Fishy (10 Feb 2018)

No way! As if you bought some channa aurantimaculata and they died a horrible death, mouth melt f### nasty! Their one of my dream fish, how did you find them, I mean were they a good fish and how much did they cost you? Gutted sorry for your loss.


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## sciencefiction (10 Feb 2018)

No water changes has accumulating effect. As time goes by, it gets worse and worse.
However, the snakeheads may have introduced a disease, and in the right conditions, diseases can spread like wild fire.
When I buy fish, for the first few weeks I do a lot of water changing for similar reasons.

You may have also overloaded the bioload with the snakeheads. I am not sure if you tested your water at that time or not, but I once woke up to corydoras with completely melted fins. It happened over 24hrs period. When I bent over the tank, it stunk of ammonia. When I tested the water, ammonia was through the roof! I remember doing back to back 80-90% water changes not being able to get it down. The day before I had thoroughly cleaned the single filter I had in the tank, the right way, in tank water. Since then I never have just one filter if I have any decent amount of fish in a tank. What was very strange at the time is that the corydoras spawned right in that ammonia, with their melted fins, perhaps as a last resort of survival!


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

Smells Fishy said:


> No way! As if you bought some channa aurantimaculata and they died a horrible death, mouth melt f### nasty! Their one of my dream fish, how did you find them, I mean were they a good fish and how much did they cost you? Gutted sorry for your loss.



They cost me 15quid per fish and they were awesome. They’re very fun to watch interact with each other. They aren’t shy and when they’re healthy they’re beautiful. Bright yellow and blue and total alphas. I’ll try to upload a YouTube vid so you can see my last 2 establish a pecking order between themselves.  




sciencefiction said:


> No water changes has accumulating effect. As time goes by, it gets worse and worse.
> However, the snakeheads may have introduced a disease, and in the right conditions, diseases can spread like wild fire.
> When I buy fish, for the first few weeks I do a lot of water changing for similar reasons.
> 
> You may have also overloaded the bioload with the snakeheads. I am not sure if you tested your water at that time or not, but I once woke up to corydoras with completely melted fins. It happened over 24hrs period. When I bent over the tank, it stunk of ammonia. When I tested the water, ammonia was through the roof! I remember doing back to back 80-90% water changes not being able to get it down. The day before I had thoroughly cleaned the single filter I had in the tank, the right way, in tank water. Since then I never have just one filter if I have any decent amount of fish in a tank. What was very strange at the time is that the corydoras spawned right in that ammonia, with their melted fins, perhaps as a last resort of survival!




That’s very cool. Did the Cory fry that survived  have increased ammonia resistance I wonder haha.

That’s a good post. I appreciate the discussion as I have no one to chat about this sort of thing with in real life. 

Now I’m not arguing against your thoughts per say,  you may be right. But here’s my thoughts and some more info. Yes no water changes means an accumulation of bad stuff in the water. The thing with snakeheads is that they’re from pretty stagnant nasty water so I think they can handle it. 

After putting in the snakeheads I actually did multiple water changes for the month they were alive and fighting their illness. 

Regarding them introducing illness I considered it. In fact aurantis often succumb to an auranti fungus that exists in their natural waters but unless stressed they don’t succumb to.

my dealer saw my melted auranti and said he’s never seen that with his snakeheads. He gave me a replacement snakehead for the one that died first as an act of goodwill. He was a bigger very aggressive male, I put him in into a big Tupperware for 2 weeks. During the 2 weeks in the Tupperware (not ideal,  I’m sorry) the other 4 died from the illness in my tank. Alone in his Tupperware and very sad he didn’t develop the fungal problem.

 I wasn’t sure if he was from a different batch of aurantis who were simply happier healthier and rocking a strong immune system. Or whether he wasn’t ill because my tank was housing some killer bacteria. He wasn’t going to last long in a Tupperware so I threw him in hoping my tank wasn’t the problem. 

At this point the bio load was low because most my fish had died. He lasted a week before dying together with the final auranti from batch 1.  

My new scape and is running the same filter and adding 30 fish resulted in no deaths whereas the first time I had a 60% death rate. I’m think I had columnaris in there from the start.  What do u think?


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> My new scape and is running the same filter and adding 30 fish resulted in no deaths whereas the first time I had a 60% death rate. I’m think I had columnaris in there from the start. What do u think?



It is possible, yes. I once didn't do water changes for 5-6 months. I resulted in a few fish getting sick but no deaths and nothing on a massive scale like yours. Tank was heavily planted as well. Some pathogen must have been in play. However, when I overstocked  that same tank a couple of years later, due to moving all stock from another leaking tank, I had deaths on a mass scale....I lost a lot of fish....Its a hard pill to swallow as I had some of these fish for years. They didn't die overnight. The deaths were going on for weeks/months...I do believe that a pathogen was involved but it was triggered and spreading like wild fire due to the crowded, dirty conditions. Water changes couldn't help my stocking....it was way too much bioload for the tank to handle.

The surviving fish were never treated for any bacterial infections of the sort, they're still living, although in a larger/healthier tank. In a course of one year I had 3 tanks break down/leak on me, so lost a lot of fish until I got replacement homes. Point is, conditions trigger the disease, not necessarily the fish. Healthy fish, in healthy conditions will fight off pathogens, hence one gets odd single deaths most times, rather than mass scale wipe out...


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> That’s very cool. Did the Cory fry that survived have increased ammonia resistance I wonder haha



All the corys survived the ordeal but not some of the other fish, lost a lot of the guppies.  I didn't stop doing water changes for a week. I'd do one water change and straight after I'd do another one, lol, and still get an ammonia reading...I was very lucky to be at home for a week that time. I didn't get fry from that hatch but I raised many cory babies afterwards from the same cories.


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> due to moving all stock from another leaking tank, I had deaths on a mass scale.



I forgot to mention that the deaths weren't due to ammonia/nitrite spikes. I moved all the filters as well as the fish. The issue was overcrowding, triggering diseases. I had not introduced new fish and prior to merging the stock of two tanks, both tanks ran disease free for years. And I had moved fish from one of these tanks to the other many times before without issues.


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

[flash]


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

I honestly think those fish overloaded the bioload in your tank, one can easily produce more bio than all the fish you had in there prior to that....They're gorgeous fish though....


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

ok so how do i prevent that happening next time around? why isn't my fluval 406 enough?


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> ok so how do i prevent that happening next time around? why isn't my fluval 406 enough?



There's no way you can keep snakeheads in that size tank, not even one...I am afraid.
If you're not intending to add any large fish, you should be fine. I personally overfilter every tank I have, flow in low tech tanks over 10X roughly provides plentiful biological filtration, plus plants.


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## Scorpio1646 (11 Feb 2018)

Nice vid of the Channa aurantimaculata....what camera are you using?


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> There's no way you can keep snakeheads in that size tank, not even one...I am afraid.
> If you're not intending to add any large fish, you should be fine. I personally overfilter every tank I have, flow in low tech tanks over 10X roughly provides plentiful biological filtration, plus plants.




plenty of people do so not sure what makes you say that?


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

Scorpio1646 said:


> Nice vid of the Channa aurantimaculata....what camera are you using?




just an old note 4 camera phone


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> plenty of people do so not sure what makes you say that?



Its a personal opinion. A 15-16 inch long fish, quite wide and big won't do well in a 4 footer. Its just too much bioload, especially not with just one external filter. You need more like a sump rather than external filters.  Personally I would not attempt them in a tank that size. However, if you do decide to go ahead, I'd first think of upping the filtration. Then I'd add just a couple of snakeheads, and no other fish that can serve as snacks, ideally while the snakeheads are still young and small so the fish, tank and you can adapt to the increasing bioload as needed.   And start a large water change regime 50% once, twice a week. Then you may have some success, if the mere adult size of the snakehead in a 4 footer doesn't bother you.


