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

[Deb]

Hey, Viktor!

I'm so glad to hear you are okay, and came out of the storm without too many losses! You weren't too far from where the storm made landfall, were you? Scary.

As you may remember, my brother lives a few hours from you - remember the pleco rescue conversation? - but was out of town and stayed out until the worst was over. We were in touch the whole time.

Florida folks are survivors! Good luck to you moving forward from this.

Deb

[Mr Whippy]

I'm so glad you have come through basically OK although I can see you have a lot of work ahead of you.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you, guys for the support. The eye of the hurricane went straight over our heads. Yea, a lot of work is still ahead. I have still been working on restoring the main fish pavilion. The roof tarp is new plus had to build up a leaky spot. Now, gotta close up the sides. The cold time is coming. And still sawing and trashing and burning a lot of trees.

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Update on Tank #42 - eighteen lima shovelnose, 2 spotted bullheads, VATF vitattus African tigerfish, tig catfish, African arowana, black shark, albino iridescent shark, orinoco peacock bass, synodontis decorus.

Limas didn't particularly care for the video shoot and shed their slime coat more than usual. The jellyfish-looking things floating in the water column are the slime coat pieces.

[Viktor Jarikov]

My own "I can't believe what my gulper has done" story came to pass after all.

After a year of 5 blochii and 3 gulpers being together in a 240 gal, one of the gulpers swallowed the smallest blochii, which, of course (sarcasm), was the most interesting one to me as it looked different and I tentatively assigned it a Pimelodus tetramerus ID.

It was the sole survivor of 5 I bought in 2011 as tester fish for my new ponds, when we moved to Naples from upstate NY. Three of that batch looked like tetramerus, the rest looked like the usual blochii. All others have been picked off over the years by jau catfish and other predators because they were growing together and couldn't monitor what was happening in those ponds.

The gulper is ~9", the tetramerus was too 8"-9".

Out of the water part of the video is narrated:

[Viktor Jarikov]

An update on the inhabitants of the other part of the same tank behind the divider: 2 dourada catfish, one B. capapretum, and two giant Siamese carp.

I've been having horrible luck with the dourada catfish. Probably over the last year or two I tried about 10 of them, at some point having 6 all at one time. Two were lost to predatory attacks by a gulper (missed the size disparity that creeped up on me because of different growth rate) and, totally unexpectedly, by a piraiba. The rest succumbed to some unknown to me disease, wherein they start spinning and swimming funny and never recover, some within weeks, others after many months. Currently have two in this tank section - one from Mark Chen of Discus Origins at ~5" and one from snookn21 at ~3.5".

As a result of these troubles, I became convinced that I must grow out dourada separately or with the meekest of tank mates to have any shot at raising them to size. Sad to report that after all these attempts, my biggest fish didn't exceed 7"-8".

The story with false piraiba, aka B. capapretum, is pretty similar except that I have not lost any yet - only ever worked with two and, miraculously, still have them, one 2-year old at ~2' and the other that I got this spring, featured in this video, at ~7". But they are very skittish and very touchy and too meek with other tank mates and stress way easily, just like dourada are.

So with capa too, I decided I must by all means try to raise them solo or with most gentle tank mates. In any case, IME and IMO dourada and capa catfish require a LOT more vigilance and observation than others to catch problems in time.

The giant Siamese carp I got from Rapps this spring too. Slow growers and exceedingly shy, they have been pestered in their original tank, so they are in this section until I figure out where to place them. They are ~6". I still have a 16" pair in 4500 gal.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Here is a quick overview of all the fish that we currently keep in ten 240 gal glass tanks and two 4500 gal fiberglass+acrylic tanks. We will also feed the two 4500 gal tanks. Plus show the temporary koi pond, also with feeding, and finally show the still unfinished koi exhibit, which, unfortunately, hasn't been touched since before hurricane Irma, meaning since the end of Aug 2017. We have just barely finished restoring the main fish house housing the 12 tanks but in the process also modified the roof and other structures to eliminate problem spots where rain water used to leak.

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[bekateen]

Viktor, your fish never cease to amaze me. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

I am glad I am able to brighten up your days a tiny bit, Eric!

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[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[bekateen]

Dang you have an impressive collection of fish Viktor. Thanks for the videos.

How is your construction going? Any update worth sharing?

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

I am a hoarder and it shows. But thanks, Eric!

Hurricane Irma threw us back 6 months or so. Still trying to reach the point where we were before it in Sept 2017. But doing some new things too - paving driveway and parking lot. The 25,000 gal koi exhibit is still in shambles - I have just posted an update on the exhibit a few posts up.

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[bekateen]

Yeah, I saw those videos above, but I didn't know how they fit in the bigger picture. Thanks and good luck with the ongoing recovery.

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you, Eric, our main tinkering man

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[grokefish]

Wow Viktor! I could watch those tanks for hours

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thanks, Matt! Means a lot coming from you

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[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]

[Viktor Jarikov]