Very nice! They're such beautiful creatures! only sad thing is they hide almost all the time! But when you are able to see one out and about, its a sight to see!
@@AKNorthernAquariumsthat seems to be the case with a lot of really interesting fish *cough knife fish cough* but that’s ok, I’ll take it as a special treat when I catch a sighting 😅
Just FYI if you get fish shipped to you, it is actually best to just acclimate in the bag they come in. As soon as you cut that bag the ammonia levels will emmediatly spike. Add them to tank as soon as possible after cutting open that bag! The ph is less of a concern then ammonia burn!
That's exactly what I said lol. I never drip acclimate. That's always a bad idea. Plus the ph is going to be different between the bags. So everything he did was 100% pointless... God bless
@@michellebarnhill5130 The Blue phantom gets to be about 7inches max, for comparison, just a bit bigger then your standard bristlenose pleco, but the phantoms are not a bristlenose at all, them not developing bristles makes them very hard to sex until they're much older so... here to hoping we get a nice even split in gender for breeding down the road!
They are fecking gorgeous and lovely to see how carefully they were added to their new home. Hope they are all doing well, with maybe babies now. I am just sticking with my one BN who gives me hours of amusement 🥰
They are truly one of my favorite pleco's. All of them were still alive, however, I recently moved a far distance and couldn't bring them with me, so I disassembled my fish room and gave away all my fish. I will be doing some videos shortly on rebuilding my fish room from the ground up, and the Blue Phantoms are definitely on my to own list! There are very few reported cases of breeding in captivity, but from what I have gathered, Blue and Green phantoms grow very slowly, they are not capable of breeding until at least 3 years or roughly 4.5inches long. so the ones I had were still far from breeding capable.. but one day, I do want to breed the Blue Phantoms!
gives me a chance to rebuild the fishroom even better the next time :) im very excited for it and will be building videos along the way, as well as unboxing videos when it comes time to stock! @@hectorskmetija3015
You can also poke small holes in the bottom of the bags while acclimating to let them adjust to the PH as well. I let them just float for 15-20 minutes then add whole and do another 15-20 minutes. Works great every time.
Nice aquarium. Floating plants are the best absorbing plants to eliminate your bad levels of ammonia and nitrates. Duckweed is the best, but some hobbyist may consider them a nuisance plants. Red Root Floater are a beautiful floating plants. There are a few other floating plants to get. Even Water Sprite can be floated. The leaves on the Water Sprite will transition to a broad leaf plant and are beautiful in the floating form. Not only that, the Water Sprite will branch out with leaflets to expand into your tank. Your substrate is your problem. Sand is only good for looks. It serves no other purpose. A gravel substrate will break down the Ammonia and Nitrates for plant consumption. Nice setup though. Check out the substrate problem and it will fix your problem. Diane Walstad’s book on the planted ecology is a must have for any hobbyist or serious aquarists wanting to improve their novice level to a game player. The book is a treatise on freshwater plants. You’re on the right path to success. Your new Plecostomus are awesome. Godspeed!
Good luck with breeding. I've got 9 5-7inch adults. I've had them in a planted heavily driftwood 120 with only guppies and swordtails for 5 years. There has never been a recorded documented case of captive breeding ever recorded. I've only ever seen 2 people in the US to have ever claimed to have actually breed them , but they have never shown proof of actual fry or recordings of fry. Hope you can crack the code and figure it out. All I know for sure is they do not spawn on rocks or in caves, but in concave spots of driftwood. Saw underwater video from some divers that showed an adult sitting on eggs on a driftwood log. Don't even know if males or females sit on eggs. Good luck..
great advice! I havnt seen any phantoms bred in captivity either and some that say they've heard of it acknowledge that it seems to be very complicated to do... I do want to try to crack this code and figure this out!
@Toasty Would like to know how to breed them. I have 65 tanks and bred over 30 types of plecos over 20 year.. The Blue Phantoms are the only plecos I have never been able to breed after 5 years of trying. And have spoken with 3-4 of the top pleco breeder in America and they have also fail to successfully breed them.
Those are some nice looking species of pleco. Although, I personally wouldn’t want any. Just because they produce a lot of their waste most of the times.
The phantoms are still too young to breed, they mature so slowly and I am moving across the US shortly so I have actually been selling off my fish and consolidating down tanks. I need to do a video on it soon.. been a while since I have uploaded, moving is crazy.
