Datnioides species : Identification & care

[shiokmc]

With the recent introduction/import of the many kinds of 'controversial' tiger Patterns [ie designs that look lke 'Y', 'H','X' etc etc ], the below are just some ways of identifying the basic groups of tigers. Til date there is still NO CONFIRMED way of identifying any kind of tiger 100% accurately.

There is the tail method, the 'Body-shape' method etc etc . . . . . .

I'm just sharing based on experience as a humble hobbyist.

Perhaps those with the updated Scientific Names of these datnoids can care to add on .....

What I have are pictures to ID some of the common tigers;

TAIL PATTERNs


New Guinea Tiger ~ NGT


Siamese Tiger ~ ST {Some refer to this as CambodianTiger ~CT }


Indonesian Tiger ~ IT


Northen Thailand Tiger ~ NTT {also known as Thin Stripped Tiger}


American Tiger ~ AT {also known as American Tiger or Silver Tiger}

[shiokmc]

Indo Tiger



New Guinea Tiger {Left} and American Tiger {Right}


NorthenThailandTiger {Left} and American Tiger {Right}


American Tiger



Siamese Tiger

[shiokmc]

the below are non-exhaustive, so please take it as a general guideline ;


1. How to differentiate between the many types of tigers

Below is a diagram on how to differentiate:



Please note that NGT (New Guinea Tiger) is not included in the picture. However, they are easily identifiable by their black fuzzy stripes and golden base. This is only a general guide, however like I've said before, there are extreme cases where there are 4 striped STs and 3 striped ITs. Other important factors on how to distinguish between IT and ST (I go for the most common tigers):

A. Body shape (ST more triangular, IT more rectangular)
B. Eyes (ST smaller eyes, IT bigger eyes)
C. Body stripes (ST 3 thick stripes, IT 4 thinner stripes)
D. Tail pattern (as in the diagram shown above)

2. How to choose an ST/IT

This is also the next most commonly asked question. When choosing, try to go for the more stable ones cos their chances of becoming stable once back in your tank are higher. However, that doesn't mean that if you do go for those not stable ones, it will remain forever like that in your tank. Also, go for those actively swimming around ones rather than those lying in a corner or 'parking' there. Do NOT choose those with glazed look in their eyes, cos even though it is actively swimming around, they may die anytime. Other special markings/stripe patterns like eg. forked, dotted or weird types would very much depend on individual preferences. There is no such thing as having a weird pattern one will command a higher resale price.

3. How to house them after buying

After buying comes the next step: How to house them. Tigers generally can grow quite fast if proper care and food is given to them. So, as a general measure, you will need at least a 3 feet tank to house them in. They can grow in excess of 1 feet, so you will definitely need to upgrade your tank in future if you are housing a few of them in the same tank. A proper filtration system would help greatly in their growth rate too. A bare tank is usually recommended as they can produce quite a lot of waste, and is much easier to maintain also. However, if you are creative enough, you can choose to landscape your tank so that it looks more presentable. The only drawback of this is that you will need more time to maintain the plants, gravel etc.

4. Water conditions

Tigers generally thrives best in waters of pH 7.0-7.5. However, they are hardy creatures, so even in slightly acidic or alkaline waters, they will still do well. Be careful not to let your pH fall too acidic (below 5.5) or too alkaline (more than 8.5). Reason being beneficial bacteria (BBs) will all be wiped out and your tank will be thrown into havoc as your ammonia and nitrate levels go haywire. pH too alkaline, your tigers will contract cloudy eyes disease. You will need to monitor your water parameters (eg. pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite) on a weekly basis to ensure optimal living condtions for them to thrive in.

A heater is actually not necessary due to Singapore's hot weather all year round, but if your tank is in an air-conditioned room, you will need one. White spots is a common problem in those tanks with fluctuating water temperatures. A heater installed would help to eliminate this. Tigers generally thrives best in temperatures between 24-28 degrees celsius.

5. Food/Diet

As tigers originally came from the wild, therefore their most natural food in their environment would be live fishes. However, as more and more tigers are farm bred nowadays, they can be made to accept other kinds of food like market prawns, frozen bloodworms, mealworms, superworms, chicken meat and even pellets. A mixture in diet for them would be good.

As to the frequency of feeding them, it's entirely up to the individual. If you can afford it, you can feed them twice a day. Otherwise once a day is good enough cos these creatures eat like there's no tomorrow!

6. How to make them stable

I guess this must be the most common problem for all tiger keepers. It is really unsightly to see your tigers all black, and at the same time it's even more frustrating when you cannot get to enjoy their true beauty. Tigers, in my opinion, are very unique and challenging fishes to keep. It is a challenge as you need to find out the optimum conditions for them to show their beauty, and this is no mean feat. Unlike other fishes, they are not easily pacified by just good food and good water conditions only. Below are a few factors which you have to play around with in order to achieve a tankful of goldie babes:

A. Tank size (the bigger, the better)
B. Water conditions (as above)
C. Lighting (generally tigers don't do well under strong lighting)
D. Diet (having a balanced diet also helps)
E. Tankmates (Sometimes help them to settle down)
F. Other external factors like an extra powerhead to generate extra current for them to swim against, air disk to improve aeration in your water and background of your tank.

