baby Bichir huge tank... what to start feeding???

[Magnum Man]

I just got a baby Polypterus delhezi... he'll be a "working" fish... I put together an aquaculture tank system for growing Tilapia... one of the 250 gallon tanks ( a 275 gallon IBC with the top & a little side cut off ) is for growing duck weed, & holds 4 pots of hydroponic vegies as part of the filter, & the Tilapia will eat duck weed, as a supplement to their feed... I noticed right away, that the Mosquito larvae moved in within only a few days... so "dezi's" job is to eat the mosquito larvae, which he'll have to hunt... he's only 3" long, & I'd like to supplement some sort of food... there won't be any Tilapia in this tank... & the fish is difficult to see with the depth of the tank, & all the duck weed on the surface... thinking a small sprinkle of sinking shrimp pellets every other day, but this is my first venture into this type of fish, & not sure how independent they are at 3"... any suggestions???

BTW... when winter comes, & the tilapia are harvested he'll be moved to one of my tanks in the house, until the outside tanks are filled in the spring... the tanks are heated for the tilapia to grow the fastest, but at some point the tilapia will be at harvest size, & it'll be too costly to heat, as winter approaches

 

[Fishies4Ever]

How deep is the tank for this little guy? They are carnivores so maybe some blood worms or chopped up shrimp but I am not sure. You could get a sinking carnivore pellet and sees if he eats those as well.

 

[Magnum Man]

Tank is 42” X 48” X 36” high… it’s mostly covered with Giant Duckweed ( there are a couple baffled off areas so he can surface breath)…. since I posted my original post, I bought a couple more ( now 3, all less than 6” )… they we not hunting mosquitoe larvae as fast as the mosquitoes were making them, so I added about 20 Mosquito fish, to help eat the larva, and act as additional food for the bichirs

I had a few different carnivore pellets I tried, the bichirs wouldn’t touch them…

I have a 30” tall artificial Mostera plant in the corner, and with the duckweed on the surface, I don’t see them often

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Bloodworms seem to be popular amongst the bicher keepers? You could cut up some shrimp and see if they'll take that?

 

[Magnum Man]

So the giant duckweed has been reproducing, and now is a thick blanket fully covering the water’s surface, except for the spots that are baffled to prevent it from getting sucked into the filter, and one corner, where 2 of my pails used for hydroponics, meet in a corner, and baffle off a 6”X 6” square in a corner… peering down in the tank, the duckweed is blocking most of the light, the tanks are translucent white plastic, but mostly covered with green algae, as the system ran for 3 weeks or so, before the fish arrived…”twilight zone” the tilapia started out at ( for the rest of the world… at maybe 1 to 1.5 cm ) and looked like little pieces of wire ( no height ) but they are all bigger now, biggest ones are fish shaped, and about 3 cm long… this growth in just a few weeks… they are mostly on algae wafers… soon they’ll be on pellets, and when they graduate to the 2nd size pellets, I’ll begin introducing the duckweed for the tilapia… then maybe I’ll get a better look at the bichirs, as there may be some open water, or at least the blanket will be thinned, so more light can get in…a couple days ago, one about 6” swam under one of the open areas… it was exciting to see him