Ornate Bichir

[PRW1988]

Hey, I recently purchased a 8" Ornate Bichir, and she is beautiful. I've found some information online but I was looking for some personal experience information about this fish. If anybody could give me some I'd be very appricative.

 

[england]

what would you like to know, ive been looking for one for about 2years....lucky you

 

[simonas]

I've had one for about two years .He's about 9 inches now, hes grown very slowly but seems to be thickiening out a lot now and growing which has co-incided with him becoming far more active

He now eats anything that lands on the bottom catfish pellets frozen blood and brine and prawns

I'm looking forward to the days when hes a big thick long monster patrolling the tank

these pics are abuot a year old and theres been significant growth since then

 

[CFC]

I'm suprised yours has grown slowly simonas, i have two (m & f) which are about 18-20 inches long and i found that they grew very quickly, easily reaching over a foot within a year.

 

[The-Wolf]

i have two (m & f) which are about 18-20 inches long

any breeding from them yet CFC?

 

[CFC]

Lots of rubbing and chasing but no sign of any actually breeding as yet. I think it will require them to have a tank to themselves before they are comfortable with it.

 

[PRW1988]

Well, breeding information would be lovely from anybody, also, I'm not 100% sure if mines a male or female. I'm certain its a female because it's more of a rounded tail opposed to a tip.

I'd also like to know if Marble (my ornate- yes I know...), will eventually switch over to the daytime schedule. Currently he/she hides all day and comes out at night.

Feeding wise, Marbel is getting mainly slow sinking shirmp pellets, with the occasional feeding of live guppies or danios (I had a community tank before I added the ornate. I knew what the out come would be ) is this fine. The tank is 55gallons and Marbles in there alone, I'm wondering about suitable tank mates.

 

[simonas]

I'm suprised yours has grown slowly simonas, i have two (m & f) which are about 18-20 inches long and i found that they grew very quickly, easily reaching over a foot within a year.

I.m surprised myself and I posted on here about 18 months ago wondering why his growth was slow but hes kicked on quite well in last 4 months or so. I changed the tank round lost all the vallis and plants due to a shoal of silver dollars and prochilodus and hes been active since. there are still caves etc but hes active now. I had a good watch of him last night after this post and was amused to see him rock up to the reedfish and just nudge them out of the way with his big head and eat all the pellets. He was about 6 inch when I got him and only about 10 inch now

 

[beblondie]

rounded tail? the sexual dimorphism is the size of the anal fin the males is approx.twice as wide as the females and has more pronounced muscularing at the base.all i can say about tankmates is you need a bigger tank marbel will easily reach 18inches.Bichirs can be very territorial.-Anne

 

[PRW1988]

Well aware of this fact, however if you read my post before, Marble is in the tank alone. Also, the way I was told to sex them (in a very straight foreward manner) is the same as sexing Senegals, in which if the tail has a point at the very end, it's male, if not then female.

Back to my questions, still looking for more personal experience with these wonderful fish, aswell as any breeding tips (not that I'm goign to try to breed her, mabye someday...)

 

[Miah002]

WOW, nice fish.

 

[invader]

Sexing and and all bichirs has nothing to do with the tails and every thing to do with the anal fin, as beblondie stated. Here's an excellent chart I have found on it:

What other personal experiences do you want to know about? They are more nocturnal as youngsters and get more active during the day as they get older. Will eat anything that hits the bottom, including tankmates that are too small. I've had mine for about a year and she's great.

 

[beblondie]

I did read your post and you were not sure if it was male or female so I told you how to reliably sex them as opposed to the misinformation you were given.You aksed about tankmates i pointed out the size of your tank needs to be bigger to house a fish thats supposed to be 18-24''adult size let alone tankmates.As for breeding you have lots o time.larger species of bichirs including ornates are not sexually mature until approx 6 years of age.

Invader thanks i thought it was excedllent when I posted it as part of the primer i wrote about bichirs-Anne

 

[invader]

No problem, beblondie. I wasn't sure where I found it, but that picture is very helpful for the sexing of bichirs. I think there should be a pinned topic on the general care, sexing and breeding of these awesome fish, to avoid topics like this in the future.

 

[simonas]

Sexing and and all bichirs has nothing to do with the tails and every thing to do with the anal fin, as beblondie stated. Here's an excellent chart I have found on it:

What other personal experiences do you want to know about? They are more nocturnal as youngsters and get more active during the day as they get older. Will eat anything that hits the bottom, including tankmates that are too small. I've had mine for about a year and she's great.

fantastic info cheers for that. I've never really been interested what sex my Bichir is but now I'm off the garage to have a look!!lol

intersting what you say about them becoming more active with age. maybe thats why mine has become more active in last few months of the 2 years I've had him