PlanetCatfish.com

The title says it all really.

I have an empty 15g tank and was wondering about a Chaca chaca to go into it.

I have enquired before with not much luck so will start this topic again as the last time I tried was a few months back.

It should work if you make it a species tank.

One Chaca would be an appropriate number for a 15 gal tank. They aren't exactly social fish, so your experience (if not theirs) will not be much different if you have just one as opposed to many.

Keep on a sand substrate with buffering capability. Something like Onyx sand would be ideal. You could add some Java moss and/or some slate hiding places. Feed live feeder fish, 2-3 per week. Do 50% weekly water changes. Not that hard to keep, once you get the hang of it, but IME, many people manage to kill their first Chaca quickly.

Dinyar

Ok, thanks for the information.

I was going to do it before but now as I have a spare tank I will try as soon as I get a Chaca into my LFS. I will keep the tank running and change it to sand asap and keep the 3 Gourami and 1 Golden Sucking loach in til the last minute.

I am afraid I can`t do Feeder Fish as in the UK it is illegal and I asked the LFS about it before and they can get closed down if people are doing it, evenif the store doesn`t know.

I will try bloodworm and just place it right above the Chaca, would that work?

I will try bloodworm and just place it right above the Chaca, would that work?

There are reports of Chaca being weaned off live food, but it's extremely difficult. You would need to go with feeders at least for the first few weeks.

I will try bloodworm and just place it right above the Chaca, would that work?

I very much doubt that that will work. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it won't.

It may be possible to gradually wean very young Chaca off live food, but not older specimens. If you don't have a reliable source of disease-free feeder fish (you could try breeding guppies, zebra danios, etc, yourself), I would recommend that you not get a Chaca.

Well the last time the LFS had chaca in they were 1inch, probably less. Would maybe having shrimp work and they just slowly wein off norm shrimp onto shrimp you get from supermarkets?

Not sure what you mean by "norm shrimp", but...

Dinyar wrote:I very much doubt that that will work. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it won't.

Dinyar is right... if you are going to keep this fish you need to have a live food source. Just breed guppies as he suggested and you will be fine. Raising your own feeders is more reliable anyway... no stress about putting unknow diseases and what not into your tank.

If you want to have a constant supply of good-sized feeders, ditch the guppies; get a 20G tank and a pair of Convicts (Cryptoheros nigrofasciatus).

guppies spawn flea-sized babies; eat the lot of 'em, and it takes forver to get them in a size that'll last a Chaca like 2 days or so?

Convicts spawn every few weeks or so; their nests are like 100 or bigger, and you can have nickel- or dime-sized feeders by the truckload. Convicts are great parents and really look after their young. They're next to undestructable, very hardy, eat anything, not prone to itch or gutworms (wich guppies are) etc.

aaaaand, they're bottomdwellers with a high curiousity! wich means that dollar-sized Convicts immedeately check out this 'fuzzy woodpiece'......

excellent feeders IMO!

If Convicts aren't your thing and you want the feederbreeder-tank to look OK; set up a 25G and put in a pair of Jewels (Hemichromis letournauxi or H lilfalili). the rest is similar.

I don't know if they are illegal in the UK but my store sells ghost shrimp which work good as a live food for alot of catfish. I don't know if that would be considered feeder fish or not?

pl*coCrazy wrote:I don't know if they are illegal in the UK but my store sells ghost shrimp which work good as a live food for alot of catfish. I don't know if that would be considered feeder fish or not?

You can buy Ghost Shrimp in my local shop (which is in the UK), 4p a shrimp, minimum 10 per purchase. And they are listed on the list of "Live food", so I suspect it's what they are for.

Sidguppy: The correct name for Convict cichlid is: Archocentrus nigrofasciatus (according to fishbase, at least... They may well be wrong...

And no, I didn't know that, I wanted to know what a "convict" was, as I wasn't familiar with it's english name... So I searched for the name you gave, and found nothing, but the web-site is really helpful in finding names that are similar, so I managed to get to the Convict cichlid from the 'couldn't find a direct match' page.


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Mats

Cryptoheros seems to be the latest (odd; I got at least 512 google-hits with this; all at the same fish); I know Archocentrus, it used to be Cichlasoma.

What is the scientific name of the "ghostshrimp"? that's a beastie I'm not familiar with!

some sort of Macrobranchium or something?

still I'm quite convinced that you need live fish to feed a Chaca; due to the low pH of it's home waters, it won't encounter many shrimps, I think.

What is the scientific name of the "ghostshrimp"?

Depends on where you live. The name has been used on both Macrobrachium (most commonly M. lanchesteri) or Palaemonetes.

due to the low pH of it's home waters, it won't encounter many shrimps, I think.

Chaca chaca does not live in low pH environments (C. bankanensis does). And there are plenty of shrimp where C. chaca lives. There are a few blackwater shrimps that live in lower pH environments where C. bankanensis lives, including Macrobrachium trompii.

HH, do you have access to any scientific data of Chaca's being cut up and have their stomach contents sorted out? that would be a pretty sure way of finding out....

and I'm quite surprised about shrimp living at such pH; the acid water doesn't harm their shell or the molting pocess? weird....

HH, do you have access to any scientific data of Chaca's being cut up and have their stomach contents sorted out? that would be a pretty sure way of finding out....

Nobody seems to want to study Chaca (perhaps they are deemed uninteresting in terms of their narrow diet).

and I'm quite surprised about shrimp living at such pH; the acid water doesn't harm their shell or the molting pocess?

Shrimps that live in low pH environments are very, very efficient in resorbing the calcium from their old exoskeleton before they molt.

I know that in the UK if it is an animal like Crayfish, lobster, shrimp etc etc which have an exo skeleton they can be fed to animals but any other animals like fish cant.

By normal shrimp I was on about just shrimp you can buy from the counter in supermarkets. I was thinking I could use crickets? They sink after a while and will keep moving in the water so would that work? Also other insects like mealworms which I get for my lizard, are they safe?

Crickets would drown very quickly (2 minutes tops), and I doubt the Chaca would eat them even if they stayed active for longer than that. There is no easy way to keep Chaca without feeding live fish unfortunately.

Rusty

Looks like I wil just have to try breeding other fish to keep one then. Wish mke luck!

Can't you ask what the LFS is feeding it?