BAP: MURDER NOODLES

Becca

Members
Teleogramma brichardi!


I just tore this tank apart yesterday pulling a pleco and I had no idea they'd spawned!
 

zendog

Active Member
That's awesome! They are such cool looking fish.

What other fish do you have in the tank with them?
 

Becca

Members
2 extra female T. brichardi
3 L092
3 or 4 (can't remember how many I got) of a small synodontis-type-thing that is not a synodontis but I'm blanking on the name.
7 Stomatepia pindu (dithers)
8 Congo tetras (also dithers)
1 GINORMOUS vampire shrimp whose survival skills never cease to amaze me.
 

Becca

Members
The catfish are M. paynei.

chriscoli chriscoli the secret is... I don't friggin' know. So here's the story about these guys. I ordered 4 (all I could afford) from a Batfish pre-order not long after I got the tank. Since the tank was empty and everything was from the same source I planned to throw everything in and skip the QT step. I had some pelvicachromis, congo tetras, and the catfish on order (this would've been at the last catfish convention) all to help distribute aggression.

Unfortunately, only the murder noodles and pelvicachromis arrived from the distributor. Batfish was awesome and still got me the rest, but they came later.

Also unfortunate is that this was my first experience using a sump and, as the set-up was 2nd hand, some dunce had carved out some notches at the top of the overflow. I lost 2 murder noodles and 1 pelvicachromis over the sump before I figured out what the issue was. I had to move the remaining pelivicachromis because, as the only dithers, they were not faring well.

I was left with 2 murder noodles. The larger of the 2 stressed the other to death (or at least disappearance). Over time, my big mean noodle was a) obviously male and b) terrifically boring. I wanted more, but finding them was difficult. The congo tetras and catfish livened the tank some, but it was just SO boring. I decided to try the Stomatepia pindu, since they seem pretty tough and don't occupy the same space as their murderous tank mates. They've made very good dithers (better than congos who really stay high up).

Of course, shortly after I added these, Jeff Michels came to town and he HAD T. brichardi on his list, but in pairs. So I pm'd him. I needed extra females. I settled on 1 male and 3 females and quarantined them in a 20 long filled with bamboo pipes (like, seriously, FILLED) with an extra powerhead for water movement. I ended quarantine when the females killed the male. A few months later, my original male seems to have picked a female and settled down to start a family. Of course, he's got 2 spares should he get irritable and kill her.

The moral of this story is that plastic canvas makes a great patch for messed up overflows...
 

Becca

Members
Same species, though not specifically mine, yeah.

I am never going to catch the fry out of this tank :-(... Maybe if there's a bigger spawn next time, but it looks like there are maybe 5 in this batch and any attempt to catch them just puts them at risk. If I'm lucky they'll make it to a size where darting about the tank frantically won't result in something bigger gulping them down.
 

Becca

Members
Yesterday morning I fed all the fish and was worried when my male T. brichardi didn't make an appearance. He's pretty large and, after scanning the tank for a body or injured fish, I still hadn't found him. I decided to check the sump and overflow. Sure enough, there's a brichardi in the overflow.

I got home last night and flushed the fish out, adding it back to the tank, noting just how much the curved glass on a corner tank magnifies fish. When evening feed rolled around, all females were present, but I still didn't see a male. I got up on a step stool to lean over the tank and check the overflow and noticed his very dead body in the back of a tank, apparently knocked loose from wherever it had been hiding by all of the water movement involved with flushing the overflow. The body had the telltale wedge-shaped bite marks that come from members of his own species. He'd been dead far longer than a couple of hours, so who the hell had I flushed from the overflow?

Turns out the fish in the overflow was a FOURTH female - his ORIGINAL female (or one of them). When I first ordered these fish from Josh, one went over the sump and died, leaving me with what looked like a pair. The male chased that female relentlessly and she didn't look good for a long time and finally disappeared. I assumed she'd died and I just couldn't find the body. She's been living in the damn overflow for more than a year.

Now I have 4 females and no males. Of the fry I had I managed to catch 1 baby fish. I'm hoping it turns out to be male, but the odds don't ever seem to be in my favor.

At this point I have to hope Jeff Michels has some extra males. If anyone is SERIOUSLY interested in these fish and willing to buy a male or two, I will GIVE you 1-2 females in exchange for splitting shipping on males (if Jeff has extras).
 
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