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

unfortunately you need to add them in groups to establish a mating pair. maybe i'll look into building a sump. runs to youtube...

 i'm hoping to have a bigger tank by the time they outgrow it in a year or 2.


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## sciencefiction (11 Feb 2018)

The ones you added had already outgrown your tank before they even started their journey.
I advise get the tank first, then the fish. A new big tank costs quite a bit of money, plus the space to house it.
Have you thought of an indoor tropical pond? It will cost you way less. I have a round tropical pond for my clown loaches.

Also, adding a group may end up in carnage, and even if you get a pair, one can still kill the other...during spawning...

Yes, people seem to keep them in small tanks. Look at that video below....poor fish....


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

dont worry i'll be upgrading the tank in due course to an 8 foot tank, but for a bunch of 4 inch juvies the 4 footer will suffice for quite some time. the ones i had before were 8-9 inches and they had plenty of room.

adding a group always ends in total carnage as pairing involves the lovestruck couple killing all the inhabitants of the tank. but i'll be netting the losers and re homing them


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## Smells Fishy (11 Feb 2018)

I'm confused. Didn't all the Channa aurantimaculata die, have you bought some more? £15 is pretty cheap but it's probs that cheap because these fish are from around your way. I bet in the UK there much more expensive, I'd be interested to know if anyone on this thread that lives in the UK has ever seen them for sale and at what price?

Cheers.


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## TomatoandEgg (11 Feb 2018)

I’m in malaysia. 

Yep they’re all dead but I’ll be on the lookout for more in a few weeks


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## TomatoandEgg (19 Mar 2018)

Quick update


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## sciencefiction (19 Mar 2018)

Good luck with the new batch. I hope this time goes as planned


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## TomatoandEgg (19 Mar 2018)

thanks mate, i'll keep you all posted, good or bad!


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## TomatoandEgg (20 Mar 2018)




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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

So I have a lot of these free floating white fungal looking spores.  Any idea the cause?  Prior to adding the aurantis I had a totally clean tank no algae at all no detritus.  Now I have seen an increase in both.  I dropped some arowana pellets in yesterday.  Today they sit uneaten at the bottom with that white fungus around them.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

So I have a lot of these free floating white fungal looking spores. Any idea the cause? Prior to adding the aurantis I had a totally clean tank no algae at all no detritus. Now I have seen an increase in both. I dropped some arowana pellets in yesterday. Today they sit uneaten at the bottom with that white fungus around them


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## sciencefiction (23 Mar 2018)

Its going to be really difficult to maintain the tank with these fish and the amount of food that probably goes along with it. 
The fish look great though. Perhaps you need to siphon food out as soon as they're finished? Otherwise it will get worse. Its maybe be time to chuck in another filter that acts mostly as mechanical filtration and protect the other via a pre-filter sponge. Clean them both often. I can't imagine keeping these fish in a soil tank...It must be a mess. Apart from that the fish must appreciate the greenery....


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## roadmaster (23 Mar 2018)

My apologies for not reading through all of this thread but I am on board with Sciencefiction if this is dirt or soil based tank.
Bout all you can do other than provide good flow/filtration throughout, is frequent water changes of at least 50%.(maybe twice a week as fishes grow larger.
Will need to keep filter material clean more often  maybe once a month to start ,and see what the material look's like. 
Would maybe only feed these fishes once every other day or every two day's.
Earthworms,Frozen krill,Talapia bits, frozen shrimp or prawn, Keep rotating the pellet foods every now and then but maybe floating ones, that can be netted out if uneaten after a half hour.(No feeder fishes)
Between food's,fish poo,soil based tank ,and fishes movement throughout while foraging,or squabbling as they reach sexual maturity,good flow to keep particulates in water column for filtration to grab is preferable to allowing the crap to collect on the substrate .Is why the suggestion of keeping filter material clean in old tank water during water changes or bucket of dechlorinated water along with maybe twice weekly 50 % water changes.
Rig up a small pump and hose to move the water for it is way easier than moving water with bucket's.
They are some handsome fishes But were it me,(and it ain't) I might place them in larger tank sooner and perhaps more of a river stream theme rather than soil based planted tank.
Could still use plant's attached to wood or stones like anubia and or ferns as well as floating plants.
Would want large marble size substrate of no more than two inches to make cleaning the substrate more effective.
agree also with another filter like the one you have presently which will make part's,media,interchangeable.
Good O2 level's critical IMHO


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## kadoxu (23 Mar 2018)

+1 for removing uneaten food after a few minutes. That's probably what is causing the free floating fungus stuff.


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

-5 for putting fish like that in such a small tank...


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## kadoxu (23 Mar 2018)

Hades said:


> -5 for putting fish like that in such a small tank...


Wow... did a quick search... didn't know these things grew up to be 40cm long!! Even keeping a single one in that tank would be pushing it!


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

kadoxu said:


> Wow... did a quick search... didn't know these things grew up to be 40cm long!! Even keeping a single one in that tank would be pushing it!


 
Uhuh
5 of them dying a horrible death wasn't enough i guess...


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

@scifi and roadmaster  thanks for the advice. i'm going to try and switch them over to prawns since they don't explode and fill the tank full of junk when eaten. i'll look into getting a fluidised sump for filtration. will deffo think about changing the substrate if i can't get a handle on things in the upcoming weeks. i think the BB is going to have to ramp up it's muscle to cope with the increased load. People on monsterfishkeepers have kept aurantis with just sponge filters so i think i have a chance!!!

regarding O2 these fish being surface breathers actually can tolerate swampy garbage water no problems.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

Hades said:


> Uhuh
> 5 of them dying a horrible death wasn't enough i guess...




maybe you didn't read my earlier post but this is just a grow in tank for the juvies, i'll be moving them into a much bigger tank down the road.

and fyi with groups of juvie snakeheads there's a decent chance of a pair forming, in which case they quickly and violently kill all other fish in the tank, so fingers crossed that's only 4 that will die a horrible death...if i don't catch them in the act.


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## roadmaster (23 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> @scifi and roadmaster  thanks for the advice. i'm going to try and switch them over to prawns since they don't explode and fill the tank full of junk when eaten. i'll look into getting a fluidised sump for filtration. will deffo think about changing the substrate if i can't get a handle on things in the upcoming weeks. i think the BB is going to have to ramp up it's muscle to cope with the increased load. People on monsterfishkeepers have kept aurantis with just sponge filters so i think i have a chance!!!
> 
> regarding O2 these fish being surface breathers actually can tolerate swampy garbage water no problems.




Good oxygen more important for bacteria colony and heavy load that these fishes represent.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

so aside surface agitation and lots of plants what else to boost o2? i dont have an air stone


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## roadmaster (23 Mar 2018)

Well you might consider a sponge filter with air pump and or air stone to run at night, when plant's are using up oxygen.
More oxygen also at lower temps than warmer .
Some literature on these fishes suggest that hey need half year of warmer temps say during winter month's, and cooler temps during summer.
If you have good surface ripple,then perhaps the sponge filter and or air stone is not needed but both are good items to have, as opposed to not having them if needed and are not too expensive..
.


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## TomatoandEgg (23 Mar 2018)

thanks mate!


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## kadoxu (23 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> maybe you didn't read my earlier post but this is just a grow in tank for the juvies, i'll be moving them into a much bigger tank down the road.
> 
> and fyi with groups of juvie snakeheads there's a decent chance of a pair forming, in which case they quickly and violently kill all other fish in the tank, so fingers crossed that's only 4 that will die a horrible death...if i don't catch them in the act.


Yup... didn't read it all... I'll slap myself on the wrist now...


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

I'm sorry to rain on your parade but it's stronger than me i guess...



TomatoandEgg said:


> maybe you didn't read my earlier post but this is just a grow in tank for the juvies, i'll be moving them into a much bigger tank down the road.



