Feeding Tatia perugiae

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 26 Sep 2006, 17:03

Saturday I aquired some T. perugiae. they are semi-adults as far as I can gather from their size (3Â½-4Â½ cm).

I've fed them some frozen bloodworms and they eat these. I've added some newly born guppy fry as a "live food" to give them some hunting challenges. Is this a good idea? Will they eat the guppys?

I've also bought some frozen whiteworms as I've read they like these.

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 26 Sep 2006, 17:31

Hi Kim,
Imo they won't grow much larger than 5 cms, so you should be able to tell the sexes apart.
They'll certainly eat the young guppys (surface feeder), but feeding these is not necessary. They do very well on frozen foods and flakes.

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 27 Sep 2006, 07:52

Thanks for the info

I got 10 and now have 5 left. One is a fair bit larger than the other, so i guess I've got 1 female and 3 males.

I keep them in a 35 litre tank with rather powerful filtration and watercurrent. Lots of bogwood to hide in.
Temp. is 27 degrees celcius.

Any comment on the housing?

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 27 Sep 2006, 12:41

I have a group of 20 T. perugiae with a couple of Sphenop mollies and they make no detectable dent in the fry population. They are definitely surface feeders and devour freeze dried bloodworms avidly. They prefer bloodworms including frozen to all other foods. I also feed live blackworms to them and although they do eat them it isn't with the same enthusiasm they show for bloodworms.

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 27 Sep 2006, 13:37

kim m wrote:I got 10 and now have 5 left.

What happened to the other 5?

Did you read the article on (breeding) T. perugiae?
It sits in the Catelog. Click here .
Btw: your housing sounds okay. Any chance of a picture?

Larry, I agree with your remark with regard to baby live bearers. What I meant to say is that they might eat them accidently (because they're surface bound), not that they will prey on them.

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 27 Sep 2006, 15:09

I don't know why they died. I have suspect that they have been kept very cold during transportation.

They fed rather well last night on frozen whiteworms, but still two of them were dead this morning (leaving me with the 5 mentioned).

Could they have died because of lack of space? I have no measurements of the water I'm afraid, but I've done two 40%waterchanges since sunday with slightly cooler tapwater. My Corydorastanks were given the same treatment, and I've noticed nothing wrong with them, so the water should be OK.

Pic of the tank:

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 27 Sep 2006, 15:13

Oh...forgot to mention; yes I did read the article before I got the fish and tried to match the watertemperature etc.

Actually I did a google-search last week and read eveything that seemed relevant.

I think I prepared myself as good as possible for these fish, but apparantly something has gone wrong.

Appreciate all the help I can get

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 27 Sep 2006, 16:18

Hi Kim,
I'm sure you took all the precautions you could take.
A few comments with regard to your fish:
- Sexing should be no problem, so you don't have to guess. Males have a modificated anal fin, just like guppy males. Females don't.
- Did you buy them straight from the wholesaler, because you mention cold transportation? In that case the fish might have died because of the differences between their natural water and your tank water. They just didn't have the time to adapt.
Or (and I've been there too

) they still had something nasty inside of them.....
- I don't think your tank is too small and you have enough hiding places. That's not the problem.
- There's a lot of air between the water and the tank lid. I don't think that air is heated by your lamp. So perhaps it's too cold for a surface feeder that - when feeding - comes in contact with the cold air (it's a long shot, I know....)

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 27 Sep 2006, 16:51

Kim,
If it's any consolation I lost 5/10 from my first purchase and I still don't kow why. I bought another 15 and all of them adjusted just fine except they have'nt bred yet despite heavy feedings and lts of hiding caves and pvc pipe sections like you are using. The females become very fat after eating. I think I should set upa trio so the females can find more privacy than they can presently.
Marc,
I understood what you meant and for all I know they pick off the occassional molly fry in their night time feeding frenzy. I have added a pair of Crenicichla compressiceps so I am probabaly lossing more to them. The mollies are the orginal wild type race, the type Innes described as "Liberty Mollies". I just try to keep a remnant population going because they have been pretty much replaced by the hybrid varieties. They are'nt much to look at.
We seem to be getting a fair sized group of driftwood cat keepers and breeding successes.
Larry

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 27 Sep 2006, 17:36

Thank you Marc and Larry for your help!

I haven't had a closer look at the anal fins, as I don't want to stress them too much at the moment.

The fish are german bred and bought by a friend at a large fish market in Germany. I got them from my friend at a local fish-event last saturday. During the transportation from my friend and during the fish market the fish might have dropped to 20 degrees celcius. I talked to another guy that also bought some fish from my friend. He has not had any losses.

The air should be of more or less the same temprature as the water, as I have the whole room heated. The tanks are heated by the room temperature.

I am planning to get more Tatia's when I get the chance to see if I could be as lucky as Larry (and maybe even breed them).

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 27 Sep 2006, 18:54

kim m wrote: During the transportation from my friend and during the fish market the fish might have dropped to 20 degrees celcius. I talked to another guy that also bought some fish from my friend. He has not had any losses.

It could be that. These fish don't like being kept below 24 C and it's even recommended to keep them at 26-28 C.

Did the other guy also buy Tatias? And if so, did he stay as long as you on that market?

apistomaster wrote:We seem to be getting a fair sized group of driftwood cat keepers and breeding successes.

Now we're talking

.
Wouldn't it be nice to find out which species are being kept by PC members? Perhaps we could set up an exchange programme. Any comments?

daniel60 · Post by **daniel60** » 27 Sep 2006, 19:03

How nice to hear from another Tatia fan in Scandinavia (and in GoC). Good luck, Kim!

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 28 Sep 2006, 01:40

You guys can appreciate the little joke some Corydoras paleatus pulled on me. After about two months I noticed some catfish fry during a feeding frenzy that were about 3/8 inch long. I thought I had gotten lucky and was counting T. perugiae when I realized that I transplanted some eggs attached to driftwood or plant from the Cory tank. What a let down.
I am getting inspired and will have to do some juggling to free up another 20L for the spawning attempts. I think I have a surpus of males so I am going to put my largest male with all the females estimate 1 male:7 females and see what transpires.

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 28 Sep 2006, 08:05

Thank you Daniel

...the other guy that bought Tatias's had longer transportationtime than me.

The exchangeprogramme sounds nice

...currently I've mostly kept Corydoras (have 20+ species at the moment) but I'm getting more and more interested in the smaller catfishes of SA too.

Henrik H · Post by **Henrik H** » 23 Oct 2006, 23:32

Hello
Im also from Denmark and I aquired 7 off this tatia in the fish market i Hamburg, All 7 are alive to this day i have given them a 20 L and total darknes for a couple off months and they are groven to a good size now.
Yesterday i made a 100L tank ready for dÂ´them and some guppyÂ´s.
i could see that one off theme i a female it was very fat and round not like the other ones....

What shall i do now ?

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 24 Oct 2006, 17:20

Henrik H wrote:Yesterday i made a 100L tank ready for dÂ´them and some guppyÂ´s.
i could see that one off theme i a female it was very fat and round not like the other ones. What shall i do now?

Put them in the new tank (add some light too; there's no need for total darkness) and see what happens. They shouldn't eat their own eggs (see: thread) and the guppys won't do that either.