Rope Fish
- Thread starter JAY323
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Adults will swallow fish up to around 3" if they can catch them, in the wild part of their main prey is frogs which as you can imagine are more difficult to swallow than fish because they have legs so nice smooth slippery fish slip down like spaghetti
nmonks
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Baensch volume one has them listed as
now i'm not quite sure about the live horses and cows
but i should imagine the marshy habbitat they come from is abundant with frogs and marsh crabs.
I wouldnt say they have a small mouth either, like all polypterids their jaws can open alarming wide when they need them too. Fishbase doesnt list that they eat fish either but we all know that they do.
now i'm not quite sure about the live horses and cows
but i should imagine the marshy habbitat they come from is abundant with frogs and marsh crabs.I wouldnt say they have a small mouth either, like all polypterids their jaws can open alarming wide when they need them too. Fishbase doesnt list that they eat fish either but we all know that they do.
nmonks
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I think there's a difference in perspectives. Fishbase records what wild specimens have in their stomachs when cut open. Baensch records what an aquarist can give to a captive specimen. You get big differences. Needlefish, for example, apparently only eat crustaceans in the wild and almost never fish, but in aquaria are often considered piscivores. Redtail catfish are thought of as "pure predators" by most aquarists, but in the wild (like all the big pimelodids) tropical fruits and large inverts like crabs are a major part of the diet, especially at certain times of the year. So one isn't "wrong" and one "right" -- they just mean different things.
I'm assuming that the Baensch listing is what those authors have fed them. If you look, they've used frogs multiple times for predatory fish (I assume they had lots in a pond!). As I recall, the needlefish entry has "frogs", even though they DEFINITELY aren't adapted to eat frogs. This is all in the same way we give mussels to freshwater pufferfish, even though the mussel Mytilus edulis lives in the sea.
Cheers,
Neale
I find the needle fish only eating crustaceans in the wild theory a puzzling one.
Here we have a streamlined fish with a powerfull tail at one end and long beak like jaws with rows of needle sharp conical teeth at the other, a design that is perfect for bursts of speed to catch and hold onto small slippery prey like fish.
When we look at other fish with this body design we are looking at fish such as pike (Essox species) true gars (Lepisostied species), other Belonids and the pike Characins of South America, all of which have one thing in common, as adults they are all cheifly piscavors.
We also look at the level in the water column that the fish inhabbits, the needle fish lay close to the surface under the cover of over hanging foliage, but their apperent prey (shrimps) dwell in the substrate where they are picking at detrius and algea. The prey that would be close to them is schools of tiny baitfish which are drawn towards the surface by the sun warmed layer of water and plankton on which they feed upon.
Now we turn our attention to the crustacean eaters, here we have fish with large blunt lips and crushing plates instead of conical teeth, for example the Echidna morays, puffer fish and the snail crushing Cichilds, designs that are perfect for breaking into animals with shells protecting them, here conical teeth would be next to useless. We also find that these fish spend the majority of their time in the lower levels of the water column close to where their prey lives.
When looked at all the evidence points to that these fish are piscavors, they just arent designed for eating crustaceans as their main diet. Some scientist somewhere may well have cut open the stomachs of several specimins and found the remains of crustaceans in them but this is not conclusive evidence that they are cheifly crustacean eaters. At times of the year the small baitfish are scarce, what hasnt been eaten has grown into sub adults and the cooler water of the rainy season drives fish futher down the water column so the needle fish could be forced into eating whatever it can find to survive until the new season brings the shoals of baitfish back into its range.
Here we have a streamlined fish with a powerfull tail at one end and long beak like jaws with rows of needle sharp conical teeth at the other, a design that is perfect for bursts of speed to catch and hold onto small slippery prey like fish.
When we look at other fish with this body design we are looking at fish such as pike (Essox species) true gars (Lepisostied species), other Belonids and the pike Characins of South America, all of which have one thing in common, as adults they are all cheifly piscavors.
We also look at the level in the water column that the fish inhabbits, the needle fish lay close to the surface under the cover of over hanging foliage, but their apperent prey (shrimps) dwell in the substrate where they are picking at detrius and algea. The prey that would be close to them is schools of tiny baitfish which are drawn towards the surface by the sun warmed layer of water and plankton on which they feed upon.
Now we turn our attention to the crustacean eaters, here we have fish with large blunt lips and crushing plates instead of conical teeth, for example the Echidna morays, puffer fish and the snail crushing Cichilds, designs that are perfect for breaking into animals with shells protecting them, here conical teeth would be next to useless. We also find that these fish spend the majority of their time in the lower levels of the water column close to where their prey lives.
When looked at all the evidence points to that these fish are piscavors, they just arent designed for eating crustaceans as their main diet. Some scientist somewhere may well have cut open the stomachs of several specimins and found the remains of crustaceans in them but this is not conclusive evidence that they are cheifly crustacean eaters. At times of the year the small baitfish are scarce, what hasnt been eaten has grown into sub adults and the cooler water of the rainy season drives fish futher down the water column so the needle fish could be forced into eating whatever it can find to survive until the new season brings the shoals of baitfish back into its range.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Hi CFC --
Yep, at first glance the needlefish is odd. But there are some factors at work. For a start, their overall shape is ancestral. Needlefish evolved to live in the upper level of the open sea, where a narrow, streamlined shape is both efficient for escaping larger predators and has a smaller silhouette that makes them more difficult to see. Their ancestors are the halfbeaks, which have the exact same shape, and yet feed partly or mostly on plankton and plant matter (seagrass fragments).