The above list is of course non-exhaustive, there are 101 factors which you will come across as you go along. There is no right or wrong way about it, you will have go by trial and error to achieve that winning combination.

7. How to have a successful community tank

A lot of brothers here actually have more than 2 tigers in a tank, and some with even more. They also come across situations where their tigers are chasing and flaring within the same tank. The most common question they ask is : How to achieve a successful comm tank?

As in every other comm tank (besides tigers), there will always be minor fights and chasing around, resulting in injuries like torn tails, split fins, bite and scratch marks on the body etc. However, it is nothing to worry about if the injuries aren't too serious. All the above injuries are actually small ones which can recover quite fast. You have to be mentally prepared that these will happen if you intend to keep a comm tank of tigers. So far I have not heard of tigers actually killing one another, so it should be quite safe. However, a lot of care and effort goes into a successful comm tank too, such as introduction of other tankmates, having a powerhead, ensuring that there's a fair share of food going round etc. You will discover more as you go along. Below are some tankmates which go well with tigers:

A. Freshwater stingrays
B. Birchirs
C. Arowanas etc.

As tigers are known to be lazy eaters, bottom dwellers like rays and birchirs are excellent for cleaning up the balance food at the base of the tank after every feeding session. This will save you a lot of trouble as you don't need to scoop up all the uneaten food and maintenance will not be a headache too.

The above is what I have learnt so far from tiger experts and seniors here. Of course, there are still many other things I have yet to learn, so please pardon me if the above info is lacking in any way. Hope that this will go a long way in answering brothers' questions here, especially those who are new to this hobby and intend to take up the challenge of rearing them.


Courtesy of IORI

[shiokmc]

some tiger Links

http://www.geocities.com/illegalfish/Siamesetiger.html


http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/siam-tig.htm

Originally Posted by shiokmc

some tiger Links

http://www.geocities.com/illegalfish/Siamesetiger.html


http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/siam-tig.htm

good work bro! thanks for the effort of compiling and sharing!

I think the patchy tigers that we see these days are really something worth discussing. My opinion is that since most tigers these days are farm bred, somehow that form of gene pattern have come in as well. I can imagine that a whole bunch of mature tigers (ITs, CTs) are all swimming in the same breeding pond, therefore it becomes hard to exactly determine what the outcome would be. Some produce come out looking exactly like the CT, while some come out with 3 stripes on the body (CT) and also 3 stripes on the tail-end (IT), depicting some form of cross-breed result.
And as for the patchy ones.....its some kind of a new breed of gene produce.

[marshy]

Ok.. here are the current scientific names for the Tiger Family.

Siamese (Thick Bar) Tiger - Datnioides Pulcher
Indo Tiger - Datnioides Microlepis
New Guinea Tiger - Datnioides Cambelli
American (Silver) Tiger - Datnioides Quadrifasciatus
North Thailand (Thin Bar) Tiger - Datnioides Undecimradiatus

Tigers were originally in the Datnioides family then changed to Coius family. But recently it was changed back to the Datnioide family.

[jwhtan]

originally by arserulez

"pure" Indo Tiger. 4-5 stripes in body wif IT tail (pic of IT tail below)






IT tail.... 3 full tail stripes


unstable patches commonly seen in ITs



"pure" ST... 3 stripes on body wif "ST tail"... 2 full tail stripes and the 3rd stripe is joined to the 2nd stripe.






unstable STs.... whole body become uniform dark color compare wif unstable patches of ITs above.





controversial tigers.... those so called tigers with IT tail but 3 body stripes only....

[marshy]

Ok... here are some of my experiences in my Tiger community.
I have 12 Tigers in total in my 6 footer tank.
Current sizes range from 3 inches to 15 inches.

Sizing:
Tigers tend to find trouble with their own sizes. They usually are not bothered about smaller sized tigers and they seem to know small tigers are of their own kind and don't try to eat them. However, when smaller tigers starts to catch up in size to bigger ones, the big guys will notice it and start to chase the slightly smaller ones.

Fights:
As mentioned, usually amongst similar sized specimens. Tend to be peaceful amongst tigers of great size difference. Even when fights do occur, the worst case of injury will be torn fins and some scale drop. I have yet to encounter (or even heard of) tigers fighting to the death. Do take note that when tigers get hungry, they tend to be more grumpy and will pick on anyone around them. Size don't matter. But no worries of smaller tigers getting eaten because of hunger.

Sub-species personalities:
NGTs tend to be loners and will usually look for little corners of if you have driftwood, find a hole and declare it their teritory. They will guard their "hole" strongly and chase away anyone (big or small) that ventures close to their hole.

