#feeder guppy

[erythristicbones]

THE BREADSTICK BOY IS HOME (+ our new tank setup and the panda corys i got to go with my other 3 corys :3)

[butchyena]

we got guppies for my planted tank and theyre impossible to fucking take pics of but theyre all males so its our little frat house

[mossymandibles]

Here she issss, new and improved Reya 🥰

She’s got a huge frill now, with which she uses light and color pulses like a cuttlefish to draw in prey.

She started as a small guppie type mermaid in the shallows, living among a shoal of others like her.

Long story short, she felt a draw to the depths, where she found herself feeding on a strange, massive corpse with the other feeders in reverence of the Whalefall.

She grew to be enormous, devouring the rest of her school, wanting for more gifts from The Endless Sky. Her brain was addled by the darkness.

She’s now one of many gods of the Depths. They worship her as The Deep Star, because of her colorful crest that pulses with colors the creatures of the dark had never seen before.

She lives alone in an abandoned sunken Ladder facility. Well, kind of alone. She has lots of eggs to take care of there. She���s a proud mum 😌

[makairodonx]

Somewhere in the middle of the great, nutrient-rich inland sea that separates the supercontinent of Yariloia from the smaller island continent of Tataria, a massive shoal of small sardine-like feeder fish gets torn apart to shreds by a host of fast-swimming hunters that are in turn preyed upon by much larger predators. Here the gigantic 20-meter-long Megaxiphias imperator, the chief apex predator of the inland sea, lunges from the surface waters to impale a 2.5-meter-long Black-Faced Shark-Guppy, which voraciously preys upon the feeder fish, with its long, swordfish-like rostrum as Maritime Pseudochiropterans fly overhead to dive-bomb upon the shoal like Earth’s gannets. M. imperator is the largest marine bony fish ever to inhabit Mars ll, and is found across much of the planet’s tropical and temperate waters.

[morgieserpentine]

Update on the dead fish!

we got some new ones, but need to decide on some of their names (all fish are female btw)

The new betta fish is named Red

The bottom feeder is Uliana

And lastly there are the guppies

They are distinguishable by their tails, which is an orange tail, and orange tail with black streaks, grey, and clear

any name suggestions?

[zooophagous]

I really want to build a peaceful community fishtank but not sure what to put in it.

So far I have

Congo tetras

Celestial danios

Some kind of gourami for color

Bamboo or vampire shrimp (filter feeders)

An albino pleco (space and temperament permitting only)

It would be a large planted tank, 60 gallons or more. What other ideas would be doable for it? Can these fish even live together? They're all allegedly peaceful, but so are guppies and my guppies murdered one another all the way to death so I know its more of an in theory thing.

[bettafishblr]

Fish ownership on a budget:

Do your research before you get the fish. I cannot emphasize this enough. It may not seem like a budgeting tip, but you WILL waste money going in blind. You'll buy stuff you don't need, buy the wrong thing and have to replace it, hurt your fish and need to buy treatment, etc. Sick fish are expensive fish, and it's not fair to make an animal suffer because you're impatient.

Save up and buy supplies gradually. This allows you to wait and find the best deals, as well as avoid the shock of dropping $200 on fish tank stuff all at once. Impulse buys are not your friend.

Buy the tank and filter first, if possible. You'll want to start your cycle as soon as possible, since it can take awhile (weeks) depending on tank size. I'll make a post about what that means later, but trust me, it's important.

If you live where there's Petco stores, wait until they have their Dollar Per Gallon sale. It is what it sounds like; a 10 gallon tank (good size for a betta) will cost you $10. Capitalism stupid, so make it work for you.

If you don't live where there's Petco stores, you might try buying a used tank. Garage sales, Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, whatever. Make sure it can hold water before buying, and clean it well once you get it home.

Some folks will try to sell you a tank at the price they bought it for; do not buy at that price if you can help it. Wait a bit longer and there will be someone who's selling at a more reasonable price. Fish tanks do not have high resale value once they have been used.

