Elephant Noses

[The Equillibrium]

I just got six elephant noses for my 46 3 days ago at 3-4 inches each. They are very active at night. I have may caves so They'd be ok.

How do you feed them? I have frozen bw and plankton. I tried with lihts on and off, They certainly perk up when food fall from the sky but they dont go neat it. The closest I got to seeing one eat was flip over an algae chip in the sand with hos nose a couple times.

Thanks

 

[rockerBOO]

From what I had read in the past, they sift though the substrate looking for food with their nose. They can be hard to get to feed and thus making them hard fish to keep. Try feeding them some live foods at night, might help.

 

[nmonks]

Elephantnoses -- Gnathonemus petersii -- are among the most difficult of all "common" aquarium fishes. There are several issues you'll need to work around.

1. They are highly territorial. Keeping them as singletons is usually advised, though in the wild they can and do form groups. It is perfectly possible that six specimens will get along fine, diffusing any aggression evenly between themselves. However, since each fish will easily top 20 cm in captivity, and potentially reach 35 cm, a school of these fish will obviously need a large aquarium.

2. They are very sensitive to water quality. Long term, you need to have nitrates as low as possible (certainly less than 50 mg/l) and nitrites and ammonium have to be zero. Regular water changes are essential. Water chemistry isn't terribly important, though soft and slightly acidic to neutral is closest to their natural environment. Filtration through peat does seem to help though, and is probably essential in the long term.

3. They are intolerant of medications containing copper. Basically, it kills them. This rules out using most commerical whitespot, finrot, etc., medications. Unless the medication says "safe for invertebrates" or "safe for mormyrids and stingrays" on the bottle, you can't use it. Mormyrids, incidentally, is the name of the family to which the elephantnose belongs.

4. They feed primarily on insect larvae, such as bloodworms. Other wormy foods like tubifex are also enjoyed. Live food is usually preferred. Frozen (wet frozen not freeze dried) is an option after the fish are settled in and feeding freely on the live foods. To begin with though, live bloodworms (or something similar) is simply the only reliable approach. Dried foods are ignored in almost all cases, and certainly should not be relied on.

5. They must be kept in a tank with a soft substrate, ideally silica sand or peat fibre. They cannot be kept in tanks with a gravel substrate. Eventually, the gravel scratches the skin, allowing infections to set in. Once infected, they usually die, because they cannot be easily treated with standard medications.

The fate of most elephantnoses is to starve to death. I'd say 9 out of every 10 dies this way. Most aquarists have no idea how to care for them, and it's a shame they're imported so freely. That said, they're rewarding pets and well worth keeping if you make the effort. We had some at university and connected up an oscilloscope, and "watching" their electric sense was very cool.

Cheers, Neale

 

[The Equillibrium]

I'm probably ok with all but 1 and 4. I have sand and about 5 caves.
The only LIVE food I have ever used is baby brine shrimp, obviosly too small for them. I widely use the frozen cubes, like BW, Plankton, Tubifex, Daphnia, and occasional beefheart.


Will any other option work? They seem happy and actively play tag all day.


Thanks

 

[nmonks]

I'm probably ok with all but 1 and 4. I have sand and about 5 caves.

Well, that's a good start, but you really need to cover all your bases, not just some of them if you want long-term success.

The only LIVE food I have ever used is baby brine shrimp, obviosly too small for them. I widely use the frozen cubes, like BW, Plankton, Tubifex, Daphnia, and occasional beefheart.

Provided these are the wet frozen cubes not the freeze-dried ones, you should be fine. Put the food out at night though, and remove from the aquarium anything that would eat the food before the elephantnoses. In other words, you cannot keep them in an aquarium alongside catfish (including plecs) or loaches. Once settled in, you might get away with a plec, but for now you need to make sure the elephantnoses have 100% access to the food. Or they'll die as sure as God made little green apples.

Will any other option work?

Perhaps, but don't bank on it!

They seem happy and actively play tag all day.

That isn't so much playing as fighting. The behaviour of these fish is interesting. The dominant fish gets the optimal electric field frequency, and forces the others off his "wavelength". They fight by moving alongside one another and trying to jam each other's signals So although we can't see the fighting, it's going on anyway, and is pretty fierce. I suspect you'll be okay with a group of six, but do keep an eye on them. Once one fish becomes dominant, the others can stop feeding and fade away. It should be obvious if they're feeding because they'll have nice rounded stomachs. If their stomachs look hollow (concave) then you're in trouble. I'd certainly stock up with a few bags of live bloodworms, and use those over the next few nights, just to get them fattened up. After that, switch to frozen bloodworms and you should be fine.

Cheers, Neale

 

[The Equillibrium]

After wtching them with a booklight in complete darkness for 10 minutes, I saw their very slow eating pattern.

They would be chasing each other as per routine, when one seperates from the line and goes sniffing food on the sand, in this case some tawed frozen bloodworms. They find it and very quickly slurp it up and almost immediatly go back to chasing. Each one get about 1-3 senonds to find whatever he may to eat before the line of elephants get close and he dashes in. They do this all night seeemingly.

Is this how they should be? Seems ok to me but they get only a few worms. Would they get full off 3-6 worms a night?

 

[nmonks]

After wtching them with a booklight in complete darkness for 10 minutes, I saw their very slow eating pattern.

Yep, hence no catfish. Looking over your stock list in your signature, do you only have otos in there with them? Those should be fine. But anying like Synodontis, plecs, Corydoras, etc. wouldn't work in the long term.

They would be chasing each other as per routine, when one seperates from the line and goes sniffing food on the sand, in this case some tawed frozen bloodworms. They find it and very quickly slurp it up and almost immediatly go back to chasing. Each one get about 1-3 senonds to find whatever he may to eat before the line of elephants get close and he dashes in. They do this all night seeemingly.

More than likely, yes, that's what they do all night. They will be active in the daytime too, if you make the tank dark enough. Low lighting, lots of Java ferns for cover, and blackwater extract in the water recreates what they're after. In the regular, brightly lit aquarium they'll hide much of the day.

Is this how they should be? Seems ok to me but they get only a few worms. Would they get full off 3-6 worms a night?

They sound normal. You will need to ramp up the food a little... I'd suggest six four-inch elephantnoses should be getting through about a cube of bloodworms per night. Six worms each sounds a bit too few. But at least they're eating, which is better than a lot of folks manage. Look at their bellies -- are they nice and round? That's what you want.

Cheers, Neale