Sadly enough: I did read (most) of the journal and i have to say that I was shocked a few times…
First of all: In case you don't know by now: that tank is to small for five (!) of those fish, even for growing purposes.  
These fish deserve better any day of the week.

So, you put in the first 4 snakeheads, the tank starts crashing. Fish die and the snakeheads “melt” very rapidly?
Even tough trouble was to be expected imo I won't judge you on that. (The pictures of the sick fish are pure horror, but hey, that happens...) 
Mistakes can be made and that's okay as long as you learn from it and act accordingly the next time around.
But what actually happened next truly shocked me to the bone. 

Let me explain with some quotes:


TomatoandEgg said:


> my dealer saw my melted auranti and said he’s never seen that with his snakeheads. He gave me a replacement snakehead for the one that died first as an act of goodwill. During the 2 weeks in the Tupperware (not ideal, I’m sorry) the other 4 died from the illness in my tank. Alone in his Tupperware and very sad he didn’t develop the fungal problem.
> I wasn’t sure if he was from a different batch of aurantis who were simply happier healthier and rocking a strong immune system. Or whether he wasn’t ill because my tank was housing some killer bacteria. He wasn’t going to last long in a Tupperware so I threw him in hoping my tank wasn’t the problem.



Say what??  Did I misread this? 
He gave you a "replacement", you accept that and keep the fish some time in a small tupperware? (to make him more vulnerable for disease or what was the idea?)  
And two weeks later you just add this healthy fish to a crashing tank with "melting" fish?
Hmmm, that is not the way animal lovers would react when they have an illusive illness killing everything in their tank i think. 
If i would see fish dying like that in my tank i would feel horrible and would do anything to avoid this from happening again. 
But you hardly seem touched by this?

In the contrary: all that is not enough to wake you up. 
Oh no no, you just nuke the tank and start over doing the exact same thing: overstocking with fish that just don't belong in a tank like this. That’s is just ridiculous if you ask me. 
Well it would be ridiculous if it didn’t involve live animals. 
With living animals this is not a laughing matter, it’s just sad and tragic…
So I’m sorry to say but:  “Dude, what’s wrong with you? Seriously!”



TomatoandEgg said:


> and fyi with groups of juvie snakeheads there's a decent chance of a pair forming, in which case they quickly and violently kill all other fish in the tank, so fingers crossed that's only 4 that will die a horrible death...if i don't catch them in the act.



fyi the fact that they kill eachother just tells me that those fish are not to be kept in groups in a small tank. 
Not as adults, not as a group of young fish...
I really wonder: if you know this why are you doing it in the first place?
I am struggling not to use harder words here. I love animals and reading your journal really hurts me… Sad but true


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## sciencefiction (23 Mar 2018)

To pair these fish you need to get a group. Basically, if it goes to plan, the most dominant female will either kill the lot, or every other one bar the chosen male.
As the OP suggested, these fish actually do not require water changes, as long as there's no ammonia/nitrites, they don't care much From what I read, in fact water changes can be detrimental to them if too often. The suitable schedule is something like twice a year!....providing they are in their final tank big enough to house them for life...So the situation here is completely different than that of the usual fish tank...

The melting may have been a disease....made worse by the shipping/move and perhaps a bit of an ammonia/nitrite spike...No matter the tank, that bioload at once will cause spikes. The problem here is that these fish are sensitive to "fresh water" 

So I would not be so judgemental of the OP's tactics. I hope he is fast enough removing the inferior fish when the dominant starts attacking...And when the pair forms, move them on to better quarters.....The killing will happen in any size tank so that doesn't matter. The focus now is to keep the water free of ammonia and nitrite....considering the food intake require...So yes, I would have chosen a larger tank for that purpose alone.


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> in fact water changes can be detrimental to them if too often. The suitable schedule is something like twice a year!....providing they are in their final tank big enough to house them for life...So the situation here is completely different than that of the usual fish tank...


Okay, so this is different than a "usual" fish tank...
And is one of the differences than that with this fish it IS a GOOD idea to add a healthy fish (after you weaken it for two weeks in a tupperware dish ofcourse) to a crashing tank with melting fish?
That is very special to me...



sciencefiction said:


> Basically, if it goes to plan, the most dominant female will either kill the lot, or every other one bar the chosen male.



When this happens in the wild could it be possible that the males just swim away instead of being killed off? 
It would be wise to respect nature more and to avoid situations like this in a closed environment of a fish tank.
There is a reason why this species is advised to be kept alone in a specific tank.
Even with established couples the risks remains that they suddenly kill eachother when they are together in a tank, in the wild they have their "single" periods so never a guarantee that it won't end in a killing spree...

So if you really want to keep these fish it's better to keep them in an adequate sized and decorated tank
(far too many times you read that the tank will be updated when the fish grows and in a lot of cases this never happens... )

If you are serious about it than start serious...
So begin with buying an adequate tank from the start,
build it to their specific needs,
keep them (or better one) with respect and wisdom,
if things go south, find out what went wrong before buying new fish
when you see that you are not really able to provide to their needs be true to yourself and change plan,
....
(i could go on but you catch my drift i guess)

The aquariumtrade is robbing these beautiful species from nature, just to provide the (huge) demand for this species so some care should be present...
So basicly: at least think and rethink your plan again after killing off 5 of them in your first attempt...
They are cool fish but it's far from cool to have them dying at this rate, anything but cool to read that a healthy fish is thrown in a sick tank just to see what happens... So uncool.. 
Just my two cents.



sciencefiction said:


> So I would not be so judgemental of the OP's tactics. I hope he is fast enough removing the inferior fish when the dominant starts attacking...



I was and still am weighing my words, not being judgemental imo.
But I would suggest to the OP to show some more respect for the fish and adopt a different, fish friendly approach actually. Sometimes the right decision is not the easiest one. OP could try to make a decision based on "love for the animal" instead of blindly following his "urge to collect".


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## sciencefiction (23 Mar 2018)

Hades said:


> When this happens in the wild could it be possible that the males just swim away instead of being killed off?



They can be rather fast biting a fish's head off...so it will depend on the opponent 



Hades said:


> build it to their specific needs,



I am going to respond on behalf of the OP on this but his tank is build to the needs of the fish. They need a planted tank.
Size wise, its on the small side but we've all been guilty of doing that at some point or another. The fish have enough room to turn around and swim. The point of a bigger tank has a meaning behind it..... and its either for water quality purposes(not applicable to this species much), physical space to turn around(at the moment not an issue) or due to providing territories....again not applicable to this fish as they'll kill each other in any size tank...The only way to pair them is to dump them in the same tank...that's just the way it is with these fish.....



Hades said:


> if things go south, find out what went wrong before buying new fish



I get where you're coming from but most times one doesn't know what exactly happens and its a speculation unless you have access to proper equipment and are equipped with proper knowledge....Majority of times fish die for undetermined reasons...


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> I am going to respond on behalf of the OP on this but his tank is build to the needs of the fish. They need a planted tank.



This is an aquascape tank, not in the least build for those fish. They even look out of proportion from day one.
From the word go it wasn't adapted to their needs because OP used soil which is not done for the sake of the fish. The size is way to small, filter doesn't suffice and the stones are not ideal, nor were the other inhabitants... I don't see how it was build to their needs at all...
Okay, it has plants but that alone doesn't do the trick. 
This type and size of tank is build to the needs of rather small fish, groups of fish or shrimp, not tailored for huge and aggresive snakefish that grow up to 40cm. Not even for a week...



sciencefiction said:


> I get where you're coming from but most times one doesn't know what exactly happens and its a speculation unless you have access to proper equipment and are equipped with proper knowledge....Majority of times fish die for undetermined reasons...



