Fahaka

[SirMinion]

Very true. Fahakas are deep water fish and do not need any more than moderate lighting, however if you want plants in your tank you will need decent lighting of course.

Here's Martha's old tank.

 

[Fella]

You don't need a light ballast, they are not dependant on bright light for anything, I'm sure that they would be happy in a 150 Gallon tank with just a 60 watt incandescent over them, thats not to say that you will be happy with it though.

I do intend to keep some weed like plants in my 5x2x2. I dread to imagine algae scraping a tank that size....

 

[SirMinion]

I dread to imagine algae scraping a tank that size....

... which is why Martha shares her tank with two large plecs!

 

[Paul_MTS]

Thought I'd show my face.....

Cookie is in a 4x2x2 which I built and designed around Cookie, filtration is a large sump with the tank being turned over by a 3500lph pump which makes the tank turned over a whopping 7 times per hour.

Cookie has agreed to let my oscar, pike cichlid and a plec share his tank, he didn't take kindly to a gar I recently tried to introduce, the gar was in there for one night and ended up with no finage, he's recovered now with new fins but if anything get in cookies space they sure know about it.

Cookie is quite a fussy eater, will go through phazes of what he wants to eat, we started out on whole prawns cooked in the shell, then refused to eat them so got him onto muscles and he's now settled on un cooked muscles in the shell, which keeps his beak down nicely, with the prawns I noticed his teeth were touch on the long side at some points.

Oh and if cookie ever looks like he needs more space, he'll get it with out a doubt, but due to his bad start in life, I don't tihnk I'm too hopeful of him reacing full size.

 

[demonmagus]

do any of you know why some fahakas hate other fish and some don't?

 

[SirMinion]

do any of you know why some fahakas hate other fish and some don't?

Same reason that some humans love the company of other people and some don't.
It's just individual personality.

 

[Fella]

do any of you know why some fahakas hate other fish and some don't?

There are no set rules but I think if you were going to share a fahaka with other fish (and lets be honest, some of these fish attack their keepers so that's the kind of aggression you're dealing with...) then you'd have to be sensible about it. Rugged fish that can look after themselves, and like Paul said, have somewhere to transfer any fish that don't get on.

 

[interbug]

are they hard to keep?
And on the site it mentions tankmates

Our 20 month old Fahaka is now 18 inches and shares her tank with a 24 inch ornate polypterus, a large common plec and a equally large starlight bristlenose plec. She occasionaly takes bites out of their fins but for the most part they have learnt to avoid her.

Fahakas have a reputation for being extremely aggresive and unpredictable and cannot be kept together EVER but some individuals, like ours, can be kept with other species of large, hardy fish.
Each fahaka has an individual temperament and have been known to be so violent that they can small the aquarium glass by ramming it with their teeth in an effort to attack a human near the tank. THESE ARE NOT FISH FOR BEGINNERS.

You will need a large tank at least 2 feet by 2 feet by 5 feet MINIMUM for ONE fahaka. It's best to put the young fish straight into the final tank as they grow VERY fast. ours grew from 2 inches to a foot long in seven months
It must be filtered to a very high degree for absolutely spotless water quality. We have filtration on our tank that's rated for a tank twice the size.
The bottom should be covered in a fine but heavy sand - pool filter sand is ideal - as fahakas, especially young ones, sleep and rest under the sand and may swallow gravel leading to blockages of the gut.

They produce a lot of waste so the tank will require vaccuming every day and expect to do 20% water changes twice a week at least.

Ideally, you will need access to large live aquatic snails in large numbers (ours can eat three pounds of pond snails a week when we can get them!) but otherwise any fresh or frozen human-quality shellfish such as prawns, mussels, clams, cockles and whelks are eagerly accepted along with live bloodworm and river shrimp. Fahakas should not be offered live fish and although they will kill them are unlikely to eat them unless starving. Like most puffers, Fahakas will not accept flake or processed foods.

Here's some pictures of Martha Fahaka:

This when we got her at about 2 inches:

A month later in the same flowerpot. My how she's grown!

lol - Did that really grow that much in a month! I was planning on a bigger tank but didn't read anywhere that rate of growth. Whilst on the topic (an old post I know but hay) can you forsee any problem with coral substrate?

 

[DarkEntity]

If you look at the first picture, "Martha" was very emaciated, the extreme growth was probably more due to thats the size she should have been and the good food, good care etc helped.

Again id love a Fahaka, but until i have room for at least 120Gall tank im not considering it, not fair on the fish.