Marulioides Care Part 1 (Bunga)

I've been reluctant to write this but many had asked me to post how to take care of marulioides for maximum performance. The truth is you need to abused it, hence Marulioides care isn't exactly the correct terms to use.

Channa Marulioides is found in most part of malaysia, lakes, pond, streams, rivers, but one thing most fisherman realized are those caught in swamp, I mean really dead stagnant peat swamp. Waters that are near black in color most time the fish had tremendous performance, beautiful colors and a lot of flowers. From this theory many tried replicating the conditions with low ph and so on.

I've experiment many ways of keeping marulioides and I can concur to this,

Low PH meaning Ph5 and below, I usually keeps mine ard PH4 or maybe lower, because my test kit can only measure till 4 and cant read anything lower. Low PH produce beautiful coloration.

As for the bunga, yes everybody wants to know this, there is no tricks, just lots and lots of experiment. It is still water and stable condition and emotion.

Still water meaning if possible no sump tank, no bubbles, no flow is best, if you need to run a canister filter opt for the smallest power. I used to keep maru in a 1,000 liter tank running on a tiny 3,000lph pump. Maintaining at PH4 and below will dissolve your pump plastic shaft. My pump usually lasted me around 18 months and I've to replace them bend shaft which I can never find the parts.

Who is to say Marulioides loves low PH? maybe they are there because they are built to withstand low PH when all other fish would have perished. Usually they are found with Channa Lucius, both lives in similar condition. Lucius is a little bit worse, we find them in places where we cant see water but know below our feet is water. We scrap a hole and just put down our bait and jiggles until we get a strike.

Yea those peat swamp marulioides taste darn good too.

OK back to the bunga part, I used to be out of control during my younger days playing maru, whenever I spot a nice maru I would buy them with no place to keep them. I keep them in my sump tank. BTW my sump tank is not the full packed sump tank you find, mind is basically another aquarium most time with little fishes inside. And whenever I keep marulioides in the sump tank 90% of the time the flower stops blooming and most time the flowers tend to drop.

Reason being the flow is very fast in the sump tank. Just like marulioides caught in river or streams are 90% of the time near flowerless.

So 1 factor that will see a poor flower performance is moving water.

Second factor is psychology, you may think I'm nuts when i mentioned psychology in fishes but tuning fishes has always been my forte. When fishes feels good they tend to show their best. Tried putting a fierce fish into the tank, those that gets bullied will never flair with pride and will tend to be dull in color and very prone to sickness.

I've observed this when I used to comm Channa Marulioides. I've always buy at least 10 best fishes that I painstakingly picked and grow them out, in all cases one will turned out to be stunningly beautiful but those others so called potential fishes I've pick will grow up being a disappointment to a dreadful pathetic disappointment. The beautiful fishes will always be the alpha fish.

I work this around and started keeping them solitary and the fishes most time will grow with very rewarding flowering. And sometimes I went to the extend to put in some cheapo fishes for maru to act bossy and feel the alphaness. OK this usually doesnt help in the flowering process but it gives the fish boldness. When the fish is bold it flairs a lot and this parts help in the flowering process.

its 2am here and will continue when i've time.

When I first bought this pc it shows great potential and unfortunately was kept in the sump tank with high flow. Notice how 50% of its flower had dropped.

About the coloring of background and now this is a trick question, I dont know the exact answer for this. One thing for sure all Black color will not help with young fish. Side and back black color and base can be no substrate which is usually white with the polystyrene helps. Or you can put all black at back and side and white sand this helps too. All white color usually doesn't help and makes things worse. These are my setup. But I've friends who argues that all white helps so this part you've to experiment yourself. Besides just following what I say will not improve our favorite fish and make this hobby a boring chore.

Lightings, for young bunga not recommended with strong lightings for long period. But every fish respond differently so be aware of what I said. I sometimes change my strategies when I see things are not working as it suppose to. Important part about fish grooming is you must improvise all the time. Its not operating a machine by following a manual book.

My secret to keeping fishes that shows beautiful colors is lightings, traditionally you hear people say that fishes that gets sunlights are the ones who shows best colors, so there is truth in this after all. I use T8 or T5 fullspectrum plant lightings. Fishes respond to this.