Maybe my other arguments are debatable so i will stop arguing about them but i refuse to accept any argument in favor of the that one healthy fish being dumped in a tank with melting buddies...That is just wrong all the time, wrong on soooo many levels..
Shame!!!
When your animals are melting away in front of your eyes you just DON'T add new fish. NEVER the right thing to do, we all know that i presume...
Come on, there were so many alternatives at hand, don't dump it in there to see if it rots away like the rest.
Shame!
That's just animal abuse to me, there you go...
Shame!!! (GOT-style)


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## Hades (23 Mar 2018)

Hades said:


> his is an aquascape tank, not in the least build for those fish. They even look out of proportion from day one.
> From the word go it wasn't adapted to their needs because OP used soil which is not done for the sake of the fish. The size is way to small, filter doesn't suffice and the stones are not ideal, nor were the other inhabitants... I don't see how it was build to their needs at all...
> Okay, it has plants but that alone doesn't do the trick.
> This type and size of tank is build to the needs of rather small fish, groups of fish or shrimp, not tailored for huge and aggresive snakefish that grow up to 40cm. Not even for a week...



A very little reading shows that a "channa"-specific tank needs (I leave the completely unsuited size out of it)

-temperature should not be constant. They need seasonal variation in temperature, a summer and a winter period is important.
-Dimly lit tank
-loads of surface vegetation
-they need large plants with enough hiding places
-A tightly closed hood is essential since they are escape artists... (OP has an open tank, no? They didn't bother to escape 'cause they were melting i guess )
-no food during the cold period
-...

So tell me again why this high light and open top (small but essential detail with five of them cramped together) and carefully aquascaped tank with mainly low vegetation, big stones and steep slopes instead of hiding spots is build specific for Channa's?  
i'm sorry but don't hand me a loaded gun by claiming something like that, i might have a triggerfinger

Quote from Seriously fish:
"Since it is less of an ecological generalist than many _Channa_ species, requires a specific type of microhabitat, has a restricted range and is never found in large numbers it is recommended as a concern for conservation by Goswami et al., 2006., who also noted that it is ‘rampantly fished’ for food and the ornamental trade."
Five in a 120cm tank is not a natural situation one could say after reading that... And since they are under human pressure one should at least show some respect if one can't resist on the urgent need to keep a fish like that no matter what....
See my point?


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## Smells Fishy (23 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg might have made some mistakes, everybody does. All that is trying to be achieved in this journal is breeding an awesome fish in a nice setting. The guys just being a maverick, doing things differently, and I'm totally down for that. This journal is a nice change from scapes with tetras etc. It would have been nice to see a tank double the size tho.


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## Hades (24 Mar 2018)

Smells Fishy said:


> The guys just being a maverick, doing things differently, and I'm totally down for that. This journal is a nice change from scapes with tetras etc.



Okay, so being a maverick implies housing fish that are known escape artists in an open top tank?
An open tank that is btw way too small for a group fish (even for a single fish).Better be there and have godspeed when they start to fight in there...
Too small a tank but also a tank that is totally unfit for the species (plantwise, lightwise, scapewise, "lid"wise...).

So being maverick also means that he is going to prove everybody wrong by coupling (and even breeding this) (specificly hard to breed) species in a totally unadapted, unsuited tank?
He will teach them not to try and escape the tank by leaving it open, overstocking it and put a high light above it and by avoiding surface plantation.
Is that the strategy to keep a fish, known for his ability to find any small opening for escaping, in the tank?
Willingly risking the lifes of the fish, also doing that 'maverickstyléé'?
The first batch goes wrong, terribly wrong, what to do?
'Nuke the tank and then start again, and do it in exactely the same way' ol'maverick says? 

Doing those things "differently" in this case doesn't strike me as innovating, it doesn't give me the feeling of "a nice change from scapes with tetra's" at all, sorry to say...
It's more like doing things the wrong way which is not really impressive to me even if it involves a different approach, wrong way stays the wrong way...

I said before: if you keep a fish like that, well knowing the pressure humans put on the species, at least do it good! Inform yourself, make a suitable tank. Saying that it is specific for their needs doesn't make it suited automatically. It is still an unsuited tank on so many levels that it is hard to pick one...
I'll pick one anyway, just for fun: I should not be pointing out to OP that an open tank is not really the way to go, OP should know that if he informs just a tiny bit about this fish's needs. And it's not a detail once your snakeheads dry out somewhere between tank and door...

And, yeah yeah here I go again, once again i want to remind you that i said that making mistakes is okay. But throwing a new and "healthy" fish in a crashing tank with melting fish (MELTING FISH, that is not so common i think?) to see how it goes is just abuse, it's not a mistake if you know the outcome before you make the mistake.
Then it is called a "decision", a sentence to death by melting away if you want....

You may be totally down for that,
 personally i GET totally down from reading this journal...


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Mar 2018)

I’m in malaysia so I woke up to this long debate. I’m out for the day so I can’t reply but I’ll weigh in later. Thanks for the responses from both sides I appreciate the discussion and advice. 

I’ll respond later tonight.


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Mar 2018)

Hades said:


> I am struggling not to use harder words here. I love animals and reading your journal really hurts me… Sad but true




First off  i appreciate your input here and i also appreciate that you're keeping your tone civil, albeit condescending, given your strong feelings on the ethics of my treatment of the fish.




Hades said:


> Let me explain with some quotes....
> 
> 
> ....He gave you a "replacement", you accept that and keep the fish some time in a small tupperware? (to make him more vulnerable for disease or what was the idea?)
> ...




it's not that i'm not moved by the pain and  suffering of animals, it was simply that the replacement fish was from a different batch so i quarantined him in the tupperware to ascertain if he had the common 'auranti fungus' that lots of them have.


You chose to delete a part of my post in your quote "I put him in into a big Tupperware for 2 weeks." The tupperware may be small by tank standards but it was a  60l restaurant tupperware i use for storing drinking glasses so it's not like the fish couldn't move. As a 7 inch fish he could swim freely in there. My LFS refused to take another sick fish back as they were already housing 1 in their quarantine tank so i that was not an option. i also needed to ascertain if my first batch were all sick with weak immunity to their own fungal infection or whether my tank had columnaris. So in he went. it was a cruel gamble i accept that.


given that all my fish and snakeheads have not developed the same problems this time around it looks with some certainty that the original tanks problem was columnaris.




Hades said:


> When this happens in the wild could it be possible that the males just swim away instead of being killed off?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




you've drawn a line that satisfies your own ethical position. If you want to take that train of thought to its logical conclusion then the fishkeeping hobby is cruel full stop. boxing animals away from their real natural habitat is unthical. i can accept this. i can also accept where you draw your own line. For me i'm fine with keeping these kind of fish even with their aggressive and moody behaviour to one another. i plan to remove and resell the other 4 should a pair form. I can't promise that they wont go into a big tupperware for a few days. i do have some large water bins so rest assured the size of their temporary home will be ok if the fish have grown some if and when it happens.




Hades said:


> From the word go it wasn't adapted to their needs because OP used soil which is not done for the sake of the fish. The size is way to small, filter doesn't suffice and the stones are not ideal, nor were the other inhabitants... I don't see how it was build to their needs at all...



I’m undecided on whether soil was the best choice as substrate but that’s for my own visibility reasons. As far as the fish are concerned it’s great as it’s soft and perfect for digging. Which they do a lot of.

Successful breeders of these fish have done so using sponge filters and I have been assured by them that my filtration is more than enough as the fish have very robust immune systems unless severely stressed or under attack from a  deadly bacteria like columnaris.

The stones may not be the best choice but none are particularly sharp.  I will report back if they scrape and damage themselves on the stones.

Other inhabitants cherry shrimp and neons were intended to be live food to provide the snakeheads something to hunt immediately upon entering the tank and trigger their appetite in their new home.  




Hades said:


> A very little reading shows that a "channa"-specific tank needs (I leave the completely unsuited size out of it)




The fish are currently 6 to 7 inches in a 4ft by 1.5ft tank. Adult aurantis grow to 14-15 inches and are suitably homed in a 6ft by 2ft tank. The tank is, relative to their size, spacious for them at their juvenile size.




