Sue's Community tank

My community tank is situated in our lounge.
It is a 3ft long 18" wide and 18" high.
I keep here fish that I like but cannot breed due to species or age or don't want to breed for me.
I also get the occasional soft spot for a deformed fish at present it is a bent swordtail that looks more like a platy but it isn't .
 

Clown Loaches
Clowns (to many to name) - Clown Loaches - Botia macracanthus

Here are some pictures of my clown loaches. When ever I find one in a shop with unusal markings on it I buy it.
Above is my jigsaw clown it has a jigsaw piece mark on one side and a spot on the other which is joined to the second stripe by a silver jigsaw shape.
Below is my double saddle clown the second stripe is incomplete and then a extra upside down saddle between the second and third stripe. It has the same markings on both sides.

I have two normally marked clowns this is the smaller darker one the other is my biggest clown and is often paled out to silver stripes.
 

Fire eel
Mark - Fire eel - Mastacembelus erythrotaenia

 
 

Our fire eel is a male called Mark (after Craigs brother)
Mark is about 7 inches long and we have had him about 2 and a half years.
The fire eel is a very pretty eel they are black with stripes of red down the length of their body.
Sexing of fire eels is not to hard as the females grow quite fast into a very large eel upto 3ft
where the male is a very slow growing eel and generally is lucky to get to half the female size.
I have not heard of them being bred in captivity.
 

With fire eels you have to be careful with heaters in your tank, as the fires have a habit of wrapping themselves around the heater in doing so they tend to get burnt. It is recomended that you have a heater guard to prevent them getting to close to the heater.

The fire eels are very picky eaters they prefer to eat live food.
Our eel Mark started out eatting only bloodworm, he would not touch any dry food he would rather stave. Afew months ago we started feeding out whiteworm to my community tank, this is fed out live so it wriggles alot and Mark finally gave in and tryed it and liked it.
Through direct feeding the whiteworms with some twezers to him we strated to trick him with small earthworms which are now also being eaten by him.
So Marks diet now consists of occasional frozen bloodworm and baby earthworms and daily feedings of whiteworm.

Now that he is on alot more varied diet we are should always have at least one type of food available all year round.we are really quite lucky to have Mark on such a varied diet as our friend with a larger fire eel about 1 ft long and it will only eat earthworms which can be hard to find in the middle of summer as the ground gets to hot and hard to dig deep enough to find them.

Sexing of fire eels is not to hard as the females grow quite fast into a very large eel upto 3ft
where the male is a very slow growing eel and generally is lucky to get to half the female size.
I have not heard of them being bred in captivity.

Feeding Eels
Generally when you buy the eel they should already be eating frozen blood worm

It is important to teach your eel to eat a variety of foods as most live and frozen foods are only seasonally available.

You should try to then feed  live food

white worms, brineshrimp, daphnia ,mossy wigglers

It would not hurt to try a few baby fish But if you plan to keep eel with a community set up eg neons and average tetras etc as once they tack to live fish they will just help themselves when they get older to what ever fits in the mouth.

I would use this as a last resort food if the eel will not eat for you or you have no other food available.

Eels don't generally like dry food they are very picky eaters

If you need info on where to get live cultures (in New Zealand) for the above let me know as for small trials it is'nt  to bad buying from your local fish shop, But once eel has decided what he/she likes it can get a bit expensive
 
A good culture can keep you going for ages (and it is good for your other fish)
 
 

Unfortunitly mark jumped out of his tank we found him the next morning dryed up on the floor.
I have kept this information on here as it is hard to find information on them.
 

Other fish in my community

     Coolie - Pangio spec - myersi, kuhlii, semicinctus
     Neon Tetras
     Rosey barbs
     Diamond Tetra
     Guppies - Poecilia reticulata
     Clown Barb
     Peppered corys - Corydoras  paleatus

Agassi cory