My Public Aquarium: exhibit blues - how to make them?

[Viktor Jarikov]

...

[Viktor Jarikov]

...

[Viktor Jarikov]

...

[Viktor Jarikov]

...

[Viktor Jarikov]

...

[bekateen]

Awesome videos and pictures, Victor! Thanks for sharing.

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

Catfish stock list: ~148

Niger catfish 4x (3’, 2’, 2’, 2’; only one male/skinny; vacuum cleaners)
Marbled pim 2x (skinny male and full-bodied female 2’ each)
Marbled sailfin pim 3x (2’ each, indecisive, can never figure out the pecking order)
Iridescent shark 4x (1.5’, 1.5’, 10”, 9”; just lost a 28” one)
Black ear shark (6”-7”; a freak; been pacing by the window for months now)
Four-line pim 5x (7”-9”; one’s likely tetramerus, 4 blochii but one’s spots are crisp)
Sun catfish 9x (7”-10”; gluttons)
Giraffe catfish 6x (8” and 8” occidentalis cf Bouche; 3” tanganicanus or tchadiensis or else; three 6” unknown yet, still with Joefish)
Bolt catfish 2x (6” each; characters)
Albino Hemibagrus nemurus (10”-12”, not sure of species after Dr. Ng’s revision; lulls you then turns sudden predator)
Pterodoras granulosus 3x (12”, 9”, 9”; gluttons)
Irwini catfish 6x (10”; crankypants; hunger striking for the 3rd month)
Vulture catfish 6x (~12”; characters)
Aluminum (Chrysichthys genus) catfish 3x (~1’ all, one’s prob. nigricaudus, badly mangled; two ornatus)
Horse face catfish (~8”)
Synodontis 4x (6” and 8” eupterus; 6” and 10” common hybrid)
RTC 9x (12”-30”)
Jau catfish 2x (~30” 8 year old female-alpha of the 4500 gal and male-alpha-wannabee)
Paroon shark 6x (18”-24”; from Gerber’s, Dayton OH; thanks JasonGoneFishing!)
TSN 3x (18”-28”; prob. 2 fasciatum, one reticulatum or vice versa)
TSNxRTC hybrid catfish (18”)
TSNxMarbled Pim hybrid catfish (25”)
Apurensis catfish 3x (12”, 8”, 8”; all from vastly different sources, was hoping to score a nigricaudus but all turn out the same)
Silurus asotus 5x (8”-11”; characters)
Tig catfish 6x (10”, just got five 3”, thanks Manny C.!)
Lima/elongatus shovelnose catfish 8x (5”-6”)
Brown bullhead 4x (4”-5”, 2 southern and 2 northern)
Black lancer catfish 3x (3”-4”)
Trachydoras paraguayensis 3x (2”; much cory-like)
Wallago leerii (18”)
Channel catfish (18”; finless variety, the one people keep with a dozen of 1’+ pacu)
Asian USD catfish (3”; bloodthirsty weasel, at 1.5” killed my three 6” harlequin lancer catfish)
Asian RTC (15”, thanks Rouben aka rmkblades! finicky even after many months)
Gulper catfish 3x (5”; characters)
Dorado catfish 2x (1.5”; just lost a 6”-er)
Firewood catfish (had 5 over two attempts, down to one; start off excellent, in weeks or months start spinning and die; something is not right with my water, I’m guessing a pathogen affecting brain / central nervous system they have no immunity to)
Brachyplatystoma platynemum (10”; slobbering catfish or 747 catfish; the finickiest fish I’ve come across so far, even with live feeders and badly sunken tummy it is choosy)
Brachyplatystoma vaillantii (7” from Wes, finicky; need to make sure of the ID)
False piraiba Brachyplatystoma capapretum (10”; after 100 freak outs its snout is bent now)
Piraiba (18”, still at Wes’)
Common pleco ~20x (10”-18”)

[Viktor Jarikov]

Here is May 30, 2016 video update on the construction of the koi pond and its housing pavilion - a 45' long x 10' wide x 4.5' deep rubber-liner pond, approximately 2' in ground and 2.5' above ground, with a 45' x 2.5' acrylic window.

The pond volume would be 56 cubic meters or 56,000 liters or 15,000 US gallons.

