Feeding Tiny Bichir

[Kaleidoscope]

I got myself an inti-bity baby ornate bichir. He's only about 1-1.5 inches big. I'm having a bit of trouble with getting him to eat. Right now he's alone in a five gallon. I've been trying small pieces of frozen mysis shrimp. I've seen him eat it a bit before, but for the most part I just find uneaten pieces. I've got a lot of different options of frozen food on hand but I don't know what would be best for him. I feel he may be too small for pellets as well. I do have experience with bichirs and have a growing one at about 7 inches that I have no issues with eating. I just want to make sure the little guy is getting the nutrition he needs.
Ignore the "dirtiness" of the tank. Doing a water change and there was a lot of algae I scrubbed up. Just put a much lighter light on the tank so hopefully that will make him more comfortable and less algae.

 

[Colin_T]

Did you get the little guy to eat?

Just looking at the picture, it might be a bit small to eat food that big. Have you tried him on live brineshrimp, daphnia and grindal or white worms? The movement might get it eating.

Try cutting the food up with a pr of scissors so it's smaller and easier for it to swallow.

 

[kniesh]

I used bloodworms on all mine when that young. I'd say never too young to use pellets either, mine love massivore from every age. I just crush them up with a mortar an pestle to roughly the size needed for them. I've got ones from a few inches to 24 inches at the minute, this has always worked for mine

 

[Big Boy Fish]

Ive had a dinosaur bichir about 4inches and he ate algae wafers if i crushed them up. Maybe yours might be different.

 

[lnsaneM]

I have 3 tiny bichirs too, I usually just get some frozen shrimp, cut them up and use my aquarium plant tongs to bring it to their mouth. No problems here

 

[Blackghostknifekid]

be wary of pellets mine died from breaking his neck from to big a pellet.

 

[Magnum Man]

I have 3 Polypterus delhezi in a 250 gallon aquaculture tank that had live mosquito larvae in it, & I couldn't get them to eat any pellets ( crushed or otherwise ) I didn't try any frozen shrimp or such, suspect they were too distracted by the wigglers... they couldn't keep up with the mosquitos, so I added 20 mosquito fish to the tank... next day, all the noticeable wigglers were gone... I suspect my Bichirs are now hunting Mosquito fish... got a sign on the tank that the Tilapia & vegies are guarded by dinosaur fish