# P.Bass



## Jocasta (Feb 3, 2009)

idk if this is the right thread but
if anyone could identify this P.Bass?
http://i41.tinypic.com/2hxt5k3.jpg
:help::help::help::help::help::help:


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## frogman5 (Mar 13, 2007)

its either mono or ocell 

is it yours


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## frogman5 (Mar 13, 2007)

Here is mono









here is ocell


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## Jocasta (Feb 3, 2009)

yeah it is mines a friend gave it me for free.


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## justintrask (Jun 29, 2008)

definately C. Ocell


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

"FREE" being used loosely I'm sure as these beasts will need large amounts of live food, either minnows or goldfish and a tremendous amount of swimming area to be even moderately happy. These things can get HUGE, some reaching up to 27 POUNDS and that's just on official record. Cichlids such as these aren't suited for "aquarium" life as most aquarists know it. They'll need 1000's of gallons and quite a bit of structure that most hobbyists just don't have the resources to provide. While they are indeed beautiful fish I think it's a crime they are sold in the hobby as most will be doomed to horribly inadequate husbandry at best and then released into what ever local water way can be found once it reaches some form of stunted maturity only to wreak havoc on the delaicate natural balance in whatever pond lake or river it happens to get released into IF they survive that long. Then, depending on the latitude of the waterway freezing to death in the winter or causing possible hybridization in the spring with local Bass or heaven forbid 2 of these monsters get released into the same waterway, a boom in ecology crushing predators. That's why importing, even owning a "snakehead" has been outlawed in all southern states and quite a few up north as well around major rivers. Those are just 2 examples of fish that should come with an interview process and have a heafty up-charge to keep the common hobbyist from acquiring them.

Off my soap box now ... :mrgreen:


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## Jocasta (Feb 3, 2009)

that pic was when my friend took it,
it was in his 55, but now its in my 150
with 2 silvers and a blk aro. hes eating very well though


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## trashion (Aug 24, 2007)

He may be eating well...he'll be eating you out of house and home, once he starts growing! I'd look for alternative housing options.


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## justintrask (Jun 29, 2008)

P Bass need a 300G minimum. It's easy to get them off of live food.


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## Jocasta (Feb 3, 2009)

^^^^
what else food i could feed him thats not alive?
cause i just got like 400 feeders for 30 usd


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## redpaulhus (Jan 18, 2005)

justintrask said:


> P Bass need a 300G minimum. It's easy to get them off of live food.


Agreed.

Goldfish feeders (and shiners) are high in thiaminase, an enzyme that _cichla _are not exposed to in the wild. thiaminase breaks down vitamin B1, leading to vitamin deficiencies.
There is a fairly new (and very in-depth) article on this here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/thiaminase.htm

Plus feeders are a high risk disease vector. In college, when we studied finfish pathology it was buy buying a few dozen feeders from two different LFS and then counting up all of the infections and parasites. oh fun.

I'd go with a combination of foods - pieces of cut marine fish (cod, haddock, flounder, salmon, etc) are good, as are whole thawed shrimp, scallops, and cut pieces of squid. I'd also include some whole fish, though, since the above mentioned cut foods are low in calcium (no bones).
Thawed whole frozen silversides are good (and the hikari frozen ones are really nice and big), as are frozen "sand eels" or "lancefish" - I think San Francisco Bay brand (the brine shrimp company) still have this in their frozen line-up. Whole smelts would also work.

My local Asian supermarket sells bags of frozen "stir fry mix" -- bit size pieces of squid, octopus, shrimp, clam, etc. I've used this for alot of big predators.

Every week or two, soaking freeze-dry krill in a vitamin like Boyd's vitachem for an hour before feeding would be a good idea (or, when he's bigger, placing a multivitamin gelcap inside a food chunk)

gut loaded live crickets, gut loaded crayfish, and live earthworms are also good options.

Keeping the diet varied not only is nutritionally sound, it can also provide behavioral enrichment - especially if he'll eat crayfish or other prey that need to be "stalked" rather than just inhaled. 

Oh - and I'd probably plan on water changes at least twice a week - lots of food in the mouth means lots of **ahem** out the other end :mrgreen:


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

justintrask said:


> P Bass need a 300G minimum.