Hades said:


> -temperature should not be constant. They need seasonal variation in temperature, a summer and a winter period is important.




Room temp water here in malaysia is 28c. I’m currently settling the fish at 22c. I’ll be taking it down to around 17c for their winter period late in the year.  My tank has always had a chiller.




Hades said:


> -Dimly lit tank




aside for taking pictures and video recording the tank lighting runs on level 2 of 6 for my front light and 1 of 6 for the rear light.




Hades said:


> -loads of surface vegetation




The entire surface is covered in duckweed.




Hades said:


> -they need large plants with enough hiding places




The majority of plants are types of java ferns and jungle vals.   It’s already grown thick enough that I can’t find the fish if they choose to hide.




Hades said:


> -A tightly closed hood is essential since they are escape artists... (OP has an open tank, no? They didn't bother to escape 'cause they were melting i guess
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I have always had a 7mm thick acrylic lid. You see it clearly at the start of my feeding video All pictures are taken with the lid there it’s just not very visible.




Hades said:


> -no food during the cold period




Food intake is relative to metabolism. I expect to feed once a week or so at 17c.  When kept to 14c as European breeders do, they feed even less frequently, going a month or so between feedings.





Hades said:


> So tell me again why this high light and open top (small but essential detail with five of them cramped together) and carefully aquascaped tank with mainly low vegetation, big stones and steep slopes instead of hiding spots is build specific for Channa's?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




As of right now I completely disagree with your analysis of my tank. I am however ready and willing to admit exactly where I go wrong with this tank so if problems arise for the reasons you have listed I will definitely admit it and share it in detail as a warning for others who choose to own these fish


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Mar 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> To pair these fish.....  snip



Thanks for doing your reading and replying on my behalf while I was asleep!  these fish are fascinating and they require such different keeping conditions compared to the regular fish in the hobby.  I’ll capture the non paired fish. I already have a friend who wants them and he’s got an 8 footer on the way.


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Mar 2018)

Smells Fishy said:


> TomatoandEgg might have made some mistakes, everybody does. All that is trying to be achieved in this journal is breeding an awesome fish in a nice setting. The guys just being a maverick, doing things differently, and I'm totally down for that. This journal is a nice change from scapes with tetras etc. It would have been nice to see a tank double the size tho.



Thanks and I haven’t decided on the next tanks dimensions yet but probably 6-7 x2.5ft.


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## Smells Fishy (24 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> you've drawn a line that satisfies your own ethical position. If you want to take that train of thought to its logical conclusion then the fishkeeping hobby is cruel full stop. boxing animals away from their real natural habitat is unthical. i can accept this. i can also accept where you draw your own line. For me i'm fine with keeping these kind of fish even with their aggressive and moody behaviour to one another. i plan to remove and resell the other 4 should a pair form. I can't promise that they wont go into a big tupperware for a few days. i do have some large water bins so rest assured the size of their temporary home will be ok if the fish have grown some if and when it happens.



I would have quoted more but that post was long and involved a lot of deleting. But I thought I would quote the above because I've thought the same before. Taking animals away from there natural habitat is unethical, there's no getting around that. I can relate a lot more than most people because I spent 2yrs in a prison cell, so  i know what's its like to have no control over your life. It's not nice but you get used to it, same goes for fish. People can say it's cruel to house a fish in a small tank for its size, and it is, but we all do this hobby because we are animal lovers. Some of us just have more understanding that's all.


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## kadoxu (24 Mar 2018)

It's nice to see a discussion like this without it spiralling down to offensive language like it usually does. In the end, like @Smells Fishy mentioned, the aquarium hobby is a selfish one in most if not all cases.


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## Hades (25 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> First off i appreciate your input here and i also appreciate that you're keeping your tone civil, albeit condescending, given your strong feelings on the ethics of my treatment of the fish.



Thans for your reply. Sorry for my late answer but wasn't online before. I'm glad that you don't take it too personal and that you mention me being "civil" 
Like you say: their still was some emotion in my words but that is mainly because the dying snakeheads really got to me. Even though i try not to get carried away too easy i have to admit that some human behaviour involving animals can get really get under my skin.
I am an animal lover pur sang and have trouble ignoring some situations where animals are treated like they are on death row, with the reasons for this verdict remaining unknown.



TomatoandEgg said:


> it's not that i'm not moved by the pain and suffering of animals, it was simply that the replacement fish was from a different batch so i quarantined him in the tupperware to ascertain if he had the common 'auranti fungus' that lots of them have.
> 
> 
> You chose to delete a part of my post in your quote "I put him in into a big Tupperware for 2 weeks." The tupperware may be small by tank standards but it was a 60l restaurant tupperware i use for storing drinking glasses so it's not like the fish couldn't move. As a 7 inch fish he could swim freely in there. My LFS refused to take another sick fish back as they were already housing 1 in their quarantine tank so i that was not an option. i also needed to ascertain if my first batch were all sick with weak immunity to their own fungal infection or whether my tank had columnaris. So in he went. it was a cruel gamble i accept that.



I deleted a part because i thought it was going to be a huge quote otherwise but realise now that the quotes don't really show completely in the posts so no use there... Sorry.. But i didn't do it ignoring the rest of the text. 
However I won't reply on this part anymore because i am 100%  convinced there are always better options than throwing a fish in a sick tank with melting tankmates. For me no excuse will work here. I'm sorry.
Like you say: you made a cruel gamble (but one with terrible odds i'm afraid), a gambe that should've never been made...



TomatoandEgg said:


> you've drawn a line that satisfies your own ethical position. If you want to take that train of thought to its logical conclusion then the fishkeeping hobby is cruel full stop. boxing animals away from their real natural habitat is unthical. i can accept this. i can also accept where you draw your own line. For me i'm fine with keeping these kind of fish even with their aggressive and moody behaviour to one another. i plan to remove and resell the other 4 should a pair form. I can't promise that they wont go into a big tupperware for a few days. i do have some large water bins so rest assured the size of their temporary home will be ok if the fish have grown some if and when it happens.



I agree that the hobby holds a lot of "cruel" elements.
Make no mistake: for me personally it is not always a blessing to think the way i think. I have indeed a lot (sometimes too much) of ethical problems with some parts of the hobby and honoustly I am much more critical on my own decisions and tanks than on other people their approach.
For instance: I love Otocinclus but I refuse to keep them because of the fact that the majority is wildcaught, their numbers decimated while transported, followed by starving in the shops and eventually frequently ending up in an immature tank...
Reasons enough for me for not doing it.
But that doesn't mean i start discussing with people that do keep those fish. That would be a full time job anyway... 
Even more: when i see people introducing oto's in a brand new tank, usually followed by the death of the whole bunch, i do have my opinion on that but i mostly remain silent.
If however that same person just goes to the shop to buy a reload without asking questions/finding out the issue than it gets much harder for me to shut up.. 
The same goes for puffers, i adore them but I won't contribute to this part of the trade...
Your channa's too: I think they are great fish! But being mostly wildcaught rules them out. Nevertheless, i would only consider fish like that when i have a suited monster tank at hand....

Thinking this way restricts my options quite a lot but for me personally that is the only way to keep it going.
For myself these principles result in having 6 tanks but only one housing some fish... 
Only a handfull of captive bred and tiny fish in my tank.
I once bought a wildcaught couple of "rare" cichlids. Cycled a "custom" tank for them, did some reading and i expected to be over the moon when i finally got them. But for some reason i couldn't enjoy them when they arrived.
Starting out very shy and jumpy and before i knew I felt guilty during their eintire lifespan, had the idea that they were blaming me when our eyes crossed and when the female eventually died, after a year or so, a new one was not to be found...
Result: i even felt worse for the remainig male. If i would have had a private jet i would have probably brought it back to Africa to get rid of my guilty feel...  Hahahah, needless to say that since that day i am a different fishkeeper.. 

