Are my bichirs blind or con artists?

[balton777]

When my senegal and delhezi eat pellets, it's as if they're fumbling around in the dark or something. They rummage around the tank and stumble upon pellets almost by accident, like they know the pellets are in the tank but don't know exactly where.

When I put live guppies in the tank it's all different, they zero in on them and make a direct hit. My senagal just lunged halfway across the tank and gulped down a feeder fish as if he has perfect eyesight? What gives, maybe they have a super sense of smell or radar? :confused:
(I very seldom feed live btw so that's why I'm just figuring this out)
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:newbie:

[ironmunki]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.

[balton777]

:thumbsup:

[bigspizz]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.




Mine seems to see just fine. Not saying the bad eye sight thing is false just saying how mine is :)

[Oni Angel-Hannya]

Speaking of eating,how about there stomachs sticking out like there literally going to pop.Scared me first time i saw this.Youd think they would stop at visual satiation,but nnooooooooo,gotta eat it all like pigs. I think there eyesight is ok,they shure find everything ok in my tank:)

[jiapei]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.
:iagree: i think so

[channarox]

i think they do have a bit of a poor eyesight.
depending on species.
my bichirs also swim around until they find pellets.
like they dont really know its there.
i think with live fish they can sense it very well because they can sense movement in the water.
i dunno.
something like that.

[beeline]

My senegal bichir swims around a bit and only eventually finds his food. A bit annoying when I want to hand-feed him. My severums and my fei feng usually eat out of my hand as soon as I put the food in the tank. Which means another trip to the fridge for more ox heart coz my poly is a dumb-ass. So I guess it all depends on the poly's personality. :confused:

[FishGoneWild]

Here is what I noticed from my observation. The senegal and polli palmas are quick to strike when I put shrimp in the tank. They swim by the food and gobble it up right away. The delhezis and endli will swing around the food until they bump their nose right onto the food. Generally speaking bichirs do have poor eye sight but I do think some specy of bichirs have better eye sight than others. For example, senegals and polli palmas are consider the more active bichirs so they would need the better eyes to move around the tank gracefully.

[deR]

yea they follow smell before vision, if you have ever thrown something that has a strong smell like frozen krill you will noticed he will be trying to find it far from the place where it actually is at.

[FarT_Rhin0]

I keep 14 of them and based on my observations i don't think they have that poor of an eyesight (definitely not blind). every time i want to feed them when i reach for the glass lid, they swim up to get the food so they can definitely see me coming.
on the other hand when they are feeding from the bottom of the tank they seem to smell the food rather than see it. Delhezis seem to be less eager to eat than Senegals, they kind of wait for the food to come to them rather than swim up and get it.

[Druu]

From my experience, bichirs are motion sensitive. They'll chase fish when the move and pellets when they float by. When I use frozen feeders that sink, he does not react as quickly. This can be due to their lack of color vision. When food falls to the bottom, they need to rely on their sense of smell instead and are slower to find the food.

[balton777]

Ok so what I gather is that some have better eyesight than others but are def not blind. Bichirs have a keen sense of smell and can sense motion so that's how they can stike the live guppy feeders so accurately. That seems to be exactly what I observed with mine. Thanks for the input you guys.

[oregonian]

my polys are the same w/ live food. my sen and del try to chase the feeders even though they're 2 slow and my lap hunts like a gator(my fav to watch). anyways i was thinking that due to the placement of their eyes once food hits the bottom they have to angle their body down to see food not to mention something suspended in water has much greater contrast than something against substrate

[cenecker]

Often when I feed my bichirs - I watch them bumble around the tank looking for the smell and I seriously wonder how the hell they survive in the wild when they take twenty minutes to find food in a six foot tank...:)

[balton777]

Often when I feed my bichirs - I watch them bumble around the tank looking for the smell and I seriously wonder how the hell they survive in the wild when they take twenty minutes to find food in a six foot tank...:)


:grinyes: That's funny. I think in the wild they can snag live food. They seem to sense motion because they can snag a guppies no prob. With pellets on the bottom is where they bumble around.