Very greedy bichirs

Justynkak

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2015
27
0
1
Plymouth, UK
Hi all :D i just wanted to ask if its normal for my fish to fight for food even though they get plenty?

My GOld Saum will only eat live mealworms (new addition to the tank), so he fights for every one of them. My bichirs naturally love them as well. So what happens is when the Gold Saum grabs a mealworms the bichirs come and try to enter his mouth while he chews! No one gets hurt, and at the end of the day everyone gets a mealworm.

Just to add, i also feed them beef heart, shrimp, peas, alage waffles and (most of their diet) they will munch on cichlid pellets (hikari and omega one) intended for the Gold Saum. They eat all of this calmly, but once i add mealworms its like a marathon lol
 

lardieleftover

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 9, 2014
255
11
48
san diego
Might want to look into carnivore foods such as massivore and hikari carnivore products, should have different/better nutrition for the polys relative to cichlid food. Also mine enjoy tilapia peices bought frozen, thawed and cut up.
 

the lion who ate the sun

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Mar 11, 2014
1,237
50
51
35
georgia
+1 on massivore. In my experience, talapia is a Poly's favorite meal. Housing Poly's and cichlids together can often be trouble. Not often life threatening, but feeding gets extremely annoying. What species of Polypterus do you keep?
 

Justynkak

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2015
27
0
1
Plymouth, UK
I only have 3 baby senegal bichirs :) they are 3,4 and 5 inches and the Gold Saum is 5inches. And the tank is 65gallons.

I give my bichirs leftovers from any whole fish i buy from fishing boats and they LOVE sea bass! But thats once in a week event. Ill look into massivore then. I feed them their food every night and then i feed the saum every morning.

I watched them today and it seems like they are trying to be eaten :/ thats 4hours after feeding. they swim up to the saum and touch his mouth. He mostly ignores it but sometimes he would open his mouth and try to bite them. he can easily fit the smallest bichirs head in his mouth!!

i like watching that, but i dont want anyone to get hurt :( should i get target fish to divide their attension to other fish?
 

Justynkak

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2015
27
0
1
Plymouth, UK
And its not like they are hungy. They are really fat and greedy lol plus i recently went through a minicycle (baaad things happened - power spike blown my filter fuse and took me 3 days to find a new one.) i should really say a full cycle, as all my bacteria within the filter died and i had 2 ammonia and 0 nitrate and nitrat. Its getting back on slowly (i had 1,0.25,0 this morning)So to add to all this i can now only feed them a fraction of what they would usually get untill my filter thrives again :/
 
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