New Member with lots of questions!

Hi everyone, my name is David Nguyen and I have just been accepted by the admin and wanted to give my first post here.

A little about myself first. I have been an avid fish keeper for quite a long while. In the beginning, I’ve kept and bred fancy goldfish and a little of angelfish too. Then my salty side came about and I was fortunate enough to find a private dealer in my neighborhood who brought me into the live rock and coral industry.

Through all those times, I have never really grew any aquatic plants. I had always wanted to. So as I got my life to settle down recently, I looked into co2 influsion and aquatic sciences.

I was looking after a small 10 gallon full of giant vals, javafern, and lotus. With its “Jungle” look, I decided to try and keep such the look and purchased a small Rocket gar. Turned out to be a disappointment, as the tank was certainly way too small and cramped for such an active fish that I decided to look a little more thoroughly before decided.

Was at my lfs, which I have to mention is one of the best in the state in terms of rare and hard to find aquaria, and was able to glance at these guys to find them oddly attractive.

The reason I say odd is because they remind me of the local fish we have here. Not exactly, but closely enough to get my juices running. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have an excellent fishery of trout, salmon, and steelhead. I have been an avid fisherman for a little less longer than this hobby. However, I absolutely adored these cpds because they reminded me of the young trout fry we often find in the streams and even more; these guys remind me of the fantastic colours of the Arctic Char, most definately my favorite salmoniod. I hope I will be able to fish for these char in the future and to glore at their prestine colours.

I decided to buy a couple to see how well they would do in my planted tank. Was afraid of nitrate and ammonia levels too high in my planted tank so decided to leave them in my guppy tank. The reason for my fear was due to the plant tank bacteria’s inability to degrade the small snail defecates but is able to degrade a whole feeder goldfish in a couple days. I was certain the upper water column in which the gar fancied was fine, but was uncertain about the bottom water column.

Turned out, the nitrate level in the guppy tank was much larger (30 ppm) than my planted tank’s lower water column (0 ppm). I tended to the cpds and released them into my planted aquarium. They did awesome.

I decided to buy more, and as I later left that same store I evened up the total to 13.

Here’s the strange mystery. I later had a discussion with the owner of the lfs. I had asked if these cpds were wild caught. He answered that they all were wild caught. I then mentioned the situation with Myanmar and its export policy, but he assured me that these cpds were wild caught. He had a new shipment in after I had ransacked the rest of tank. The bunch I had brought (13) were doing great, so I thought it would be nice to even the total to 15, so I brought two more males.

As these new tankmates entered the aquarium, I could notice a couple differences between these fish.

First, the 13 I had brought earlier were definately different in length and color than the last two males. Although I have only brought the last two a couple of days before, they were noticeably thinner. I hope it was due to a lack in nutrition so they should be plumping up real soon, I hope. There are similarities within the batches and differences between the batches (13 vs. 2).

I hypothesized that the reasoning, if they were wild caught: due to schools caught, family commonarity. OR if they were captively born and raised, that they were from a similar family. How would you conclude them being? Captive or wild?

Anyways, thanks for reading my long intro but I’m glad I finally am in this forum.

-David