NTTs and ITs are also loners. But they are not territorial. They dun find their own spots but tend to mind their own buisiness in any space they can find.

ATs are very cute. They (or at least mine) like to find shelter amongst leaves (in my case Nana Plant). Usually if I can't find my AT, I have to search amongst the Big Nana leaves. He will be hiding in there.

STs are the ones who usually pick fights amongst themselves. For fun or what I have no idea. They do it when hungry or full. Many a times I thought after a heavy feed everybody would just relax in a corner with a full belly. But many occasion they start to have fights to see who's the "stronger" one. Sort of like humans playing chicken with a car and seeing who will back off first.

Tank water parameters:
Tigers in genral are very hardy creatures. Especially when they get larger in size. Many people have reported of small tigers having the "sudden death syndrome (SDD)". I have had my fair share of these encounters in my short 2 years of tiger keeping. But somehow, after the size of 4 inch, its usually quite safe that this SDD won't happen. Water should prefably be neutral to slightly alkaline (PH 7 ~ 7.8). Salt is not a must have. However I suggest to have at least 0.5% salt level for young NTTs and slowly acclimatise the small NTTs to pure FW as they get bigger (around 4 inches).

Food:
All sorts of live feeders to meal worms and super worms. Market prawns are the best in terms of nutritient and cost value. Pellets too (if you are really lucky)

Disclaimer: The above writings are purely base on my experience with a Tiger community. I do not claim any of the above information as the bible to tiger keeping.

Cheers and happy tiger keeping to one and all.

[jebus]

hi bros
decided to contribute too

this is a simple tip on choosing tigers on top of the general guideline

1) don't buy inactive tiger, meaning tigers that don't put up a struggle while u try to bag them. most probably they are sick and will die within a day.

2) don't buy tigers which have very open mouth. it means something wrong is with their respiratory system, and will die. with their mouths wide wide open too.

3) if u ever select one very kim kim tiger, also do note about the top few guidelines too, becos some dying tigers become very very stable before they die, so do suspect something is wrong if the tiger u buy from LFS is like this too.

4) when choosing tigers, if u ever choose tigers with funny patterns, DO ALSO REM to take note about the above guidelines too, most of the time we get carried away with sym pattern here and there, and we buy back a sickly tiger and when it dies we get very distressed. my experience with patterned tigers between 1-3" is that they die extremely easy. in fact of the 9 small tigers i'm bought, 6 of them with special pattern have died, while the traditional solid bar types are big and fat. this is porbably due to mutanted genes that cause the funny pattern, which may also signify that the tiger got some "mutated" gene. however this is just my experience, duno what others say. but another bro also confirmed that the funny patterned tigers tend to die more easily.

5) lastly, if u think u want to buy a tiger, but the tiger have some ID problems, like IT tail, ST body.... and u don;t feel comfortable with it, DON'T buy the tiger or u will regret later on.

6) tiger prices fluctuate regularly, but prices of tigers have been falling lately. so if u think u want to buy a tiger as an investment, please do not do so.
and if u ever have an unwanted tiger, please DO NOT RELEASE into the local waterways! tigers are top predators in the food chain, and not native to singapore.


THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY

[shiokmc]

Originally Posted by jebus

hi bros
decided to contribute too


4) when choosing tigers, if u ever choose tigers with funny patterns, DO ALSO REM to take note about the above guidelines too, most of the time we get carried away with sym pattern here and there, and we buy back a sickly tiger and when it dies we get very distressed. my experience with patterned tigers between 1-3" is that they die extremely easy. in fact of the 9 small tigers i'm bought, 6 of them with special pattern have died, while the traditional solid bar types are big and fat. this is porbably due to mutanted genes that cause the funny pattern, which may also signify that the tiger got some "mutated" gene. however this is just my experience, duno what others say. but another bro also confirmed that the funny patterned tigers tend to die more easily.

5) lastly, if u think u want to buy a tiger, but the tiger have some ID problems, like IT tail, ST body.... and u don;t feel comfortable with it, DON'T buy the tiger or u will regret later on.

6) tiger prices fluctuate regularly, but prices of tigers have been falling lately. so if u think u want to buy a tiger as an investment, please do not do so.
and if u ever have an unwanted tiger, please DO NOT RELEASE into the local waterways! tigers are top predators in the food chain, and not native to singapore.


THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY

totally agree w points 1--3 ...and 6
but for point 4... please NOTE that its not the MAJORITY of 'mutated' or 'patterned' Tigers that are susceptible to SuddenDeath Syndromes.... might just be coincidental.... because ANY kind of tiger can have 101Factors that led to such 'sudden-deaths'

as for point 5, well...from a hobbyist point of view, rather subjective. As long as you like the tiGer and have the money and willing to pay --BUY it... does not really matter what kind of tiger it might be

BroJebus, im not arguing with your statements ...just expressing a tiger-lover's n hobbyist's opinion