# New Grammode, Little Wolverine



## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

I just got a new Grammode yesterday with my fish store credit, the fish girl gave me a major discount and I only had to pay $5 for him instead of the regular $15. I selected the best looking male out of a group of 15 or so juveniles. He is about 3" standard length and 4" with his tail. Best thing about him is that he isn't very shy at all and will often cruise around and swim up to the front of the tank when you sit and watch him. Last night he gave me a little scare though when he jumped out of the tank while I was showering. I went to check on him before I went to bed and didn't see him in the tank, looked at the big bichir that he lives with and he didn't seem to be any different and so I looked behind the tank and there he was covered in cobwebs and dust. I picked him up and put him back in the tank after removing most of the stuff that was covering his gills and the side of his body and mouth. This morning I looked in on him again and he was still swimming around, healthy as before though a little more timid after his ordeal. I call him Wolverine (Doviis are the "Wolf" of the cichlid world and Grammodes are often referred to as "Little Dovii" so I think Wolverine is a fitting description and name for him).

This is him being a little camera shy after his ordeal the day/night before.










Coming out for a better look.

















(sorry for the blurry shot)

This pics shows his colors a bit although it doesn't show the blue-green hues of his fins all that well.










And here is his tankmate, Jack the One-eyed Bichir. He's about 10" total length and over 5 years old now.



















Full tank shot:










They reside in a 36 gallon bowl front, you don't see a filter in the picture because I took it out to try to fix the propeller that was jammed by sand getting caught in the gears. The plan is to do more water changes than normal, about 50% every day, or every other day when I forget to do them, in order to help increase his growth rate beyond the .5" a month average that Grammodes are notorious for. His diet will consist of Hikari Cichlid Bio-Gold until this bag is finish (switching to Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets once he finishes this bag and is a bit bigger), earth worms, shrimp, blackworms/tubifex worms, and the occasional feeder fish. I will use this thread as a journal to track his growth and progress in my quest for growing out a monster Grammode and as a documentary of the life of "Wolverine", the Grammode. Enjoy. opcorn:


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## Azedenkae (Apr 19, 2012)

Haha, interesting story about Wolverine.  Gonna get a bit hard for him to move around the 36g eventually I reckon, but eh. )


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## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

Azedenkae said:


> Haha, interesting story about Wolverine.  Gonna get a bit hard for him to move around the 36g eventually I reckon, but eh. )


It takes them forever to grow is what I heard from everyone who's ever owned one. Apparently .5" a month is considered pretty good growth from a Grammode. :? Keeping him in the small tank cause that's how I've raised slow growing cichlids to big sizes in faster than usual time before. Got a 3" festae to 8" in 6 months raising it in a 20 long with daily water changes and a good diet. It was a female as well. I think he'll be fine for a while in this tank as long as I keep up with the water changes. 3rd time I've raised a large fish this way before transferring it to a larger aquarium. Happy fish keeping! :thumb:


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## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

Well, I think his tank has been infected with ICH. He is scratching a bit, though nothing has appeared on his skin yet. I guess this means that the water changes will be cut down a bit as I treat his tank. Shared some equipment vaccuming from his tank to the 55 Taiwan Reef tank and they came down with ICH so I am treating both tanks. With salt, quick cure, and increased temp, if I can get the heaters to work better that is.


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## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

So he hasn't been eating much at all, just a piece of worm or two each day. I just started a deworming regimen yesterday with Prazipro incase he has some internal parasites affecting his appetite. Any suggestions on improving his appetite?


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## Azedenkae (Apr 19, 2012)

Change up his diet a lil' bit? Might be getting tired of worms, perhaps he'd want something new now.


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## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

Azedenkae said:


> Change up his diet a lil' bit? Might be getting tired of worms, perhaps he'd want something new now.


I've tried everything from live worms, to feeders, to ghost shrimp, to Hikari Bio Gold, to NLS, to Hikari Sinking Carnivore pellets. He'll eat the shrimp but only sparingly, he'll do the same with the feeder guppies, he'll nibble at the Sinking Carnivore, chew a few Bio Gold pellets, eat a piece of worm, and completely ignore the NLS. He hasn't had a full stomach since I've gotten him. Compared to any central american cichlid I've had before, this guy doesn't really eat at all.

He's really active and bold for a grammode, he's swimming at the front of the tank right now as I type this and checking to see what I'm doing on my iPad, but his stomach is starting to look shrunkin in. He has grown a little bit though, using the other grammodes that are still in the pet store as a reference, he is now about half an inch bigger than the ones that are still there and when I got him, he was the same size as 5 of the other grammodes in the tank. I guess that's one positive.

This is hilarious, I believe that he's trying to flare at me right now, lol.


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## Fish on Fire (Dec 13, 2012)

Well, I got a fluval aquaclear hang on the back filter rated for up to 50 gallons to replace the broken penguin biowheel filter. That should help keep the water quality up without having to do 4-5 water changes a week.


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