The window is to be made of nine sheets of 9' x 43" x 3/4" acrylic sheets spliced front and back with 1/2" acrylic sheets. Dow 795 to be used for sealing acrylic to rubber liner.

This is to be the last exhibit (of the total 13) before we open to public at large with business hours.

Still need to pave the parking lot and walkways, get a Certificate of Occupancy, several licenses from Florida Wildlife Commission to display some conditional and prohibited fish species, and solve a few other, hopefully minor, issues.

Sorry about bad sound - it was a first try. Will try to improve the sound in the future.

[bekateen]

Victor, I never cease to be amazed by what you are achieving. Very nice. Best of luck to you on completion.

Cheers, Eric

P.S., - Can you imagine how many corys could go in that pond? LOL

[NCE12940]

It IS amazing! Love seeing the progress and look forward to seeing it for real one day

[Viktor Jarikov]

Friends are always welcome. Appreciate your heartfelt support.

A small June 10 2016 update on the "peaceful" community / grow out 4500 gal, tank #21



Sorry about inconsistent quality. I'm still experimenting with cameras. This is SJCAM 5000X.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Update Aug 30 2016

Five videos. SJCAM5000X.

-- Alleged Brachyplatystoma vaillantii ~8", from Wesley Wong of Rare Fish, Los Angeles, CA; wild caught by Wes' fisherman in Suriname; unsure of the species ID, might be something else; prefers cheap catfish farm pellets to silversides, etc.



**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Giraffe catfish named Happy, donated by Kevin Podgorsky (aka beetlebug515 on MFK), San Diego, CA ~10"-11"; update for Kevin, Paige, and the kids; sold as occidentalis but time should clarify that, unless the genus is still in limbo... The tail fin is a bit tattered, IDK by who but no biggie. Never seen any other damage on Happy.



**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Three mahseer - two Thai gold mahseer ~10"-12" and one blue mahseer N. stracheyi ~12"+, and two cigar barbs ~14" from Ivan (aka Aw3som3 on MFK), Los Angeles, CA; update for Ivan.



**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Feeding Tank 21 ("peaceful community and grow out). Fish are taken aback a bit by too much light.



**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Feeding Tank 22 (aggressive community):

[Viktor Jarikov]

Update Sept 10, 2016

Two videos. SJCAM5000X.

Brachyplatystoma filamentosum, ~20", from Wesley Wong of Rare Fish, Los Angeles, CA; wild caught by Wes' fisherman in Suriname. Got it 3 months ago at ~16". Feeds well on large whole marine fish but is slow to take the feed, taking from 5 to 30 seconds; pump must not be off or it wouldn't take the feed. Not skittish in a stark contrast to the false piraiba B. capapretum. Has been alone in its 240 gal. Getting tight though...



Update on the 20K gal koi tank. The 45' window (five 9' acrylic sheets) is positioned. What remains is posts, liner, wet-dry filter, floor tiles, enclosure walls (shade cloth + tarp).

[Jobro]

I would never know, how much to feed such behemoth of fish

Great

[FryerFish]

Wow! Still can't wait to see it when it's all done! There are some really nice fish.

[FryerFish]

Hope the storm wasn't too bad for you!

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you all.

We've been spared from the hurricane.

Our four Cephalosilurus apurensis had a mighty good meal yesterday worth filming.

I had bought three from very different vendors and times hoping to maybe score a nigricaudus but alas they are all apurensis. It looks like we (almost) never get nigricaudus in the trade because it only inhabits coastal Suriname and there appears to be no or not much export from there.

The fourth one is a donation by a local MFK-er. It was advertised as fowleri - another Cephalosilurus we (almost) never get in the trade. We had doubts and sure enough it had grown into another apurensis.

They are about 12"-14" currently. 99% the gathering is peaceful, rarely do they decide to re-establish / re-enforce the hierarchy. But they always lay in one pile vast majority of the time despite plenty of space and furniture, which is kind of cute to see after all the bickering and crankiness...

[Viktor Jarikov]

Got an African lungfish from John Gerber in Dayton, Ohio this March. Loves catfish pellets. I offer cut or whole fish but it mostly refuses. It's pretty laid back. Now about 2.5'.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Our true ARTC Hemibagrus wyckioides, currently at 16", came in March 2016 at about 14". In former owner's hands it presented no problem at feeding, even took down some tank mate cichlids. In my hands, it's a totally different story. I've been struggling greatly to feed it. It refuses the meals ~ half the time and only eats one small bait fish, ~3", at a time and even that most usually occurs out of sight some time in the night. Ignores pellets. Many report they have grown theirs without problem. There is one or two that report similar problems as mine.

