My Senegal Bichir & Fire Eel

[sezra]

Hi, about 6 months ago a purchased a rather small Senegal Bichir (Polypterus senegalus) his name is Neptune! well in these 6 months he has grown from about 3 inches, and is now about 8 inches in length. He shares my tank with a common plec (about 12 inches, named tadpole) a fire eel (about 8 inches, named Merlin) a number of bronze and peppered corydoras and also a number of green tiger barbs. They all get along fine but my probles are.

1. my S.Bichir eats the sinking pellets that’s the corys eat, whole. and believe me when I tell you he is a pig! I have tried him on other foods, but he seems to like these tablets so much he wont go for anything else. He often snaps up most of the food before the corys and plec get a look in!

2. My fire eel, im afraid, is somewhat of a daddy’s boy, and he wont take anything except for frozen blood worm, that is hand fed from me.

so, any suggestions on alternative foods?

Thank you.

 

[simonas]

persevere with the eel and he will eventually and all of a sudden take other food. I give mine frozen prawn as well and he has a nibble at lancefish my bichir hs

 

[FISH KEEPER EXP]

have you tryed frozen mussel? Thats what we use with all poly's and the larger eels take it aswell. live tubifex is good occasionally but its gotta be fresh and clean also rivershrimp, keep tryiing different foods they will take them eventually.

 

[cheesy feet]

Have you tried a bit of beef heart with the birchir?

 

[sezra]

Have you tried a bit of beef heart with the birchir?

hmm, so could i get that straight from the butchers? and im guessing it doesnt need cooking, just chop it up and feed it raw? I might look into that.

 

[Azaezl]

Beef heart is a type of food you can purchase from the frozen section of your lfs. I'm not 100% sure if it's exactly the same as what you get in a butchers, I'm guessing it's not so I wouldn't risk it.

I used to feed my bichirs allsorts, raw prawns, beef heart, raw fish(as in dead bought from a fishmonger not feeder fish), they would ocassionally eat bloodworms I'd put in for the other fish, they also loved mussel meat. Just perservere I'm sure you will get them to take something eventually, oh and keep an eye on your corys, if they get hungry enough they may just decide one of them looks like a tasty snack, I'd suggest moving them into another tank for there own safety, they might not get eaten whole but if they did get attacked it could potentially leave them with some serious injuries

 

[DarkEntity]

Bichirs and Cory cats are a bad combination, i found that out to my horror. When my little Senegal was still tiny (his head smaller than the Cory) he still managed to defin the cory, remove its tail and take a rather impressive gouge/cut out of the corys head.

Dont be fooled by size, if it thinks its got a shot, itll have the cory for dinner without a second thought.

 

[poopsydrew]

"Beef heart is a type of food you can purchase from the frozen section of your lfs. I'm not 100% sure if it's exactly the same as what you get in a butchers, I'm guessing it's not so I wouldn't risk it."

-From the store or from the butcher it doesnt matter, trimmed beefheart is trimmed beefheart.
And yes, my bichirs love beefheart.

Drew

 

[Straydum]

i second that the cories are at risk and should not be kept with the senegal. this would also solve your feeding problem. regarding the fire eel, tempt him without foods, eg tubifex, brine shrimp. anything live/frozen. he should start accepting them after awhile when he's hungry