SAEs getting fat

Hi,

I have 4 SAE's in the tank. they're all very active and healthy, but they
are such hogs, they're starting to look like they're carrying small balloons
in their belly (meaning, very fat.. sort of a fish-version of waddling).

I've tried reducing food.. then they're so fast ,they'll eat all the other
fish's share and other fish ended up starving. also, when I reduce food,
they start eating my Amazon sword and Java ferns, so they start looking like
strings (only the hard veins are left on the Amazons, and the ferns are
nibbled to the stump)

so.. to protect the plant, I end up giving the more food, and they continue
to get fat.

I dont' knwo what to do. I know it's unhealthy, but if I don't feed them
enough, they starve the other fish and eat all the plants while they
continue to get fat. also, they're starting to harass other smaller fish
(chain loachs) and I'm afraid they're going to end up as their snack
someday...

any thoughts? may be I should trade in 2 out of the 4 with some other
not-so-voracious fish?

linda

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, LM wrote:

I have 4 SAE's in the tank. they're all very active and healthy, but they
are such hogs

Well, you need to used to the fact they eat a lot and eat fast, but you
can certainly find ways to control this without resorting to giving them
back to LFS.

I own SAEs and clown loaches along with a couple of more timid fish. Both
species eat till they're round like pigs and sink like rocks - and both
are damn fast.

To keep them from eating way too much, but make other fish happy, I do
three things:

1) I feed when fast feeders are less active. Late afternoon, when lights
are out, clown loaches and SAEs are often dozing and fail to notice
food; many other species (plecos, barbs) are very much awake and
happily dine on whatever I put in the tank.

2) I feed long-lasting foods that take hours to get done with. Frozen
green peas are a great example. Even though fast fish are there
first, others get a chance to grab just as much.

There are some foods that SAEs have hard time dealing with at all,
but that pose no problem to other species. It depends on who you have
in your tank, but my panaque plecos can cope with a whole raw carrot
quite efficiently, whereas SAEs can't.

3) I use combined simulatenous feeding. I put SAE's favourite snacks
along with foods they like less. After a relatively small but
favored snack, clown loaches and SAEs are somewhat less likely to go
after something they find less tasty. Althought it might be
a challenge to find something SAEs do not go bonkers about,
it is most certainly possible (Sera Vipachips work for me).

--
------------------------- bash$ ){ :|:&};: --
Michal Zalewski * [http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx]
Did you know that clones never use mirrors?
--------------------------- 2005-02-26 00:50 --

http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/photo/current/

Fat as in "gosh that's a big belly after you've eaten" or fat
as in "you aren't supposed to have that shape" ?

Keep in mind SAE's get pretty big. They eat a lot.

--
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Thusly (Richard Sexton) Spake Unto All:

Keep in mind SAE's get pretty big. They eat a lot.

And, frankly, I would let them.

"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...
Fat as in "gosh that's a big belly after you've eaten" or fat
as in "you aren't supposed to have that shape" ?

Keep in mind SAE's get pretty big. They eat a lot.

I'm happy when mine take on a torpedo shape - a slight stomach bulge. I've
seen some thin SAE's in my travels around LFSs and in fact, my 4 were almost
anorexic when I bought them. Different story now - they discovered the algae
disks this morning and pigged out - a lesson there - half a tab for all 4,
so they graze on what they are supposed to later in the day - algae

Oz

--
My Aquatic web Blog is at http://members.optusnet.com.au/ivan.smith

"Michal Zalewski" wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.58.0502260050070.30219@dione...
On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, LM wrote:

I have 4 SAE's in the tank. they're all very active and healthy, but
they
are such hogs

Well, you need to used to the fact they eat a lot and eat fast, but you
can certainly find ways to control this without resorting to giving
them
back to LFS.

I own SAEs and clown loaches along with a couple of more timid fish.
Both
species eat till they're round like pigs and sink like rocks - and both
are damn fast.

To keep them from eating way too much, but make other fish happy, I do
three things:

1) I feed when fast feeders are less active. Late afternoon, when
lights
are out, clown loaches and SAEs are often dozing and fail to notice
food; many other species (plecos, barbs) are very much awake and
happily dine on whatever I put in the tank.

2) I feed long-lasting foods that take hours to get done with. Frozen
green peas are a great example. Even though fast fish are there
first, others get a chance to grab just as much.

There are some foods that SAEs have hard time dealing with at all,
but that pose no problem to other species. It depends on who you
have
in your tank, but my panaque plecos can cope with a whole raw
carrot
quite efficiently, whereas SAEs can't.

3) I use combined simulatenous feeding. I put SAE's favourite snacks
along with foods they like less. After a relatively small but
favored snack, clown loaches and SAEs are somewhat less likely to
go
after something they find less tasty. Althought it might be
a challenge to find something SAEs do not go bonkers about,
it is most certainly possible (Sera Vipachips work for me).

--
------------------------- bash$ ){ :|:&};: --
Michal Zalewski

Some really excellent ideas there Michal. I wonder if linda could post
some pics. SAEs are riverine fish, so an area of the tank with higher
turbulence might give them some much needed exercise. Varying the size
of the food can help too (small fish concentrate on smaller pieces, while
fat fish don't bother). Getting them to fight over an algae wafer in a
back corner can sometimes be a good diversion to the real feeding going
on in the front. An example of diet food is cucumber, which is mostly
water. Ultimately you might need to reset the tank, and move the SAEs
into a larger tank with larger and equally aggressive eaters so that you
can tone down this current tank.
--
www.NetMax.tk

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:27:53 -0800, "LM" wrote:

Hi,

I have 4 SAE's in the tank. they're all very active and healthy, but they
are such hogs, they're starting to look like they're carrying small balloons
in their belly (meaning, very fat.. sort of a fish-version of waddling).