At present I've given up trying to understand what a possible cause is of this behavior of my specimen. It's got its own 240 gal presently.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I bought 27 pictus a few months ago at about 2". A very cheerful and highly energetic gang, needless to say. They are roughly 3"-3.5" now living in one of the 240 gals. May be a bit nervous for the lack of better cover but eating very well and not hiding in available places anyway, except for one pictus, so I've not been compelled to add more cover.

IIRC from Gunpowder Aquatics, they have had the best priced pictus for a while now. I was told they mix together all arrivals at their site in South America, so this I assume must be a mix of both Peruvian and Colombian variety. The former has a better spot definition and grows a bit smaller than the latter.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I've lost my prior 7" rousseauxii to a stupid oversight - it's fore half spent a few minutes inside a gulper catfish tank mate's tummy / mouth (lost track when gulpers had outgrown the dorado). It was intact when gulper spit it out but dead.

So I've got two 1.5"ers from Raymond Chan several months ago, $75 each. Tiny guys. The only survivor is about 4" now. The reason for the passing of the other at 3" is unknown. It was bullied by the dominant one (the survivor) a bit, getting worse little by little, so I had to separate them.

So far the nose is ok. Will see how this holds up. Easy to feed. Pellets or cut fish.




The prior one from Shark Aquarium:

[Viktor Jarikov]

Wes sent me 4 Trachydoras paraguayensis (supposedly) in Aug 2015. I'm down to two today. One was harassed until it fell ill and died by a 2" Asian USD catfish. Another passed for unknown reason, could have been high nitrates ~100 ppm. Wasted away very slowly.

From my superficial observations, their biology is very much like that of corydoras in all regards.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I got 10 pbass from Wes a few months back, 5 kelberi and 5 orino, at 1"-1.5". One was DOA and one by one I've lost another 8 over 2 -3 weeks, could be due to high nitrates 50-100 ppm.

This is lone survivor but IDK which kind of the two. Currently about 2.5"-3".

It is also funny that its right hand side shows three black spots whilst the left side is missing the middle spot (it's faint).

[Viktor Jarikov]

I got this trio of gulpers, presently at ~7", from Raymond Chan in Aug-Sept 2015 at about 3", maybe even 4". They have been very easy for me, easy to feed. They have been growing excruciatingly slowly, tacking on ~3.5" in 16 months.

Has anyone ever grown theirs to their known max of 1' Standard Length or ~14"+ total length? I wonder how long that could take...

[Viktor Jarikov]

I have a younger West African lungfish, bought Aug 2015 from snookn21 at ~7", $35. It's a piglet. Today it's about 2'. It is catching up to the bigger one frighteningly quickly. But it eats 10x more than the bigger one, pellets and fish are ~ never refused. The bigger one refuses fish ~90% of the time and sometimes pellets too.



*****************************************************************************

I bought 5 of Indian swamp eels from Raymond Chan last Fall of 2015. They were 15"-20". Two of them struggled greatly to feed perhaps because of my inexperience. They lasted ~6 months and perished.

Two more have been eating ok but one after 8 months and the other 13 months died for an unknown reason. One of these was bothered a bit because its tail had been tattered for a while but I have not figured out the culprit plus it wasn't bad .

This is lone survivor, ~2'-2.5'. Refuses pellets but appears to like cut fish, small whole fish. Eats so-o-o-o slowly, like a tortoise. Pushes them around with its nose for a few minutes, then sucks them in and chews thoroughly... as its parents taught it.

There is this excess slime right on the top of the eel which has been there for many months. I can't figure out why. Same happened to one of my lungfish in the same water but after I fixed my high nitrates, the lung got back to normal but this guys has not.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I was lucky to get two wels catfish from Wes this summer 2016 at ~4"-5". Ju-u-ust before they got banned this Fall. I wanted natural colored but albino was all that was available. Easy cats to feed. The two have been together for the first month+, alone, then the bigger one (pictured below in the video) that was ~5" started tattering fins of the smaller one at ~4", just as Wes had warned me that they don't get along... but I needed to see for myself.