And indeed, i do have a big issue with the fact that some people collect different aggressive fish (big ones) and put them together in the small confinement of a glass tank.
Especially when they know beforehand that exploding aggression and/or killing spree is to be expected at a certain moment.
That sounds very cruel to me: taking a wild fish out his environment is one thing but when you lock it up with some fellow-killers in a small space for your own entertainment that is something else, then you cross the line for me.
Keeping killer fish together in a tank is completely different to the wild situation. When couples form in the wild, the "losers" just run off, they don't get killed by the coupling female/male. They feel the aggression, take a beating and accept their loss whilst running away (if needed channa's even leave the pool and go over land in search of more water).
So the argument someone made here that this killing happens in the wild too... Well i don't buy it.
There is a lot of hard knock fighting in the animal world when i comes to mating and coupling but not that much with a lethal ending, mostly the loser just runs. As a species we humans hold the record for "love related kills". 



TomatoandEgg said:


> I’m undecided on whether soil was the best choice as substrate but that’s for my own visibility reasons. As far as the fish are concerned it’s great as it’s soft and perfect for digging. Which they do a lot of.





TomatoandEgg said:


> The stones may not be the best choice but none are particularly sharp. I will report back if they scrape and damage themselves on the stones.



If they dig a lot it seems to mee that the slopes holding the stones won't be that safe (for fish and tank!) but you'll be the second one to know for sure... 
The first being your fish.. lol 



TomatoandEgg said:


> The fish are currently 6 to 7 inches in a 4ft by 1.5ft tank. Adult aurantis grow to 14-15 inches and are suitably homed in a 6ft by 2ft tank. The tank is, relative to their size, spacious for them at their juvenile size.



I still think that their size, even now being relatively small, completely breaks the sense of scale in your scape. For me they are just the wrong fish for this type of tank but that's only my opinion.
I do worry about your carefully scaped bottom and your delicate planting in combo with the fish however. I wonder if they will respect the nice scape as much as we do... 
I honoustly think these fish would look much better in a different style  (and size ) of tank. Different bottom, more big plants and a much "wilder" look all round but that's personal i guess..



TomatoandEgg said:


> The entire surface is covered in duckweed.



That is something at least. Some plants with big leaves at surface would be better i think.



TomatoandEgg said:


> I have always had a 7mm thick acrylic lid. You see it clearly at the start of my feeding video All pictures are taken with the lid there it’s just not very visible.



I didn't notice that at all, sorry for that... 
Nicely hiden i must admit... 


To end this "wristkilling" response i would like to add this:
I actually really liked your tank, how you scaped and planted it! So I started the journal admiring the tank. Needless to say that i was quite shocked when i saw it being stocked with those cute monsters... 

Good luck anyhow and i hope things work out!


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## TomatoandEgg (25 Mar 2018)

I really appreciate the conversation so thank you for weighing in here. And as I mature with the hobby and life in general I find myself becoming more empathetic towards animals I keep and even animals I eat. I think I’m 20 years I may be a vegan that goes around liberating fish from peoples tanks haha!   

Regarding the rocks you can see they actually went in before the soil so they aren’t supported by it. Unless they decide to headbutt the largest rock it should be fine

I’ll try to give some updates in a few weeks hopefully the water situation will be remedied by then.


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## MirandaB (25 Mar 2018)

I won't elaborate on what's already been said but I do agree with all the points that Hades bought up.
One issue I think you my have with the soil substrate is that with the Channa digging you are going to end up with constant spikes in ammonia and nitrite.
The filter is already struggling I would say so you need either a much bigger filter or another external in conjunction with that one.


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## TomatoandEgg (25 Mar 2018)

MirandaB said:


> I won't elaborate on what's already been said but I do agree with all the points that Hades bought up.
> One issue I think you my have with the soil substrate is that with the Channa digging you are going to end up with constant spikes in ammonia and nitrite.
> The filter is already struggling I would say so you need either a much bigger filter or another external in conjunction with that one.



do you think it possible that the aquasoil will have leeched out into the water column all the ammonia it initially contains before long?  it cant be a an infinite resource right?


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## Smells Fishy (25 Mar 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> do you think it possible that the aquasoil will have leeched out into the water column all the ammonia it initially contains before long?  it cant be a an infinite resource right?



I think the clay in the aquasoil actually absorbs  the ammonia from the water column to feed the plants. So yeah sort of infinite.


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## Smells Fishy (25 Mar 2018)

If your worried about ammonia then try out some Evolution Aqua products. 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evolution-...522003894&sr=1-1&keywords=pure+aquarium+balls


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## TomatoandEgg (28 Mar 2018)

new vid guys.

i still can't pick out clear differences between males and females reliably. sometimes they look male but then their fins will look female 2 mins later!


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## sciencefiction (28 Mar 2018)

They're looking great. Good job.

Watching the video you can never tell there's a chance of them snapping their heads off


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## TomatoandEgg (17 Apr 2018)

update time!  my water conditions have improved considerably. i tried to reduce the amount of waste in the water during feeding by cutting the worms into smaller pieces. it didn't seem to make a difference.The problem was the snakeheads were being fed too much too fast so before they finished chewing their food they were trying to gulp another piece down. putting in the worms one by one solved the problem.

i was also worried i had no males in the tank. looking at their finnage it was hard to tell. someone  on monsterfishkeepers saw my youtube videos and mirrored my own suspicion that i may have only one or no males!  I reached out to Paul Jones; A UK based snakehead guru via his YouTube channel. He had a look at my video and said “you have an amazing looking group and scape, they always look female until one doesn't, don't worry about it... they usually pair up when then temp starts to drop around 18*c. you know you'll have a pair when it starts to look like ww3. that is when the males start to change their appearance.“ So hopefully I got some boys in there! Maybe they haven’t started going through puberty yet.

The hierarchy of the tank is establishing itself with a clearly dominant fish who hangs in the middle of the tank. The others hide out under cover only really coming up for air. He chases them off if their eyes meet. No violent skirmishes yet. A couple of frayed fin and the occasional face bite mark the next day. It it’s generally acceptable behaviour. The fish is larger than the rest so I am employing targeted feeding so the other fish get twice as much food. Hopefully they will catch up in size and not be so vulnerable to bullying tactics.

A few days later I went to the fish shop and I saw a load of aurantis most of whom were massive compared to my crew. They ranged from 10 to 17 inches.The guy in the shop assured me the season for aurantis was over. i took the man at his word as i had previously read the same. I was left with a quandary. If my tank has no males then I won’t be able to add any new fish until next season. By which time my fish may be too big and established to accept new males into the group. Alternatively I had been advised by Paul jones to chill out. i couldn't help it, i went to see which male i could buy. There was one male, the smallest in the fish stores tank. In my tank he would be a veritable monster compared to the rest. My guys range from 7.5 to 8.5 inches. This guy was a 9.5 inches no question. I pulled the trigger.

I got home and immediately gave him a little PP bath for 30 minutes. During which I fed the other fish. I figured the new guy needs to let the others catch up so I’ll be target feeding them double his allowance. I also wanted them well fed and docile as I expected some fighting when I add a new male to the group. When I put him in the entire mood of the tank changed. All my fish began flaring to the max and fighting amongst each other. They would sway back and forth by each other’s sides and then snap and bite each other sending one darting off for cover. They ignored the big guy as he slinked around the tank exploring his new surroundings.



30 minutes later the original 6 were calming down towards each other but they all started having a go at flaring and picking a fight with the big guy. My biggest pair were able to tussle for a short time before being chased off by the newbie. The smaller ones would have their entire heads clamped by the new guy and were shut down fast. He stalked the tank for 30 minutes laying a beat down on anyone who challenged him. Then it was calm.i decided i would give them  24 hours to settle down before I step in and remove the new guy. @4 hours later things have settled, theres no more fighting, the big guy seems to have curbed all previous agression in the tank now all the fish are swimming out in the open. So far, he seems to be acting as a police man. The previous dominant fish has taken a back seat!