The narrow beak of a gar or needlefish operates differently to, say, a pike cichlid. Narrow jaws are designed for a sideways lunge, and the idea is that being narrow (flattened from top to bottom) presents the least surface to the water, reducing drag, allowing them to move their head sideways very rapidly. A pike or pike cichlid is totally different. The jaw opens and producing suction that draws in the prey, normally coupled with a forwards lunge by the fish. Pike and pike cichlids both have a concentration of fins at the back (dorsal, anal, and tail) that create a large "springboard" that propells them forwards. So if you watch a gar feed compared with a pike, it's different. One sideways, the other forwards.
I've watched gar in the wild, and they eat everything, not just fish. They are VERY common in mangroves in Florida, where they eat crabs and large shrimp. The alligator gar, for example, feeds primarily on blue crabs when in brackish water. Gar teeth are actually very robust and crunch up shells just fine. Perhaps not perfectly evolved for the job, but their design works fine. They continually grow new ones to replace any that get lost.
Re: crusteaceans. It's important to remember that the species we see in fish shops aren't the ones that are common in the wild. If you go night fishing anywhere in the tropics, the water column is ALIVE with swimming crusteaceans of all types, mostly fairly small shrimps such as mysids (which live in freshwater as well as the sea). I can easily imagine needlefish feeding on these at dusk and dawn. They have the right shape, and swimming crustaceans have weak shells (to reduce weight) and present no more difficulty than the bones in small fish. So yes, I agree, these fish probably wouldn't eat crabs or crayfish, but they could easily eat nektonic crustaceans.
Cheers,
Neale
Yep, at first glance the needlefish is odd. But there are some factors at work. For a start, their overall shape is ancestral. Needlefish evolved to live in the upper level of the open sea, where a narrow, streamlined shape is both efficient for escaping larger predators and has a smaller silhouette that makes them more difficult to see. Their ancestors are the halfbeaks, which have the exact same shape, and yet feed partly or mostly on plankton and plant matter (seagrass fragments).
The narrow beak of a gar or needlefish operates differently to, say, a pike cichlid. Narrow jaws are designed for a sideways lunge, and the idea is that being narrow (flattened from top to bottom) presents the least surface to the water, reducing drag, allowing them to move their head sideways very rapidly. A pike or pike cichlid is totally different. The jaw opens and producing suction that draws in the prey, normally coupled with a forwards lunge by the fish. Pike and pike cichlids both have a concentration of fins at the back (dorsal, anal, and tail) that create a large "springboard" that propells them forwards. So if you watch a gar feed compared with a pike, it's different. One sideways, the other forwards.
I've watched gar in the wild, and they eat everything, not just fish. They are VERY common in mangroves in Florida, where they eat crabs and large shrimp. The alligator gar, for example, feeds primarily on blue crabs when in brackish water. Gar teeth are actually very robust and crunch up shells just fine. Perhaps not perfectly evolved for the job, but their design works fine. They continually grow new ones to replace any that get lost.
Re: crusteaceans. It's important to remember that the species we see in fish shops aren't the ones that are common in the wild. If you go night fishing anywhere in the tropics, the water column is ALIVE with swimming crusteaceans of all types, mostly fairly small shrimps such as mysids (which live in freshwater as well as the sea). I can easily imagine needlefish feeding on these at dusk and dawn. They have the right shape, and swimming crustaceans have weak shells (to reduce weight) and present no more difficulty than the bones in small fish. So yes, I agree, these fish probably wouldn't eat crabs or crayfish, but they could easily eat nektonic crustaceans.
Cheers,
Neale
i reall want one it says they will grow up to be a Foot(12) if my tank is really well planted do you think they may eat my smaller fish like the glo loight tetras.......cause they go out at might but if its welley planted the rope fish may not find the fish do these fish grow fast?so if they grow up they can eat a size of a Betta Fish?
nmonks
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The ropefish will be sold to you not far short of 12 inches in length, and so realistically you have to expect it to double that size. While they are bendy and probably don't need as much space as, say, a two-foot long cichlid, it still wouldn't be fair to cram this fish into a very small aquarium. I'd be thinking about a 30-gallon tank at minimum. They like company too, so ideally get two or three.
Regardless of how well you plant the tank, they will eat the glowlight tetras. They have basically useless eyes, and hunt by smell, and they hunt at night.
Personally, I wouldn't trust one with a betta. You really need something "the next size up", like a swordtail or dwarf gourami, to be truly safe.
There are some nice alternatives to ropefish, like the smaller spiny eels, and even a few loaches, that have the same "snakey" look but are smaller in size so easier to house.
Cheers,
Neale
Regardless of how well you plant the tank, they will eat the glowlight tetras. They have basically useless eyes, and hunt by smell, and they hunt at night.
Personally, I wouldn't trust one with a betta. You really need something "the next size up", like a swordtail or dwarf gourami, to be truly safe.
There are some nice alternatives to ropefish, like the smaller spiny eels, and even a few loaches, that have the same "snakey" look but are smaller in size so easier to house.
Cheers,
Neale
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