I've tried reducing food.. then they're so fast ,they'll eat all the other
fish's share and other fish ended up starving. also, when I reduce food,
they start eating my Amazon sword and Java ferns, so they start looking like
strings (only the hard veins are left on the Amazons, and the ferns are
nibbled to the stump)

so.. to protect the plant, I end up giving the more food, and they continue
to get fat.

I dont' knwo what to do. I know it's unhealthy, but if I don't feed them
enough, they starve the other fish and eat all the plants while they
continue to get fat. also, they're starting to harass other smaller fish
(chain loachs) and I'm afraid they're going to end up as their snack
someday...

any thoughts? may be I should trade in 2 out of the 4 with some other
not-so-voracious fish?

linda


Hi Linda,

I have 8 SAEs in a 75 gallon community tank which includes 3 Plecos
and 6 Clown Loaches. I also have 3 SAEs in a 29 gallon community
tank and 1 SAE in a 10 gallon community tank. I feed all my fish
flake food. After almost 2 years only problem happened when I tried
cutting back on the food by going from 2 feedings a day to one. I
noticed by annubias leaves were getting lacy. I went back to feeding
twice and the plants are recovering. I am pretty sure the SAEs were
doing it. My 12 SAEs are about 3 inches. I can't say their stomachs
ballon, but definitely are full.

I use air in all my tanks, the flake food disperses quickly. I put in
large helpings so food is available throughout the tank rather
quickly. All the fishes, large and small get a pretty good shot. In
the 75 gallon some of the smaller fish stay away from the heavy food
concentration and wait for the current to bring food to them.

dick

Hi All,

thanks for all the replies.. seems like I'm just bound to keep them "fat"
and not worry... (altho one of my lace gouramis are getting abit pot-bellied
too... hmmm) at least it's nice to know it's hard to over-feed the tank
with SAE's on the loose.

I'll try to take a photo of them to see if they look unhealthily chubby. 2
of the 4 looks like a shark profile (if you know what I mean), but the other
2 looks like they swallowed a small rugby ball in their bellies.. definitely
a noticable potbelly. (as in "fat bellies" and not "cancerous growth
bellies")

Hopefully they'll be ok.. I thought they were only supposed to grow to 4in?
currently they are about 4in long from tip of their nose to the base of
their tailfins. are they going to get larger?? Now I'm worried if I have
overstocked my planted 37G tank:

4 SAE
4 pearl gouramis (t. leeri)
4 zebra loaches (b. striata)
3 chain/dwarf loaches (b. sidthemunkis)
? otocincluses (more than 3, less than 7...)
2 danios (both 2+ yr old, so they're getting old... don't intend to replace
them after they go to fish heaven)

my worry is that I started out with 3 young dwarf loaches (sidthemunkis)
that are about 1in long.. but now I can only see 2 at any given time. not
sure if the third one is hiding somewhere in the sword plant bush, or became
midnight SAE snack...

linda

Hi Netmax,

I'll try to post a photo.

as for turbulence, i have two powerhead 200's churning the UGF and HOT
Magnum filter on the 37G.. it's pretty turbulent in there without blowing
fish around too much :-) I bouthg tand meant to use the HOT filter as a
temporary cleaning filter, but got lazy and just left it on the tank one
day, and it's been there since :-) it's just full of fiberous filter
material that gets cleaned every several months when it gets clogged so bad
the flow becomes noticably slower.

recently SAE's been harassing eachother.. may be the tank is getting small
for them? hmm...

I wrote this in the other reply, but just to reiterate what I have in the
tank now:

4 SAEs
4 pearl gouramis (t. leeri)
4 zebra loaches (b. striata)
3 chain/dwarf loaches (b. sidthemunkis)
? otocincluses (more than 3, less than 7... they keep hiding so it's hard to
tell)
2 danios (both 2+ yr old, so they're getting old... don't intend to replace
them after they go to fish heaven)
3 Amazon sword (BIG.. about 15in tall and bushy)
1 anubias (getting big too.. sprawling across an 8-in driftwood)
bunch of java ferns (dense foliage...)
bunch of stem plants (looking stringy due to SAE damage..)

linda

Some really excellent ideas there Michal. I wonder if linda could post
some pics. SAEs are riverine fish, so an area of the tank with higher
turbulence might give them some much needed exercise. Varying the size
of the food can help too (small fish concentrate on smaller pieces, while
fat fish don't bother). Getting them to fight over an algae wafer in a
back corner can sometimes be a good diversion to the real feeding going
on in the front. An example of diet food is cucumber, which is mostly
water. Ultimately you might need to reset the tank, and move the SAEs
into a larger tank with larger and equally aggressive eaters so that you
can tone down this current tank.
--
www.NetMax.tk

Thusly "LM" Spake Unto All:

I'll try to post a photo.

You'll find that difficult in this group.
However for comparison, these SAE's:
http://www.andras.net/images/siamese_algae_eater_6.jpg
http://www.aquabotanic.com/images/SAE2.gif
aren't fat.

recently SAE's been harassing eachother.. may be the tank is getting small
for them? hmm...

No, they often do that. SAE's are said to be peaceful and social, and
compared to chinese algae eaters they are, but it's still a truth with
considerable modification - quarrelling and chasing are normal
activities of SAE's. Some individuals can be *very* aggressive against
conspecifics. No harm will come of it, provided you have tight-fitting
lid (otherwise you'll start finding SAE's on the carpet, as they tend
to jump when chased).
If it gets annoying, with constant round-the-clock chasing, buying
more of them may help diffuse aggression.
Alternatively, if you have one of those excessively aggressive
individuals, removing it might not be a bad idea.