hello all, i was wondering if we could start a vieja care thread?
im part of this forum and many others and after hours of searching cant find a huge thread on keeping them.
so i was wondering if you all could help me with best foods/temp/substrate etc. iv heard they need more veggies and such.
anyways im getting a syns/bid/and regani this week.
pics will be up later on in week
=)

Food:
definitely will look WAAAAY better if you feed a lot of veggies, heres a comparison of one that eats a lot of veggies, and one that only got pellet:
with veggies: (pic by Aquamojo (both))



without veggies:


see my point?

i mean, obviously genetics has a big play in color, but all of them will be nicer then the last posted unless you lack feeding them veggies.

as far as substrate, anything will work, i prefer Gravel, more natural for them and easier to clean IMO

by temp, do you mean temperament? or temperature?

as far as temperament, it really varies between each individual fish, even 2 synspilums can have very different attitudes.

and temperature, 78 is good, though the temperature, unless it is in the extremes, will not have much of an effect except on how much/often you need to feed, the higher the temp, the faster the metabolism, the more you need to feed, the more you need to clean.

any more questions?

This post has been edited by Gage: Aug 13 2008, 11:04 PM

awesome reply, yea i meant temperature, my tanks are set at 81 right now, is this to hot?
and i read aboout boiling peas etc what else is there? should i just buy the pellets for africans?my main thing is i wanna stock up on the foods they like so trying to see whats best pelletes/veggies or just some special veggie/algea pellets.

here's a good thing to feed them, get a can of spinach (ya i know, canned spinach) squeeze most (not all) of the juice out of them, flaten them out a on baking plate or something like that, then freeze it, then cut it up in bite size pieces, then feed it, this works great for anyone who has tryed it, boiled peas are fine but make sure you de-shell them the shell can get caught in the intestinal tract and cause bloat. boiled romaine lettuce is ok to, not as good as spinach, but variety is key.

81 is fine.

veggie flakes/pellets are good, but the stuff listed before is better, but a mix of both is ideal, pick up some omega one kelp pellets, the first 2 ingredients are Kelp and Spirulina (Kelp is seaweed if you didnt know) it is a great veggie based pellet.

awesome good stuff, going to buy some right now =-)