300gal for starters! ... these fish can get FEET long, weigh in at well over 25 POUNDS. Take a look around the web and look at all the trophy catches that are about as long as these guys can stretch out their arms and the gargantuan mouths on these guys. I'm not a huge proponent of a lot of government controls and stringent guidelines but these tyopes of imports are exactly what leads to the across the board banning of whole genera of fishes that have tried to be banned in the US by the fisheries and wildlife and some rightfully so. And as long as these are still encouraged and even sought after there will be a market up to and even after the govt. HAS to step in because we can't police ourselves.

bottom line, these fish should be kept in nothing smaller than a few THOUSAND gallon structure. preferably something that would give some perch or blue gill ample hiding place to spawn and rear young that he could opportunistically eat as well as a several hundred mud bugs for him to crunch on at his leisure. housing one of these in even a standard sized 300 to 500 gal aquarium would be the equivalent of locking you up in 1/4 of a single wide trailer for the rest of your life never letting you outside and tossing in whatever the heck someone had handy for you to eat on and you eat it or starve... forever

Again I understand completely that you all being here means you care about your aquatice family members more than your average hobbyist, but sometimes the need for bigger, better, kooler, out weigh our common sense I think. In all honesty a vast majority of hobbyists shouldn't even be allowed to buy a goldfish much less anything else but in places like these where people are trying and learning I think we have a responsibility to at least attempt to be the voice of reason.

Again BEAUTIFUL fish .. but SHEESH at what cost to it's well being :


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Well I agree with Joe about these, goldfish and other pond fishes showing up in pet stores. At a minimum they should be special order, because there can't be enough people who can decently house them for the whole tank the store gets at once. Search Red-bellied Pacu on craigslist for another one that no one find homes for. But we don't always need tho whole lecture every time the fish is mentioned. Don't have to worry about hybrids with local bass either. Peacock bass aren't even in the same family, they are cichlids, not really bass. You still really don't want them in local water ways. Like the nile perch in L. Victoria, adding an alien large predator results in fat predators and dissapearing local fishes. You can always eat them when they outgrow your tank, but please don't turn them loose. We wouldn't need regulation if people would think before they act. Regulation doesn't stop the issue, it just gives us some way to assign blame.


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## Jocasta (Feb 3, 2009)

well i dont think he eats other things thats not alive.
cause i threw in a frozen shimp and he still didnt eat it i guess ill
have kinda starve him and train him on eating didnt kinds of food


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## justintrask (Jun 29, 2008)

joe kool said:


> 300gal for starters! ... these fish can get FEET long, weigh in at well over 25 POUNDS. Take a look around the web and look at all the trophy catches that are about as long as these guys can stretch out their arms and the gargantuan mouths on these guys.


Wild fish always grow larger than fish kept in captivity. I know people who have successfully kept these in 450G tanks for life... 3 of them!

Yes they get to be a huge fish, BUT a lot of the monoculus and temensis that are for sale right now are tank raised, and will NOT grow as large as the wild caught ones.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Starve him for a few day and then try a thawed, frozen shrimp. He should be able to smell it.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

justin is right that fish get bigger in ponds than in tanks. Even in bigger tanks, we get bigger fish. There were some swordtails at the auction out of 135 and they were huge, over six inches long and 2 inches tall. But I doubt there are 10 people right now with 450s in my local area that each want 3 Pbass from the store's 30. I doubt there ever will be. What were they thinking?


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## redpaulhus (Jan 18, 2005)

I try to think of fish and tanks in terms of scale.
How big of a tank does a $2, 1" neon tetra need - a 5g ? 10g ?

ok, that 5g tank is about 16" long, and lets say 8" wide (offhand guess on width). The 10g is 20" long and 10" wide.

So we are providing a tank that is 16 times the length of the fish in length, and 8 times the length in width.
For a $2 fish that lives about 2-3 years.

Ok, now lets scale that fish up to say 12" -- less than the wild size - and realize that as length and width increase, body mass increases at a higher rate.

How much respect do we show that 1' long fish - how many body lengths does it deserve for tank length and width ? 
Remember, we gave the neon a tank that was 16x long and 8x wide.
Even the biggest commercially available tank I've seen was only about 6 or 8' long and 3' wide -- thats 8x and 3x.
So we're saying that the 1' long fish deserves half the relative space as the 1" fish ?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

PBass are awesome fish and there are a few monsterfishkeepers who can do them justice, but dwarf pike cichlids are just as cool and only get 8". I think its great that people are willing to go out and buy a huge tank for their growing fish, but why aren't cool, reasonably-sized fish in the stores instead of the monsters?


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