rope fish???

[scottsbt1690]

hi all,
just wondered if anyone can tell me a bit about the "rope fish" i saw one in my very expensive, commercial but small pet store at the weekend, and it looks a real nice fish at around 3 inches, in a sort of goldy colour, but it looks agressive and a head like a snake, they had it priced at £7.10, as i have never seen or come across one before i just wanted to know if it is a good tempered fish, which wont grow massive and if that price was too expensive or not, cheers

scott

 

[gale]

Did they give an actual name for it, or did they call it a rope fish? Sounds like some kind of loach to me.

 

[bunjiweb]

You will know wether it is a loach of a rope fish by where it seems to be active in the water? i.e. top, middle or bottom.

Best to get the scientific name as there are more than one species of the rope fish genus.

Ben

 

[Auratus]

Did it look like this?

My cousin used to have two of these in a 55 gallon. The scientific name is Erpetoichthys calabaricus.

Edit: Here is a link with some info http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/ropefish.htm

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

If it is the fish auratus posted a picture of that you are talking about, it will grow several feet in length, and should be kept with others of its kind in a tank ideally 55 gallons or more. besides that, they are actually very peaceful and probably would only eat the smallest of fish (fry). What tanks do you have and what have you stocked them with?

 

[scottsbt1690]

looked very similar to this

 

[ghostknife]

Helllo

I have one ropefish/reedfish in my 4ft tank it eats bloodworm and is around 8inches/20cm long. Mine cost £6 to £7 so yours is a reasonably good price.

The picture that scottsbt1690 posted up is a polypterus senegalus (i have 2 of these as well) they are in the same family as the ropefish but in a seperate genus (in fact they are the only member of their genus) the pic that auratus posted up looks like mine and is definitly a ropefish. My avatar is a ropefish as well.

The rope fish can get to 3ft/90cm in the wild but not so big in captivity. I would recommend a tank of 3ft but preferably larger. They can eat small fish so don't keep them with tetras etc.

Hope this is helpful

ghostknife

 

[sylvia]

Are you planning on getting any of those?

Looking at your signature you have enough to deal with in just your current fish...

2 Opaline Gourami's
1 Pearl Danio
3 Zebra Danio's
1 RTB Shark
1 Xray Tetra
1 Indian Gourami
2 Red Robin Gourami's
2 Albino Paradise Fish
3 Swordtail(pineapple)2M + 1F
1 Goldenwonder Panchax
1 Two Spot Catfish
1 Hi Fin Bronze Cory
1 Green Tiger Loach
1 Gold Spot Plec
1 Gold Algae Eater
1 Bloodfin Tetra
1 Blind Cave Tetra
2 Bronze Cory's
1 Skunk Botia
1 Buenos Aires Tetra's
2 Dwarf Neon Rainbows

Several of these fish are incompatible with one another (I hope they're not all in the same tank...) and most need to be in groups/shoals but are kept alone or in pairs.

Unless this is an outdated list or whatever, you realy should think about returning/adding certain shoaling fish, depending on the size of your tank(s), of course, and reducing the incompatibilities.