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## TomatoandEgg (17 Apr 2018)




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## CooKieS (17 Apr 2018)

Your tank would be even nicer without these oversized fishes


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## TomatoandEgg (17 Apr 2018)

You don’t know the half of it. All they do is move my ferns around each time I put them back in their rightful place. Most of my stems are gone since they like to dig them all up! 

My last tank was only nano fish. I know what u mean but the big fish do have an upside, they’re actually interesting.


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## alto (17 Apr 2018)

It's a prehistoric jungle with dinosaurs moving through it 

Add Hygrophila pinnatifida onto wood - this is likely one of the fasted growing epiphyte aquarium plants commonly available 

Few stems will anchor sufficiently to withstand digging fish

You just need to get the next (much) bigger tank to start growing in the plants


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## TomatoandEgg (17 Apr 2018)

alto said:


> It's a prehistoric jungle with dinosaurs moving through it
> 
> Add Hygrophila pinnatifida onto wood - this is likely one of the fasted growing epiphyte aquarium plants commonly available
> 
> ...



Yeah I know the next tank is gonna be 7x2.5x2.5 I figure I may build it in a few months and give it around 6 months to grow in!  Can’t wait!


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## Edvet (18 Apr 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> I figure I may build it in a few months and give it around 6 months to grow in! Can’t wait!


Please start building it now, this looks like a Great Dane living on a balcony......


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## TomatoandEgg (18 Apr 2018)

Edvet said:


> Please start building it now, this looks like a Great Dane living on a balcony......



I guess when 99% of what we normally see are nano varieties then fish of this size can look cramped in a tank. But they’re not.


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## Edvet (18 Apr 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> But they’re not.


I tend to disagree. Apart from the amount of pollution these large animals can produce ( which can be countered by a large and perfectly functioning filtration) the size of the enclosure ( tank in this case) has an effect on their natural behaviour. I will agree the vision of that can be different in different parts of the world, but having large animals in small enclosures is frowned upon in the western hemisphere.


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## Hades (18 Apr 2018)

After my last post in this topic i didn't really open Ukaps for a few weeks.
I was a bit busy but the main reason was the discussion above. 
You see, I descided a few years ago not to watch the news anymore because i really hate animal abuse, the way we are f*ing up nature, the way we treat animals and our environment,...  so in order to avoid situations where animal abuse is considered "normal",to ignore hunters, poachers and other misfits... and to escape the b-blahblahblahblah of politicians i just stopped watching news, facebook and such completely. That was a relief!
The other option was to be in a constant state of "rage and disappointment" so in order to save myself i just looked away, at least i tried to. 
But this evasion is only efficient as long as the ignored doesn't come and slap me in the face to much (as you can imagine).

When i visit a site like Ukaps i assume to be around people that qualify as animal/nature lovers. So it hurts even more when i stumble upon animal cruelty on a site like this. 
You know, I can give my point of view, like i did in the above, but it didn't make me a happy camper. It made my head turn and twist in unbelieve for some days, giving me an allround unhappy feeling... 
The discussion above, albeit respectfull, argumented (and entertaining), still left me feeling a bit confused, made me think what was the best way for me to hande this without getting depressed.
So i guessed it would be better for my mental health and my allround state of mind to just ignore threads like this from now on...  
i honestly wasn't planning on reacting here anymore when i reopened the site yesterday morning... 
But.... The first thing i saw in the "recent posts" (must be a coincidence) is your latest reaction. (the one where you add a bigger snakehead!)
Cou... cou... could ... couldn't maintain ignore-mode... 
T t t t t t tried but failed.. 
I really tried, i typed this yesterday but then decided not to post it. I came back today and again first thing i see was your latest post "they are not cramped" 
LOL
What happened next was a classic case of refall after the rehab... 
One puff and i was on the wagon again!
It's just stronger then myself, resistance is futile....
So here i go, one last time. (i hope)  
Maybe i'll kick you some sort of a conscience during my last crusade!  
Who knows... It's worth the try anyhow...



TomatoandEgg said:


> think I’m 20 years I may be a vegan that goes around liberating fish from peoples tanks haha!


Be sure to give me a shout when (or "if")  you arrive at that stage in life. 
We'll team up and form a much needed international animal rescue-squad. But clearly you are not in that place yet.... On the contrary 
For now: You are lucky you are in Malaysia and i'm not because otherwise your tank would be fishless by tonight. 
If I could find a local animal lover I would gladly pay him good money (and i don't own a lot of money but that wouldn't stop me) just to rescue those fish     hehe...
Not only does it look terribly overstocked (with six of those monsters in it) but introducing a new, even bigger one....? 
That is really a special kind of special to me.  Baffling (well almost, it didn't stop me...)
But again: why add another one? 
To be sure you have a male? Even specialists told you to wait it out...
But no no no, you'll have it your way so you add another, bigger, one rightaway (maybe to make them fight a bit sooner?) 
Nice plan!  Seriously: what are the odds you having 6 females? Did you do the math? hahaha, i suspect not

But the tragedy is that exactely this kind of behaviour makes me resent the human nature! ( as in: "What? Why? How? Wtf? ....") 
Watching your video brings tears to my eyes! Not even kidding here!
Sadness, like a dark cloud, overwhelms my thoughts and covers all i see in a red hue: It is like there is a transparent bloody film over my eyelids that makes the world look red, violent and hostile! 
My eyes turn all black, my theeth grow longer and sharper and my neck starts to twist: A beast is born! And it's watching your every move! 

And i was full of hope when i read this before: 


TomatoandEgg said:


> And as I mature with the hobby and life in general I find myself becoming more empathetic towards animals I keep


Honestly: you still have got a lot of maturing to do appearently, i am searching your empathetic side  in vain... 
And for it to grow it first needs to exist. 
I can only hope waking up some of your empathy by typing these words.

I really appreciate your discussion above and you seem to be a reasonable person.
But sadly i have to add that i hate your current way of keeping animals. Someone should free those fish and confisquate your tank until you are a mature person...(whenever that will be...)



TomatoandEgg said:


> I know what u mean but the big fish do have an upside, they’re actually interesting.



I really wonder what exactely is "interesting" about an overcrowded tank with big fish uprooting the delicate planting and waiting for the ideal time to start killing eachother. 
Meh, , i don't seem to get it.



TomatoandEgg said:


> I guess when 99% of what we normally see are nano varieties then fish of this size can look cramped in a tank. But they’re not.



What do you mean, they are not cramped? 
Sorry mate, but this clearly is animal abuse, no matter what you tell yourself! Just look with an open mind at your tank.
If you can't see that you must have an eyecondition or something like that....


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## CooKieS (18 Apr 2018)

Couldn't agree more...well if you only find big fishes 'interesting' then give them the place they deserve or simply get some smaller fishes that are 'interesting' (hate this word, every animal is 'interesting' IMO), there is plenty OK for your tank; 

Gourami, ramirezi, stiphodon, mid sized  tetra, apistogramma...and so on, even betta are interesting to watch and very smart fishes.

Please stop playing with nature


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## roadmaster (18 Apr 2018)

I might leave the further discussion on ethic's or cruelty, along with threat's, to those who have never committed such crime's .(leave's very few me thinks)
If I were set on the snakehead's ,I might see if I could source Channa Bleheri which do not grow nearly as large.
At least until such time as I could provide larger tank for larger fishes I might like to keep.
If larger tank is far on the horizon,,then single specimen would be my aim in present tank.
Many are those  who promote cruelty with words alone.


