# Gold Occie Planted Tank



## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Waiting for the fish to arrive


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## Tangcollector (Aug 13, 2014)

Awesome looking tank.


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## Lushaquatics (Sep 15, 2013)

Very nice concept!!!


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Thank you. It's also my first time having a shallow tank.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

One of the tiny occies. It seems he / she's the biggest ones, less than 1" 

They arrived last night, and 1 died before got scooped into the tank :'(



And my wife said, "Where's the fish? I don't see them!" 
She much prefer bigger and colorful fish that can be easily seen in the tank such as discus. So out all of my tanks, she only likes the discus / geos tank.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Out of the 7 gold occies I ordered, 1 died before getting scooped into the tank. So there are 6 occies left.

Just now I checked the tank and only saw 5 of them, and I couldn't find the last one. I also noticed that the biggest one often chased one particular occie. I haven't seen him / her chasing the other occies though.

Is this normal behaviour considering they're still very small, less than 1" (about 3/4")?

What should I do? Get more occies to spread the aggression?

I already added some more plants and rocks for more sight breaks.


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## Pope (Jul 29, 2014)

I keep this species. Less rather than more. I keep two pair in 288 square inches. What's the footprint if your tank?


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Pope said:


> I keep this species. Less rather than more. I keep two pair in 288 square inches. What's the footprint if your tank?


It's huge considering their tiny sizes. It's 1,050 square inches.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

If these are really the signs of male and female, I may have lucked out, and have at least:
- 1 male => bigger and the tip of the fin is yellow
- 2 females => smaller and the tips of the fin is white

Not sure about the rest yet. 1 is quite dark color, almost black.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

The alpha male?


I just added some cryptocoryne wendtii, spiralis and willisii. Hopefully they get rooted strongly before the occies get bigger and start buldozing 


I want to replicate a shallow marsh that looked randomly wild with scattered plants and rocks.


Please pardon the female red flamingo albino guppies. They're only here until I find more suitable place for them.


And yes, I just designed a custom acrylic lid to match the lamp based, HOB filter, and Eheim inlet and outlet. I hope to get reasonable quotes from acrylic workshops.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

The bigger Transcriptus (about 2") turned out to be aggressive, kept chasing one of the smallest occies and nipped the fin... So I rehomed the meanie.

The tank looks empty with only 5 occies and 1 transcriptus. Well, I ordered 7 occies, 1 DOA so there were supposed to be 6 occies left, but I only saw 5 occies in the tank. Not sure where was the 6th one.

Considering the big foot print of this tank, is it safe if I add Multies here, say 1m:2f? Will they coexist "pecefully"?


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I'm relieved, all of the 6 occies are out in the open and eat  They even welcome and ask for food whenever I sit in front of the tank to watch them. I even can't believe they can gulp the whole piece of frozen blood worm ;D

I also want to know if there's any tricks to get them to eat pellets? Because they like flakes, but not pellets. They spat out the pellets so far, and it's the same pellets that my multies like, JBL Novo Grano Color Mini ???


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I saw the julie harassed the occies so I removed it.

So there are only 6 occies and 2 guppies there with nerite snails and MTS.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

The tank looks so empty with just 6 occies and 2 dither guppies.

So I added 302 cherry shrimps. They're every where!

Let's see whether the cherries multiply faster and fill in the tank, or the occies annihilate them first  The occies can't bite them yet because their mouth are too small :lol:


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Got the lid installed 

It's laser-cut acrylic DIYed with mosquito screen. Boy, the lid is more expensive than the tank itself!



The mosquito screen doesn't seem to reduce the lights. My concern is the screen may get rusted...


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I wonder if these two are a pair? They are usually seen together although at times one chases the other.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

The 300 cherries are almost gone. I occasionally only see 2 or 3 of them at a time. The occies eat them?

The tank looks empty again now with just 6 occies and 2 dither guppies.

I tossed in a calvus from other tank. Let's see how it goes.


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## jimk (Mar 8, 2015)

Great looking tank!


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Thank you!


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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

Nice tank, LOVE the concept.

IMO, you are going to have to really shoot for sight breaks in order to keep the peace. Occies seem hit or miss as far as how aggressive they can be, unfortunately I have always missed!

The shrimp will be eaten fairly quickly haha.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Thank you. Yes, I can add more sight breaks if necessary. Hopefully I get a HIT 

You're right, the shrimps are gone! It still amazes me how they eat those shrimps with their tiny mouths!

I wish they'll get bigger faster after devouring all of those shrimps


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

It's been a month and I haven't seen any fries yet. I wonder at what size do they start pairing and then spawning? And also how's their behavior to know if a pair's been formed?


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I got bored with them and found a buyer for these rare shellies even before I put an ads. I'll ship them on Friday and get new cichlids for this tank.

Setup will be the same. Just taking out the shells and add some more rocks and crypts in the place of shells.


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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

I ran into the same thing, the tank became borring. The tank was amazing to watch for about two to three weeks. Afterwards, all of the occies pretty much had their territories and sat by their shells. There was an occasional flare contest, but not many. I don't know why occies get lazy haha.

If you can find his threads, anything by prov356 is pure gold when considering setups. I don't think he is around anymore, but he is the guy that got me into fish. He had some cool setups with brevis. He also really enjoyed Telmat. sp shell. If you try brevis, be ready for a wait. They take a long time to settle down, but after the males get comfortable they are more intent on protecting their shells and females than occies.

Sorry for the rambling!


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Thank you. I'll look for prov356's posts.

Hahaha it's also because they occupy such big tank foot print ( compared to their small sizes) and the tank looks empty without many activities.

I haven't found Telmats yet. They look beautiful and active enough in the tank. They can be one of my future fish to keep. And Troph Ilangi and Kasanga for sure.

I read that some peole said that brevis is the most boring shellie?


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## Eric_S (Feb 27, 2007)

I think you're missing some of the occie activity by not having a finer sand substrate. I don't see any buried shells in your pics. They are big excavators. Constantly digging and bulldozing. They will reach a point when most of the shells are buried and the remaining shells have just the opening showing. Then they get lazy. That's when you unbury everything and give them something to do again!


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Thought that tank looked really cool. Have you decided what fish to put in there next?

What are the dimensions of the tank?


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

They buried most of the shells. However I never see them digging and buldozing. Whenever I came to watch them, they always swam to the top and beg for food.

My multies are more diligent than them. Digging and spitting sands. Moving MTS from their shells and drop them in their neighbor's shells. They're very funny to watch! And they all have the same sands.

I'm getting demasoni and leleupi (yellow and orange). My wife wants some colorful fish so I'll try them and observe closely to prevent deathly fightings. It's 105 x 63 x 30 cm.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I'm relieved that the occies safely arrived at their destination. It was quite an experience adding newsletter-wrapped-ice inside the box.


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