Temporary shells or no shells?

[tokyo]

Alright, so I'm picking up my alto sumbu on Saturday, but it looks like my shell order isn't going to be getting here until next week. I have two or three shells I could throw in temporarily, but I don't want them to them to be in the tank permanently because they are kind of ugly and I want to stick with just my whales eyes or turbos.

Should I use the temporary shells until I get my shell order, or should I just leave the tank shell-less until my shells come in?

[J.B.]

Leave it shell-less until your order comes in.  The fish are not going to suffer any ill effects of not having shells.  Conversely, they could get stressed by you trying to remove a "temporary" shell that they are not ready to move out of just yet.

[fish head]

if they need hiding places for a few days put some coffee mugs in there

[tokyo]

Thanks, that's kind of what I figured but I wanted to be sure. These are my first shell dwellers, so I have not experienced common shelly behaviors yet. I have a small amount of rockwork in the tank and have a couple 1.25" PVC elbows I could throw in if they need it.

[kiriyama]

Was going to suggest PVC elbows when I was reading this, they would be perfect
Getting some pics up when you get them ?

[tokyo]

Well, I have my sumbu. I ended up with only five because one of the females died in one of the shells. I don't know why, maybe starvation or she got stuck??? She had been hiding in the shell for a while before I bought them, so it was assumed that she was guarding some fry, and she may have been, but after not seeing her still for a couple day I decided quickly lift the shell out and hold it up to a light to see if I could see any shadows. But when the water started to drain from the shell there was a very bad odor and I realized why I hadn't seen her. So I threw out that shell and did a big water change. Very unfortunate, and I wish I knew what happened, but atleast I still have the other five.

They are the dark variant, not the light variant with yellow fins. So I am still looking for the other variant. But I am very pleased with these guys.

Heres a couple of pics of the ones that didn't hide when I walked up to the tank.





When they become more comfortable with my presence I will take better pics.

[ec43146]

Very nice, thanks for sharing. I don't know how I missed this post so thanks for the link.

[fish head]

very cool looking fish

sorry about the loss

keep us posted!!