Guppies are a popular beginner fish, and they breed a lot. Most livebearers do. Don't slut shame them, just get a big tank, or all one sex. All females might still bring about fry (babies) as they might be pregnant when you get them. All males will still need a good sized tank as you need a lot of fish and a lot of plants/decor to avoid fighting.

If you've got a friend with guppies, you might be able to get a few for free/cheap. I am not kidding when I say these guys breed a lot.

"Feeder fish" are often priced cheaply, but they may not actually be a cheap fish in the long run. Goldfish need very large tanks, and a strong filter as they produce a LOT of waste. Feeder fish in general may also be sickly, partially because of poor breeding, partly because of how easily disease spreads in the stressful situations they are usually kept in. That's not to say they can't be good pets, but be aware of the risk.

If you're going to buy it often, buy it in bulk if possible. You'll usually save money that way (Exception is food if your fish is a picky eater. Nobody wants to be stuck with a fucking gallon of fish food your Gordon-Ramsay-In-Fish-Form refuses to eat).

Embrace the ugly. You may have decided to get a fish for the aesthetic pleasure, but you must remember that it is a living being above all. Fish tanks can be beautiful, and there's no reason they shouldn't be! But if you can't manage pretty and healthy, it is your responsibility to prioritize the health and wellbeing of your fish, whether the tank looks how you want it or not. You might like to be able to see your fish at all times, but if having limited hiding spaces stresses them out, give them somewhere to hide.

[kedreeva]

i hope this isn't weird or overly personal, but how do you make money for the animals and have the time to care for them? is it like an unrelated job or something to do with peafowl or rodents? sorry if i sound like a judgemental relative at thanksgiving, i promise i'm just genuinely curious

It's okay! Up until I quit my job at the start of October, I was working as an animal husbandry technician taking care of research animals (mostly mice) at a university! I also have a partner, and he makes about 2x what I was making. My car was given to me by my parents in college, and is paid off now, which means I just pay insurance, registration, and any repairs on him (since he's almost old enough to vote). My mom used some of her inheritance from her father's death to pay off my student loans (which were a lot but not a LOT), and instead of a wedding ring, my partner paid off my house for me. Which means right now, we just don't have a lot of bills, and I'm able to take 2023 off work and write and chill with my animals.

But honestly, it doesn't take that much to take care of the animals I have (they're not as intense as you're probably thinking). My equipment was largely donated or scrapped from friends/family/craigslist (aside from the pen building material for the peas). I make/grow some stuff myself free (like all the rodent bedding/hides from garbage cardboard, some of the fresh foods for the birds grow wild at my house) or acquire it cheaply (fleece sheets for making hammocks for the rats, small amounts of aquatic plants I can grow and split out into more, dollar store grain products for the roaches, feather toys from my birds for the cat, the roaches are self-replicating bird treats). A lot of the animals actually make enough to pay for themselves; the mice I sell as pets/healthy feeders locally, the peafowl hatch chicks, one of my peahens paints with me, the guppies/snails reproduce very fast and people come get them as pets/feeders.

The biggest time sink is cleaning mouse bins weekly. Everything else is stuff that can be done in less than 30 minutes a day, with larger, infrequent cleaning events (scraping/sanitizing pens 2x a year, aquarium filters monthly, etc). And bins + events are weekend activities, when we have the most time.

[auckie]

Im lije an accidental bug killer by nature if they hurt me i smack them like a caved man and i am scared of bites truthfully. Maybe theres a way 2 get past that like if a bite doesnt hurt maybe it wudnt phase me? The blue tarantulas man.....theyre so gorgeous.....i want to put on jazz records for them...i want to play with them....i want to build those blue beetle guys a doll house and put them in it and officiate their weddings......oogh......i feel i wudnt want roaches unless i did the composting thing? This also reminds me. I wonder if i cud do a worm bin with like native earthworms rather than the euroupean ones......but i may still end up w a fishy bc i love them. My cat love them......but if i find a bunch of local isopods i may consider keeping some im dead ass....plus if i move i cud set them free bc theyre native. Triops r cute too....Ty for yr responze. Sry abt urticating hairs i hope they dont make u sneeze. Also whats yr opinion on mantis pets they feel like hard to keep arnd indoors like pitcher plants or something

You totally can do a worm bin for composting! In fact it’s like, almost necessary. I mean, as far as finding local ones it’s def easier and cheaper too, plus if the compost goes in your yard the cycle is complete 😌

The blue tarantulas are my absolute fav. They’re so cute, so fun and easy. So long as you do your research and know what you’re doing! They’re not crazy expensive as slings either and fairly easy to find— maybe not at pet smart but if there’s any sort of weird pet shop around, chances are they sell at the very least GBBs and some brachys or grammastolas, which aren’t as fun but as I mentioned the Brazilian black is a very hardy and chill spider. They do get pretty big tho and are terrestrial more than fossorial, so you’ll see them more often than not.

Good luck with the fish! They are very fun! My work keeps some large discus and we get to feed them straight up meat. It’s a big beautiful tank with plants above it, and we also have a palladarium with frogs and geckos and little guppies in the water portion. I love feeding all of them.

The pods are a great, cheap and easy thing to do in addition to the fish tank as well! And like you said, if you realize it’s not for you, dump their asses outside. I had a potted plant that I brought in for winter that had a ton of isopods and millipedes. When I left it outside it was full of lynx and jumping spiders too, but I set them loose so they wouldn’t explore my house. The pot was large enough that the isopods couldn’t escape and since I was feeding them regularly, the plants got a ton of nutrients and would bloom like crazy year round. Come spring I just set it outside!

I get the roaches, I just am contractually obligated to attempt a sell. I’m they’re only advocate 🥺 I get it tho like whenever I do get bit by something my instinct is to kill it or shake it lol

I’ve kept mantids before and they’re very finicky. I think I didn’t give mine enough space, plus the ones I had didn’t live super long (but it’s bc I was breeding them lol). Depending on species they do well in large, moist, naturalistic set ups, and have a voracious appetite so you’ll have to go buy appropriately sized feeders for them. You can usually follow the abdomen rule of feeding them whatever size their butts are, and if they don’t take it, offering softer bodied, smaller options.

[sapphires-and-sirens]

Withdrawals (pt. 1)

This is chapter three of my Haikyuu siren au. Info and other chapters can be found here!

No summary <3

Keiji was fuming. Suguru had just left because he was upset that Keiji was right. And he’d been gone for the past fucking week. Tooru wasn’t talking to him, and neither was Osamu, or Atsumu, or Sakusa, or anyone except for Koutarou because they wanted him to say he’d been in the wrong.

He hadn’t! He’d just been worried and trying to talk some sense into the Keyholder!

“You were a bit harsh, Keiji,” Koutarou pointed out, his tone ever-gentle.

“That seems to be all he listens to.”

“You blamed him for how Yuuji was treating him. That wasn’t right.”

“Well, I didn’t mean that part, but he still shouldn’t have run away. He knows I’m right and he knows I’m just trying to do what’s best for him.”

“He’ll come back.”

“He can stay there, for all I care.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Well, everyone’s upset with me over stuff I didn’t mean, so.”

“Because you won’t just admit that you shouldn’t have said any of it,” the Bottom Feeder said gently. It still pissed him off. “I know you’re worried and upset but still…”

“I hate him! He’s doing all this stupid stuff and he knows it’s stupid and he does it anyway!! It’s not fair that he can do that! And make everyone fucking worried, and then just run away from the problem back to the problem!!”

“I know. He has to make his own decisions though.”

“He shouldn’t be allowed to!”

“How else will he learn?”

He hissed, running his hands through his hair.

Fuck, being a friend was so complicated.

—

Kyoutani chittered a laugh at something Yuuji had said. Kunimi and Kindaichi were busy spouting backhanded compliments and questions at Suguru.

He’d been living with Yuuji for around two weeks. He missed his friends, but Yuuji looked at him so lovingly.

Yuuji wanted him when the others didn’t.

“You know, I’m surprised he hasn’t run away again,” Kunimi commented, earning a nod from Kindaichi.

He was getting pissed off, though, at Yuuji’s friends.

“Nono, I was the one in the wrong last time. He was right to leave,” Yuuji cut in, surprisingly.

“That isn’t what you said when—“

A growl of warning exited the blonde’s mouth immediately.

“Whatever,” Kunimi muttered, rolling his eyes.

“So, are you staying around for good?”

“Well, I should probably go home at some point…”

Yuuji’s eyes darkened at that.

“But I’ll still come around a whole lot.”

Some light returned to the mermaid’s eyes, but not enough. Oh well, Suguru would probably be able to cheer him up, later.

Maybe he finally had gotten through to the mermaid.

Maybe he finally had changed.

—

It had been two whole weeks and Suguru was still missing. But that wasn’t the Keyholder’s fault. It was Iwaizumi’s fault for taking the argument entirely too far. If he hadn’t gotten involved, Suguru wouldn’t have run away. And of course, if that damn guppy hadn’t had him trained, he wouldn’t have run straight to Terushima.

He honestly hoped that the blonde got taken by a Seeker ship. And Iwaizumi could blame himself for the rest of his fucking life.

Keiji would’ve gotten through to him, if it wasn’t for those two.

And the others still weren’t talking to him. It was beyond petty and beyond stupid.

Whatever. They’d talk to him once they realized he was right.

—

“Yuuji, I’ll come see you a lot, I just wanna go home. I miss everyone,” he said, fighting the urge to be frustrated. His wrist was throbbing where the blonde had grabbed him and wrenched him closer when they started arguing, but that was his own fault.

“If you don’t wanna be around me, just say it.”

“I do, but I have friends, and I wanna see them again. It’s been a month!”

“Whatever. Go, then.”

“What, I can’t have friends anymore, Yuuji?”

“I didn’t say that. Go, get out.”

Dammit.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he hated how it sounded like he was begging.

“I’m not even fucking mad, just go,” Yuuji hissed, refusing to look at him. “Come back whenever.”

“I love you,” he mumbled, starting to the door.

“Mhm.”

And now Yuuji didn’t want him either.

—

It had been a month, and Keiji finally realized that what he said was absolutely fucked.

What was wrong with him? Why had he said that? They were all right to be avoiding him. He’d avoid himself, if he were them. He apologized to everyone, and they all looked more relieved than angry.

They should be angry. Why weren’t they?

Then Suguru came home, and started crying the moment he laid eyes on Keiji. He couldn’t help reflexively opening his arms, the overwhelming instinct to comfort overriding his guilt, and the Keyholder swam straight into his embrace and squeezed him tight. He squeezed back, shushing every apology that the other said.

Eventually, Daishou could speak again.

“Sorry for uhm, leaving.”

“It’s okay, I uh…I get why. I’m sorry for saying all that.”

“Me too,” Iwa chimed in. “Sorry. I went entirely too far.”

“No, it’s okay. I missed you guys.”

“Awww, we missed you too,” Oikawa said, playfully hitting the other Keyholder, who flinched slightly.

That was weird.

Oh well. He was back now. Everything was fine.

Previous chapter

[spidermilkshake]

The bookshelf-shaped standard tank that fits 35x12x12 that I wanted is shipping, along with the added cat tree that mom's always wanted for a while to make four in their greenhouse... so... hopefully when it arrives mother will not be Proper Controlling despite be having all the stuff already and such.

It's only a 24 gallon long, with a lil sponge filter and pump as well as some good sandy substrate with a bit of added Stoney River pebble as well, which should be fine for eventual corys and/or bristlenose pleco. Following schools will depend on after plants and bottom-feeders arrivals, of course. If I end up with breeding shrimp or possibly smaller fish like dwarf oto catfishes and endler guppies (my two limited species for the 10 gal) I could move excess of those to the big one, and excess shrimps to a small one I've yet to have if I slip in a cheap 2.5 or something later.

I have all the substate for the new one, as well as some anacharis which will work nicely, and eventually a new banana plant. The other plants I want I will need to be on the lookout for since I would like to try to aquascupt a tank which has only North American native plants as part of the environment for the varying fish/inverts (I want pearl weed, a cardinal plant, and a micromeria (Creeping Charlie) as well as Jungle Val for it along with some Azolla and other plants!.

[erythristicbones]

Very slowly preparing for some possible new arrivals 👀

[gingerlee-holds]

Pokerants: Gorebyss

im using a random pokemon generator, i think i might stick with that moving forward. i had a little trouble getting to five problems about them but i got there in the end! just had to do a bit of stretching but my physical therapist says thats healthy. anyways uhhhh i love you guys

today is Gorebyss, this fella! #0368

this is what i gleamed from the 'dex:

they live in the southern seas at extreme depths, their body withstands enormous water pressure, and they're unharmed by ordinary attacks due to its body structure

they insert their thin mouth into prey to drain the bodily fluids, they feed on seaweed between rocks, and their body color becomes vivid after feeding

they have a light pink body color, which becomes more vivid in springtime or with rising water temperatures, and in Alola, it's almost blindingly vivid

its leftover prey meat sinks to the seafloor to become food for other pokemon

and now, screaming time

firstly, the Dex states that because its body can resist high water pressure, it can resist a lot of attacks. this is friggin ludicrous, genuinely- deep-sea creatures are not plated in heavy armor, thats not how that works at all!! look at the blobfish!! if you tried to stab that thing, it would die hilariously quickly, especially if above water! deep-sea fish have flexible bodies and soft tissues, which is to say, they gotta be squishy!! the bottom of the deepest trench on earth, the Mariana Trench, has over 1000 bars of pressure, which is like 100 african elephants balancing on your head. the one thing you dont wanna be down in the deepest parts of the ocean is rigid, because you'll get crushed like a soda can - you gotta be squishy, so that when youre crushed by the pressure, you can continue living.

also,,, quick sidenote, why do Gorebyss have seashell bras? look at the picture again, why does the Gorebyss have two seashells on its thorax??? do they have fucking boobies under there?????

secondly, it sucks the body fluids out of its prey like a spider or an insect. a wha? a wha??? it sucks??? this is a good opportunity to tell you about the types of feeding habits fish in the real world can display! 1, there are the surface feeders, which eat food off of the surface of the water - these are the bettas and guppies and such. 2, there's the bottom feeders, which eat leftover debris, like catfish. 3, the herbivorous fish that eat plants (algae aren't plants, they're protists which is the catch-all category for the creatures that are too weird for taxonomists to deal with), these are fish like Crossocheilus oblongus. 4, there's the weirdos who eat algae, like Bristlenose Pleco, aka, those fuckers they keep in the aquariums who suck on the walls lmao. and 5, there are the hunters, like tetras and barbs. "sucking the bodily fluids out" like a goddamn mosquito is not one of those five!!

thirdly, the Gorebyss vividly changes color in warmer water, like one of those hot wheels cars. alright. fish changing color is something that happens in the real world, but its uncommon and usually a result of other factors, not just temperature. for instance, cuttlefish (while not being fish) change color to camouflage into their surroundings using cells called chromatophores. cuttlefish are cephalopods though so a flounder's coloration might be a better example. some fish use bright colors to attract mates, or warn predators away (like lionfish! poison dart frogs also do this, its called aposematic coloration!). a creature becoming brighter in warmer waters is more characteristic of some types of shrimp, but even then its not a vivid change like the pokedex describes

fourthly, the pokedex states in the beginning that the Gorebyss feeds by sucking the body fluids out of prey, (which may be why its name is a combination of 'Gore' and 'Abyss' ooo very dark very edgy) but then later on it states that it uses its long tubular mouth to feed on seaweed between rocks. which is it, pokemon, because those are two very different things! in nature, function always comes before form, which is to say, an animal's natural appearance is only ever because it serves a role. a mouth adapted to sucking bodily fluids (pokemon are cowards and can't say the word 'blood') and a mouth adapted to eating seaweed are very different! for instance, take a look at that picture of the Gorebyss again, look at its mouth, then close your eyes and picture Dory from Finding Nemo. pretty different, right? dory is a pacific blue tang, and blue tangs get most of their food from eating seaweed in coral reefs. those two mouths, Dory and the Gorebyss, couldn't be more dissimilar!

and fifthly, the specific detail that, when the Gorebyss finished slurpin up the juices from their prey, the carcass just falls to the seafloor to be eaten by other pokemon is a bit simplistic, i would have liked to have gotten more specific details on what happens next. yes this is pretty nitpicky but i wanted to get it up to five so leave me alone. once a marine organism dies, the scavengers (we call em detritivores in the business) get to it first: these are crabs, starfish, and the aforementioned bottomfeeders! then, it begins to decompose thanks to algae and bacteria. the food web, especially the ocean floor food web (which is overlooked too much) deserves to be recognized for its vast complexity! tell me about the bottomfeeders goddammit!!!!

[aquatics-room]

So we got a new feeder fish at work.... Guppy × Molly hybrids o.o they're called either Muppies or Gollies but they're interesting lil buggers

They have the body of a guppy but the color and face of a molly o.o

[makairodonx]

Spectember 2024 Day 5: Wolf-Fish

Raptoricthys lupinus, the swift, agile 2.5 to 3-meter-long Wolf-Fish of Potwória, the two subspecies of which are found throughout the tropical and temperate oceans of Potwória, is a swift, agile relative of guppies that has evolved over millions of years to live in a saltwater environment when the estuaries where its freshwater ancestors once lived got flooded by rising sea levels. It is known for hunting its feeder-fish prey in large schools of 25-30 individuals( hence the “wolf” in its name), is capable of swimming at rapid bursts of up to 100 km/h, and has short, boxy jaws lined with dozens of small but razor-sharp teeth that allow the fish to quickly gobble up its prey. In some parts of its range, the Wolf-Fish also faces competition with other similarly-sized hunters such as the Saber-Toothed-Trevally, and is also devoured by even larger pelagic predators such as the “Imperial Swordfish” Megaxiphias and the giant turtle Tyrannochelys ferox.

[victorluvsalice]

And since I already knew the pets needed a vet visit, it was off to Brindleton Bay and the Pawspital to get Kelly looked at! The vet was already pretty busy when they arrived, though only one technician was available -- the other was busy napping on the couch in the waiting room. XD Hey, being a vet is tiring work sometimes! Alice signed Kelly in for a check-up, and she and Victor decided to be adorable and slow-dance in the waiting room while the available tech brought Kelly to the examination room. :) I waited with bated breath for the diagnosis, wondering what it would be --

Nothing. According to the vet tech, Kelly was perfectly fine. O.o I thought "okay, maybe it WAS hairballs" and had them give her a preventative shot against future illness, while Alice bought a bunch of vet treats against same. I then thought, "well, I've been meaning to have this pair spayed anyway, might as well do it while I'm -- huh. Why is Shadow the only one who can be spayed? I thought for sure Kelly needed to be spayed as well..."

Those of you quicker on the uptake than I was have probably already figured out what was going on with Kelly now. *facepalm* But I was still living in blissful ignorance, so I signed Shadow up for her spay, then had Alice give Kelly a treat for being a good girl at the vet (as she had not seen the cat climb up on the counter with all the vet tools when the tech left her alone to go say hi to Shadow XD). She and Victor hung out chatting in the waiting room for a bit while Shadow got spayed, then Victor went to praise the poor cone-headed dog for being a good girl once she was out. Because you can't give treats to pets with cones, apparently -- how sad. :( At least she still knows she's loved!

Oh, and what was Smiler doing all this time? Collectible-hunting! I was TRYING to find frog logs in particular to see if I could scare up a spotted dirt frog, but no dice. So instead Smiler cracked open a few fossil rocks (one repeat of the fossilized udder, and one new one of a "perfectly preserved mustache," nice) and went fishing, grabbing a guppy and a tambaqui. They flew back to the Pawspital just as the pets were wrapping up, in time to fill the pet food auto-feeder because SOMEONE had to do it.

However, with the pets all sorted as much as possible, I figured Shadow and Kelly would like to recuperate from their experience at the vet someplace much nicer than this...