@@romanmartinez3873 I only have 2 phantoms left, my buddy at the store has been buying them and reselling and will be bagging up the last 2 in the next 2-3 weeks. If I had more and didn't already work a deal I'd take you up on that offer! Perhaps our next location I can get these guys to breed! Phantoms will be one of the fish I buy early to get them growing once we have the fish room set up.
i dont think you needed that many filters the tank isnt that big , it needed just one canister , and maybe one sponge , maybe control how much you feed , more PLANTS !!!
you could slowly added some tank water , like a quarter cup or less … evey 25 mins while doing temp acclimation atleast 10 mins into the temp acclimation, but adding a whole cup in them with just a small amount of water , pretty much they instantly got introduced to the PH levels
@@wonder777warrior6 for a fully grown one you could see that price yea, if you get juveniles like I did you could find them for $40-$80, the site I got them from which I linked in the description were $40/$50 or so each
I would suggest not drip acclimating... There's no need and it could potentially hurt the fish. Plus, you combined the bags... The bags were absolutely different ph levels. So drip acclimating the way you did way 100% pointless. Enjoy the fish tho. I love my phantoms too. God bless
I am interested in hearing more, could you elaborate? why is it potentially harmful to the fish to slowly introduce them to the new tank water? I also combined the bags because the seller had them in the same tank/water before, so the only thing that would have changed is any waste produced in the water during transit, minimal water differences between the 2 as they were shipped and received in 24hrs.
@@AKNorthernAquariums So when fish are in a bag for an extended length of time they build up ammonia. Now when the bag is air tight this ammonia isn't nearly as toxic as the ammonia it forms as soon as you let fresh air into the bag. So personally I always float the bag for an hour or 2, unopened, with the light off. That way they calm down and I don't add stress to them. Then I make sure I have everything already set up and ready to go so when I do open the bag they are out of the bag asap. I dump them over a bucket and into my net and put them in the tank. So doing it the way you did it could give them ammonia burn. When the air and water inside the bag hit fresh air it shoots the ph up and spikes the ammonia in the bagged water to very high levels. I'm not entirely sure how it works, that's just what happens. And as far as mixing the 2 bags of water. So ph in your aquarium is forever changing. It never stays at any level. It goes up and down all day every day. So the ph in the bags, even if they came out of the same tank, does the same. 1 fish could go to the bathroom more than another, 1 could breath or be stressed more than another. So the ph being the same in the 2 seperate bags is almost impossible. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions I'm happy to let you know what I know. My comment wasn't meant to be anything other than informative. It looks and sounds like you care about your fish. So I hope you didn't think I was just being an A hole. God bless
@@jimfiore4671 Didn't think you were being an A-hole :) very useful information, I know a lot about the ammonia in the bag, ph levels differing opening the bag causes a spike etc. but I've always heard drip acclimation is usually the better option for plecos, as well as some other aquatic species, while some can just be dropped right into the tank after floating for a while. I've always drip acclimated my fish and havn't lost any during the first few days in a new tank unless they had obvious issues. nor have any received visual signs of ammonia burn, since you're diluting the bagged water immediately. I've always chosen this method as a way to introduce them to your tanks parameters slowly, as if they were used to being in like.. 60ppm nitrate water, then just get thrown into 10ppm, that could cause a shock. (might be a bad example, but same could go for ph/temp/ammonia/you name it. I also choose this method cause the fish, (especially pleco's) produce alot of waste in the bag water, so drip acclimating slowly gets them used to lower ammonia levels before throwing them right into a clean tank :) theres several ways of doing it, all are great, and im sure all have their downfalls too, guess its personal preferrence. One thing I am going to change in my next unboxing video, is im not going to dump them out into a net, ill likely pick them up by hand and place them in the tank, as I have found that pouring pleco's into a net could damage the fins, unlike your typical fish.
@@AKNorthernAquariums using your hands for most fish is usually a better way to do it. Most people don't want to pick fish up, so I don't ever suggest it. I guess a good example would be my clown loaches. I hand placed them in the tank and all 3 stabbed my hands with their head eye bone things lol. But before I acclimated the way I do now, I did drip acclimation and it had always been more stressful for me and the fish. I always lost fish just days after. But since I've stopped dripping, I have yet too loose a fish. So I can't say it's definitely due to dripping but it's the only thing I know I changed. So I'm guessing it's that.
@@zachhoward1473 correct. Water changes and plants. Filtration is for many other things, if I misspoke I apologize but it's not rocket science. Thanks for the comment :)