The smaller one went into a different 240 gal and grew to 8" quickly - there was a lot of well-feeding fish in there. The bigger one stayed in the original 240 gal with a few not-so-well-feeding tank mates and, consequently, didn't grow as vigorously and has been notably shyer than the smaller one in the other tank.

The originally-smaller one then graduated into another 240 gal, also stocked with a vigorously feeding gang. It tried bossing others around in there, including 5 closely related Amur catfish. In 1-2 weeks, the wels got its tail damaged (not sure by who, I'm guessing the Amurs) and went back into the prior 240 gal that was safe. The tail pretty much fell off, then grew back but in a V-shape

Anyhow, the originally-smaller wels is now around 1' and is in a 4500 gal, its 4th tank, doing well so far. Has been there about 3 weeks now. The originally-bigger-now-smaller-but-intact one is ~10" and is still in the same first 240 gal they both had been in. Its mates are a 2'+ Indian swamp eel and a 2' West African lungfish.

Both my wels profoundly prefer pellets to fish!

This is the 10" one now. If God is willing, will shoot the 1', V-tailed one later.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Got a trio of Phoenix barbs aka Spinibarbus denticulatus, 1 male, 2 females, from Wes in Aug 2015 at ~16"-18". Lovely, unusual carp with bright pink colored body areas... I have never even seen them before in pictures.

Powerful swimmers and jumpers and, oh boy, can they eat! I guess them being closely related to mahseers, they all want to eat every piece of feed that enters their water. Albeit, carp and koi are the same way, if not worse. The difference being carp and koi are not a fast water fish. Mahseers and spinibarbus are, so they don't get obscenely fat like carp do, I am guessing so they keep some kind of hydrodynamic shape They are ~2' now, all three, and solid packed...

They love their pellets of any and all kinds but cut fish and often whole bait fish are taken too readily. I've not seen them hunt any smaller tank mates in their 4500 gal. There is nothing smaller there than 8"-10" and that's too big for them to try prey on, it seems.

They exhibited some breeding behavior over summer with both females chasing and body slamming and pressing against the male and also against each other. IDK if they spawned or not because even if they did, there is 100 mouths in there to suck all the eggs up as they are released. But they have been engaged in these songs and dances for at least a couple of months if not longer, on and off.

IME, they don't like soft (KH and GH both under 3 degree) and acidic water and develop slime/skin problems. They like schooling together most of the time.

Lots of personality and smarts (for a fish). They appear to know that I'm the only human that feeds them. They come up to the front glass and swim in large circles rubbing their snouts on the glass, or up and down showing how happy and eager they are.

[lobsterclaw]

HI,I was wondering if you are open yet. My niece lives near you and wants to see it.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Hi! Yes, we are open by appointment and free if charge (until we open with business hours). As stated above, we welcome visitors.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I bought my first two arapaima this summer at ~5"-6", $225 each and housed them together first in a 240 gal. They were easy and started taking cut fish readily after a couple of days or so. One also took to catfish pellets. They were jumpy though and afraid of me.

After a month or so I noted the one taking pellets and fish grew 2x faster than the other one. After another month or two, it was ~16"-18" while the one that refused pellets was only ~8"-10". They always kept together through his time (still were skittish) and I thought that the smaller one needed the bigger one for comfort. But the bigger one now would hog almost all food and I decided to separate them.

The bigger one went into one 4500 gal and at 2.5'-3' into another 4500 gal. The smaller one stayed a couple of months in the original 240 gal where, surprisingly, it became less skittish with the bigger pima gone, and where it grew to ~14"-16" taking whole bait fish greedily and refusing pellets ~99% of the time.

The smaller pima then graduated into the first 4500 gal (the bigger one had already moved on by then) where it quickly learned to like pellets with gusto because fish was offered only twice a week.

The bigger one has light-colored spots around the rear end while the smaller one's rear is colored solid black. IDK what this means. Does anyone know?

Sadly, both of them are developing a dropped eye on the left hand side. IDK why either. Perhaps it is irrelevant but none of silver arowanas I've ever raised myself have ever had DE.

Here is the smaller pima at ~16"-18" in 4500 gal, a shameless beggar: