The X- (blog) files, 1 of 1.

As my myriad of faithful followers know, I have set up the now world famous YouTube site “SebastiansAnimals” where I post any clips I think of interest to other animal keepers, however I do have lots of clips that are of poorer quality or may only be of interest to someone reading this blog. 

As I really dislike wading through lots of poor quality or pointless videos on YouTube I will now post this type of clip under the banner SebastiansAnimals, followed by a number and a subtitle, just for you.

This collection of clips are videos I think are interesting or fun but not worth putting on to YouTubes main stream site, and as the titles basically the same on all it wont get picked up when people search and they then dont watch a poor quality video.

I will try and give a full description in the title so you don't have to waste your time too, but please bear with me.

 A new mix of  Kaiser's Spotted Newt Neurergus kaiseri, black banded sunfish Enneacanthus chaetodon and cherry barbs Puntius titteya. (poor quality).

 

        Only just put together and it may not work as the sunfish may be too feisty,                           but what a great mix if it does!

Acrocordus javanicus being force fed, not a great quality video and nothing better than you'll see on the web elsewhere. But this is one of the snakes I mention in the blog, obviously not happy but still alive.

 

My large "community" fish tank.

Housing my red dragon Scleropages formosus, Fly river turtles Carettochelys insculpta and a mix of freshwater tropicals from around the world (but mainly bred in Singapore!)

Although the mix is quite eclectic its a lot more peaceful than a biotope tank housing lots of large cichlids or even a species tank where things are breeding and beating each other up. The only real problem tends to be when new fish go in and the arowana thinks they're dinner or when the Fly rivers decide to scrap which can be quite often, hence their ragged appearance.
Surprisingly the fish it didn't work with was a shoal of giant hatchets Triportheus angulatus. Although one of the fastest fish I've seen they were picked off over a couple of nights. Not a good time at Grant Towers.

Neurergus kaiseri being kept aquatic and fed on bloodworm. Notice how snappy they are, unlike their normal calm behavior when kept terrestrial.

Until the fish were added to their tank I tended to feed them once or twice a week, where as now the fish get offered food most days. Not always food stuffs that the newts would take but definitely four or five times a week it would be frozen or live Daphnia or bloodworm. 
It will be interesting to see if the newts become less aggressive at feeding times if they are not soo hungry, this has been a possible explanation for the aggressive behavior of many reef fishes kept in aquaria, instead of having small amounts of food flowing by almost constantly, the fish get offered large amounts a few times a day. A very unnatural situation for smaller species leading to grumpy fish!
Some places, such as the wonderful Horniman Museum have a drip of food going into their reef tanks to offer the Anthisas sp. the chance to feed all day.

http://www.horniman.ac.uk/

Neoceratodus forsteri and Helicops angulatus

Nothing very exciting happening at Grant Towers at the moment, unless of course you think getting 2 Australian lungfish Neoceratodus forsteri and having 6 Helicops angulatus born is cool?

What can I say? Everyone has their “list” the animals they want to see, work with or keep, mine is long and I've been very lucky to have seen, worked with or kept a lot of them. From Komodo dragons, humming birds and giant tortoises to octopus, ants and giraffes.

Still waiting on a giant salamander but I suppose you can’t just get all your dreams too early, can you?

I remember seeing an Aussie lungfish at ZSL London Zoo Aquarium at least 25 years ago, and have wanted one ever since. Years later, now having a computer and finding out with some surprise that there was more on the Internet than just smut I started a Google search to see if I could get one.

One company had them for sale but not surprisingly they were in Australia and would only sell them in groups of fives. I did offer to pay the freight etc in full but only buy 2 but this wasn’t allowed.

A grumpy frustrated Sebby went back to his old ways on the Internet….

Many years passed and I heard that someone was going to import some so I asked if it was possible to add an extra 2 to the group for myself, imagine my joy when this was agreed!

And soon li’l Sebby and Sebrina made their way to their new home at The Towers.

For such a slow moving fish they do have a very strong reaction if spooked, they are good at taking food from tweezers or fingers if offered slowly but will swim wildly if you move too quickly.

They feed on a large range of foods, i'm offering pelleted foods, shrimp, earthworm and surprisingly peas and cut up fruit, all normally taken well.

The Helicops were not too much of a surprise as id seen what I took to be courtship behavior where the smaller male appears to “stick” to the female. Swimming along beside her with his chin resting against her body, it reminded me of a remora soo much so I caught the male out to see if there was any rougher scales or anything else that may help him keep a hold!

 

 Helicops angulatus courtship behavior, in this clip you can see the male trying to stay with the female. (sorry for the poor quality).

I had found 2 eggs in the water which I was surprised at as I thought they were live bearing. I did try and incubate them but not surprisingly they collapsed very soon after.

The juveniles were separated into a small plastic tank, where they remained mainly aquatic and sloughed a week later.

 Helicops angulatus juveniles one week old.

Obviously more information to come.