[0xDEADBEEF]

I have two SAE in my 30g. They hang around on leaves whole day, and come our at nigt to eat algae wafers.

One of them looks normal:

the other is FAT!

I think he dominated the small one and steals all his food. It feels like he can barely move but when he does he can be fast and the substrate gets blown all over the tank.

I read somewhere they may get fat when they eat too much protein stealing food from other species.
But I don't see how I can prevent it.

 

[bigbadjon]

All you can really do is broadcast your food so he can't swoop in and hog it. What are you feeding your other fish?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

It is usually 1 Hikari mini sinking wafer + 3 Hikari mini algae wafers and some API flakes or Hikari micro sinking pellets.
I have bunch of Neon Tetras, 7 Otos and 2 SAEs. Otos like the algae wafers, pellets or flakes are for tetras and tetras also nibble on wafers. There is also plenty of bladder pond snails in the tank to take care of any leftover food (rarely happens) and Dwarf Puffer to keeps snail population in check.
Hikari mini wafers are maybe 5mm in diameter and 1-2mm thick so they are very small. They do disappear very quickly.

 

[bigbadjon]

I'm guessing he gorges on the wafers. Now I would much rather my fish be a little too fat than skinny myself so you just have to assess if you think he is unhealthy.

 

[sohankpatel]

Mine are pigs, but they aren't fat.

 

[solchitlins]

They need a much larger tank. Mine outgrew my 110 gal.

 

[Natasha]

Though mine are young (all three 1-1.5"), they are all slim and very active swimmers. Hmm. I might watch him closely during feedings, see if there is a way that you can keep him at bay while the others eat. After all, if he fattens up on pellets, he isn't likely to do his algae eating duties. Imagine big macs and ice cream cones falling from the sky vs. harvesting your own vegetables to eat. Which would you choose?

 

[wmnash]

They need a much larger tank. Mine outgrew my 110 gal.

I'm surprised at how large these little critters grow. I, too, have SAEs that I'm am very interested in rehoming. They were OK when about 1.5 inches. But they are 3 inches and still growing. Definitely not good for someone like me who keeps nano fish in large aquaria.


Oh, and they are all much fatter than your chubbiest one.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Imagine big macs and ice cream cones falling from the sky vs. harvesting your own vegetables to eat. Which would you choose?

I saw that movie. It did not end well ;-)

The thing is if I don't give them wafers Otos will starve. There is not that much of biofilm for them after all, they need the wafers.

SAEs pretty much only come out at night. During the day they just chill out laying on a leaves or rocks. They do not earn their keep, I don't think I saw them eating any algae ever since I bought them.

I would gladly give them away to someone but they are super fast and disturb substrate when they get spooked and move fast, combined with dense vegetation in my tank, I don't know how to catch them. So they will stay in this tank forever. A friend of mine suggested fine Japanese hobby of micro-fishing. ;-)


I wish I could get spousal permission for a bigger tank. This 30gal is in the garage because the warden did not want it in the house ;-) It is 36" long so they do have quite a bit of space to swim. They just don't.

I have another SAE in my tank at work which I will be rescaping soon (where at least he ate BBA for a while before he became lazy). I will probably bring it home and add it to the tank to shake things up a bit. The two SAEs did fight in the beginning before they established who is the boss (the fat one of course). Maybe 3rd one will cause all of them to exercise more ;-)

 

[AutumnSky]

The ones I used to have were ~6.75" long. (They perished when I experienced a PH crash and I found I have unmeasurable - say, 0 KH in my tap water.)

Here they were as always right next to each other. They were called "The Twins" about 8 years old (I couldn't find the pic on my computer to load but here it is in a link
Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Autumnsky's Album: 72G Bowfront - Picture

After a time I bought 4 new ones and I give them supplemental food they love/go crazyist over the Hikari bottom feeder wafers (orange bag) then the algae ones.

No especially chubby ones, though probably those are the females, males are more slender and females more triangular shaped.