Polypterus Senegalus

[nmonks]

I'd recommend against it. Reedfish are sociable and rather gentle animals. They are best kept in groups of 4 or more in a nicely planted aquarium with lots of hiding places. Bichirs are that bit more snappy. P. senegalus is pretty well behaved on the whole, but why risk it? Choose reedfish or bichirs, and create a tank that suits whichever you want the best.

Cheers, Neale

Could they not be kept with reedfish as well?

 

[Esfa]

I'd recommend against it. Reedfish are sociable and rather gentle animals. They are best kept in groups of 4 or more in a nicely planted aquarium with lots of hiding places. Bichirs are that bit more snappy. P. senegalus is pretty well behaved on the whole, but why risk it? Choose reedfish or bichirs, and create a tank that suits whichever you want the best.

Cheers, Neale

Cool. I currently have one reedfish, but i dont think my tank could fit anymore in? haha

I could eaily get rid of the gourami, and the green barbs and get 3 more reedfish if you think they would fit. It is over filtered and heavily planted, and i could easily do a water change more then once a week.

 

[nmonks]

Depends on the tank. There's no reason to lose the gourami or the barbs. Quite the reverse in fact: these 'dither fish' help bottom dwellers feel more settled. Four reedfish would need a tank somewhere around the 200 litre size, minimum. While potentially they get to 90 cm in the wild, they don't in captivity, and being rather slender animals you needn't be paranoid about water quality. A properly filtered 200 litre tank would be fine. The main thing is that they can't escape. I had a group of four that spend more time in the trickle filter than they did in the aquarium. Wild reedfish move about on land (in wet grass and mud) quite a lot, so their instinct is to leave the aquarium at the first opportunity.

Cheers, Neale

I could eaily get rid of the gourami, and the green barbs and get 3 more reedfish if you think they would fit. It is over filtered and heavily planted, and i could easily do a water change more then once a week.

 

[Esfa]

Ah, well mines a 125liter so i guees that rules it out =/

 

[demonmagus]

Depends on the tank. There's no reason to lose the gourami or the barbs. Quite the reverse in fact: these 'dither fish' help bottom dwellers feel more settled. Four reedfish would need a tank somewhere around the 200 litre size, minimum. While potentially they get to 90 cm in the wild, they don't in captivity, and being rather slender animals you needn't be paranoid about water quality. A properly filtered 200 litre tank would be fine. The main thing is that they can't escape. I had a group of four that spend more time in the trickle filter than they did in the aquarium. Wild reedfish move about on land (in wet grass and mud) quite a lot, so their instinct is to leave the aquarium at the first opportunity.

Cheers, Neale

I could eaily get rid of the gourami, and the green barbs and get 3 more reedfish if you think they would fit. It is over filtered and heavily planted, and i could easily do a water change more then once a week.

do you think a paludarium or something like that would be 'nice' for reedfish? bit off topic but...

 

[Straydum]

i kinda disagree with the post about spiny eels. true they do scavange for food way faster than bichirs, but i found out that this could be avoided easily. i hand feed my fire eels and my bichir so they each get their own share. carnivore pellets also arent really a favourite for spiny eels but they are for bichirs.

 

[starrynightxxi]

hand feeding certainly would take care of the problem as far as one being a fastre feeder than the other, provided you can distract other fish while attempting to feed the slower one. I don't know how readily eels take to it, but my bichir is picking it up with relative ease.

If you can get your hands on tankbred ABFs, get one. They're much tamer and generally used to frozen/prepared foods. The first day mine was in the tank it stole a cube of bloodworm right out of my fingers. Make sure to have a good lid as well. Bichirs are known jumpers and I lost my ABF to jumping AFTER I got the lids to prevent it from doing so. I hope to get another but won't be until I've found a good way to cover the gaps.

 

[nmonks]

Fair point, but I was talking about the small spiny eels suitable for this 30 gallon tank, like Macrognathus siamensis, which is about the same size as a small bichir. These don't really become tame, and they DEFINITELY do not scavenge. They are very difficult to feed when first imported unless you have live foods, and then frozen foods, to hand. And as far as I know, Macrognathus spp. never eat pellets or other processed foods.

Bichirs, by contrast, will basically eat anything that smells good, alive or dead.

Cheers, Neale

i kinda disagree with the post about spiny eels. true they do scavange for food way faster than bichirs, but i found out that this could be avoided easily. i hand feed my fire eels and my bichir so they each get their own share. carnivore pellets also arent really a favourite for spiny eels but they are for bichirs.