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## TomatoandEgg (18 Apr 2018)

Hi Hades, sorry for upsetting you further, i'll not update my journal until they move out of their current tank. 250uk gal hopefully for 2 fish. Also yes i did the math but i also had a few people tell me my fish were all female. here its not uncommon for people to buy all the male stock leaving nothing but less attractive females.

roadmaster dont worry  hades isn't threatning hes a good contributor in this thread he's just giving me **** for my asian sardine tank its fine. as i touched upon earlier in the thread, i dont see the point in weighty discussion over the ethics of my tank. whats objectively cruel to one person  is totally fine for another. i think my tank is just as cruel housing 30 neons as it is housing 7 juvinile snakeheads. They can both swim freely and yet they're all living in shamefully small space compared to the wild. Anyway since it's getting a negative reception i shan't continue to update aside letting hades know they've moved on to a better place


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## Hades (18 Apr 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> Hi Hades, sorry for upsetting you further, i'll not update my journal until they move out of their current tank. 250uk gal hopefully for 2 fish.


LoL
Thanks but really: that is not the intention at all, it's like I said: I have the choice to ignore whatever i cannot cope with so no worries about my sensitive side...
I mean: it's up to me to decide to look at it or not so i don't want to scare you away. That's no solution.
Please keep the updates coming, I won't be upset , i promise (I'll try anyway ).
I'll even be feeling guility if you stop posting because of my ranting..
And I am sure you know by now i like to make a point by exaggerating a bit when i am on a roll! 



TomatoandEgg said:


> roadmaster dont worry hades isn't threatning hes a good contributor in this thread he's just giving me **** for my asian sardine tank its fine.



Hehe, glad you still see it in the right perspective! (And like you say: i am not a threath, i am too far from Malaysia anyway! ...)
It's like you say: I'm just giving you some ***  for your "quote" asian sardine tank (LoL, i didn't say that!), hoping to touch your sensitive side, but it's nothing personal. I could just stfu but then agian... you might only get kudos if we all act like that...
So, even if you don't agree with my statements (or I don't agree with yours) that still doesn't mean that we cannot share our thoughts. Who knows, we might come to a solution in the end.



TomatoandEgg said:


> Anyway since it's getting a negative reception i shan't continue to update aisde letting hades know they've moved on to a better place



Keep'em coming, mate! Seriously...
But i have to admit i look forward to the "better place" moment...


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## TomatoandEgg (18 Apr 2018)

appreciate the kind words mate! i shall try to hurry along the new tank


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## Petra R (18 Apr 2018)

Edvet said:


> Please start building it now, this looks like a Great Dane living on a balcony......



together with 5 llamas...


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## Petra R (18 Apr 2018)

TomatoandEgg said:


> I guess when 99% of what we normally see are nano varieties then fish of this size can look cramped in a tank. But they’re not.



I understand that you need to tell yourself this to carry on keeping them this way, and still sleep at night, but really, they are cramped. They can not escape aggressors, they have no room to swim, they have no room to behave even borderline naturally.

The ability to keep them alive is not a sign that the animal's needs are met. It just speaks to the ability of the animal toi adapt to the conditions and carry on living at the same time.

I can keep a llama alive in my bathroom. That does not make my bathroom a suitable environment for a llama and hence no llamas live in my bathroom.


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## sonicninja (18 Apr 2018)

*moves all 6 llamas out of his bathroom* 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## alto (18 Apr 2018)

I'd like to see these fish in a larger tank as well but they also look to be living in rather decent conditions if you look at how these fish are commonly maintained 
I suspect that TandE gets disapproval from both sides 


I don't need to travel to Asia to see monsterfish kept in small tanks, I can just walk into local aquarium shops (& homes), especially the popular chain store that kept true sharks in large aquaria that were nonetheless unimaginably small given the potential size of these sharks - which were fed minimal amounts of food for public display once a week & subsequently remained very small (relatively) at 3-4 years of age ... at which point no one could ignore the disparity bewteeen tank size & fish size & the sharks would be "rehomed" & new babies back in place for the next cycle
(& no, the local animal cruelty prevention society had NO interest)


The aquarium trade continues to sell baby "iridescent sharks" for home aquaria - they still appear on almost every wholesaler list, despite their complete unsuitability & are a "staple fish" in the BIg Box shops

Even more sadly, these are far from the only "unsuited to home aquaria" fish that are sold in the many thousands each year

I'm far happier to have TomatoandEgg here where we can (hopefully) subvert him 

Maybe I just don't know snakeheads well enough, but theses fish look pretty "happy" 
- I've seen small tetras etc kept in stunning planted tanks where the CO2 levels are so "optimized" that normally active shoaling fish are barely moving ... 

As for 6 fish being all female, I bought a group of 27 juvenile _Sphaerichthys vaillanti_ and ended up with 25 females & 2 males ... it was not a situation I'd like to repeat


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## sciencefiction (19 Apr 2018)

alto said:


> Maybe I just don't know snakeheads well enough, but theses fish look pretty "happy"



I am of the same opinion. Happy fish have a certain way of behaving and you can also always tell by the colour and shape of the fish.
As already mentioned, the fish will need larger quarters in time. If anyone is forgetting, the most fish the OP is hoping to keep long term out of these is a pair...



Edvet said:


> I will agree the vision of that can be different in different parts of the world, but having large animals in small enclosures is frowned upon in the western hemisphere.



The "western hemisphere" is guilty of popularizing "nano" fish in nano tanks. Look around...No one should keep fish in nano tanks......I am also personally critical of the OP's choice of fish to tank size but I come from a point of view of a person that keeps nano fish in a tank several times bigger than these snake heads are having right now. I am afraid I can't say the same for some posters on here. I will not point fingers...


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## Edvet (19 Apr 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> "western hemisphere" is guilty of popularizing "nano" fish in nano tanks.


I was talking more about animal keepers like zoos. There still is a lot of animal abuse in the western hemisphere.


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## TomatoandEgg (24 Jul 2018)

the fish have over the course of the past 2 months settled into the tank and established a clear hierarchy with the new male patrolling the foreground and everyone else lurking in the undergrowth behind. 

that is, until what i suspect is the biggest female, somehow managed to get on his good side and is now allowed to hang out in front with him. 

i'm keeping an eye on aggression levels as i can see that both now nip at the others from time to time. they haven't begun the full on tag team carnage that is supposed to come with a bonded pair. fingers crossed romance blossoms and then i can re-home the other 5


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## nel.pogorzelska (24 Jul 2018)

Woah, looks like a tin of sardines. Beautiful sardines, but the tank looks so small.


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

Those are beautiful fish - why not pull the other fish now?

My experience with even angel fish is all tankmates DOA in the morning - though all seemed fine the night before 

Thanks for the update (in the face of much opposition )


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## sciencefiction (3 Aug 2018)

Yep, thanks for the update. The fish look absolutely stunning. I hope you manage to rehome the rest on time.


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## TomatoandEgg (27 Feb 2019)

As promised quick update

2 dominant fish appeared to have paired in November and so began nipping the fins of the other 5.  I was able to sell all 5 to someone else and the 2 settled into the winter period with no issue. Tank temp was reduced to 15c for 2 months and then the annual water change happened last week.

Water changes are notorious for causing snakeheads to fight one another. Not sure why but it causes the fish to reassess their hierarchical position in the tank which means ww3 for a few hrs. A few torn fins later both fish we’re back to cuddling each other all day. 

Now to ramp up feeding and increase temp and see if they will breed in the next few months.


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## CooKieS (27 Feb 2019)

Sorry but that looks sad, like 2 males betta in a planted bowl.


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## TomatoandEgg (27 Feb 2019)

I understand that’s how you feel. but to me the tank isn’t cramped for them at all. These aren’t fish that swim around in the water column all day. They spend most of their time in their burrows or suspended stationary whilst they wait for something to present itself as food.

Also your choice of fish to compare them to implies they are destined to battle until one is dead. This is not fair, these fish are paired and apart from during an annual water change have never fought. They normally spend all day lying on top of one another.  a few hours after the water change they were back to normal, spending  time together with no aggression. That’s normal snakehead behaviour. 

https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co...icles/Your tanks: Paul Jones, 'snake' charmer


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