15 liters Peacock Gudgeon tank

Through building and maintaining beautiful nature aquaria people re-learn the intricate connections between forms of life, plants, fish, microorganism and humans. Riches and beauty come from harmony, from balance. Aquaria are great teachers of this truth. Takashi Amano

2/24/2007

UPDATE;
today I noticed free swimming fry !!! It is impossible taking a good photo, since they hide as soon as you approach the tank. I am not sure what to do really? I might get some liquifry food.

2/23/2007

Are those larvae or what? :-)

I decided today to remove all my Peacock Gudgeons to my new 180 liters and while I was catching them I realised that one male is missing. As a matter of fact he was missing for a last few days. Each time I was feeding them I couldn't see the second male... And because of my busy schedule I didn't have time to look around all that overgrown Java Moss. So I started taking out everything; plants and stones. And there he was trying to hide under one stone all the time. Actually it was impossible to chase him away from that stone. I lifted the stone and there they were...small Tateurndina ocellicauda larvae, all with eyes. I left the stone inside the tank and will leave it on it's own device. I discovered as well 3 Red Cherry Shrimps. At the beginning I added 2 egg carrying females, one jumped out and the other I believed, was eaten by the Gudgeons...but apparently the small baby shrimps survived in this 15 Liter aquarium.
Click on the image to enlarge it please. Photo by Dusko Bojic.

1/19/2007

Peacock Gudgeon - Tateurndina ocellicauda

I started this 15 liters acrylic aquarium suddenly(will get a bigger tank soon). I received some very interesting fish last week (9th Jan 2007) at the ZooShop I work at, and I couldn't resist not to get some for my self. This beautifully colored fish is known as the Peacock Gudgeon aka Eye-spot Sleeper (Tateurndina ocellicauda).
They are still juveniles, so this tank will do for a short while. I keep 2 males and 3 females. The tank is filtered with a corner filter driven by an air pump. I planted it with some Java Moss, Java Fern (young shots) and Cabomba. I added lots of withered Oak leaves. I feed the Gudgeons once a day with frozen artemia, which they devour. They will refuse commercial flake/granules food. I found out that white mosquito larvae is also on their favorite menu. I will try to breed them soon. Since they are cave spawners I introduced a little commercially available cave. I will follow this article as a guideline.

Photo 1; Male
Males have large hump-head and lots more of blue color + they grow to about 7cm.

Photo 2; Female
Females have much smaller heads, less blue, yellow stomachs and black lines at the edges of there fins+ they grow to about 6cm. Honorable mention; The same day I got my self this gorgeous looking Dragon PLAKAT Betta. He was together in the same tank with the Gudgeons, for a week. I didn't notice any aggression inside the aquarium. Yesterday morning I found him dead on the floor. He jumped out :-( I seem not to have luck with Bettas.
Photos by Dusko Bojic.