Bowfin with bichirs?
- Thread starter bigme213
- Start date
This extremely young size is horrific for potential cannibalism. The most important thing is to maintain the nearly equal size of your three baby Bowfins. If any of the three start "outgrowing" the other two, or if one starts lagging behind in growth it is imperative to separate before the smaller becomes food. I would use a 2/3 body size as a minimum to keep your juvenile bowfins together. Anything less than 66% of another young Bowfin is very risky.
In my experience the young female Bowfins seem to have far more co-specific aggression than do the young male Bowfins. They have certainly been more murderous for me. It is extremely easy to sex Amia Calva. The males have a clear ocel spot on their tail, females do not.
I'll give you a general feel for just how solitary this species is. I released two male bowfins in the 18 inch range into my spring fed farm pond. One Bowfin has claimed his home by the dock around the cattail growth, while the other has claimed a large cattail patch by the spring feed. These are roughly 70 feet apart, and the entire pond is only just over 100' in diameter. (This, and keep in mind that I have found the male Bowfin far more tolerable of other Bowfin than the Females!)
They still will not go near one another, but neither have any challenge with extreme close proximity hanging out with the two LMB, 24+ " LNG, or any of the 1' - 20" Florida gar in the pond!
Be very careful keeping the juvenile female Bowfin(s) with another Bowfin until at least 12". (This will come much sooner than you may think!)
Feeding Bowfins is sometimes tricky. They tend to be finicky eaters until they have developed a taste for some type of food. I have had limited success with Bowfin taking pellet food, and I do not use pellets as their staple diet. One food that is readily accepted consistently by every Bowfin that I have kept is Tillapia fillet.
Baby Bowfin are also notorious for having internal parasites. I had just about every young Bowfin that I kept had white stringy poop at first. I found it extremely easy to "cure" all but one (that died).
A quarantine of all live feeder fish should be maintained. Young Bowfin are not quite a well defensed against external parasites as my gars seem to be. Feeding minnows massively gut stuffed with NLS Thera + garlic 1mm pellets helps to seriously reduce the internal parasite count, and allow the young Bowfins body to do the rest of the work.
To date, I have never used any type of medication on any "ancient" fish species. I would highly advise against the use of medicine with Gars/ Bowfins, unless one of the experts on this forum specifically advise you to do so.
Man thanks for taking the time. That's some good info just what I was looking for. At what size can u tell male from female? And what did u use to cure internal parasites if no meds?
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It sounds like you very well may have three females (your lucky!). The ocel on the male(s) should be visible by now, or will be very shortly. This was Grumpy (One of the two males now in the farm pond) when he was young. The ocel spot on the tail is prominent in this picture angle.
The garlic is extremely bothersome to internal parasites, and cause them to want to leave their hosts intestinal track. New Life Spectrum sells pellets already laced with garlic. (You can smell the stuff a mile away!)
I have not been able to get either Gar or Bowfin to take pellet consistent enough to be able to treat internal parasite. This is where the gut stuffing of feeder minnows comes in. During quarantine I seriously overfeed the minnows garlic NLS pellets (1mm). I used plastic tubs for quarantine of the feeder minnows. There is no worry of "fouling" a tank that way. After a couple of weeks in quarantine being fattened (keep in mind 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon and raising the temp to the 80 degree to 85 degree range will cure external parasites in the minnows if needed!) they are fed by the hundreds to the Bowfins.
I would highly advise the use of golden shiner minnows, but fatheads (Rosey Reds) will work fine also. This is just the exact perfect time of the year to get the small one in bulk. I like this supplier: http://www.andersonminnows.com
I know that NLS is expensive (~ $50 per kilogram), and I am uncertain how to go about treating food with garlic.
I tried to use Praziquil once on two Kirin Parrot cichlids with extremely limited success treating their internal parasites, and wound up killing both of them.
Please seek expert advice if you decide to go the medicine route with your bowfins.
Good luck!
I forgot to mention in the above post the necessity for extreme water changes in the quarantine tubs. Daily 90% water changes in the overfeed quarantine tub is ideal. The low end which will result in the loss of a decent percent of your feeders should be at minimum a 50% w/c every other day. The easiest method is having numerous plastic tubs allocated for quarantine/ feeder gut stuffing. I would fill one, move all the minnows from one to the just filled tub, and dump/ spray out the other.
They sell these types of plastic tubs (20 - 40 gallon range) at Walmart for around $5 each. No more than 100 per 40 gallon. When I was running five tubs, I had a total of ten to switch out 100% water daily!
They sell these types of plastic tubs (20 - 40 gallon range) at Walmart for around $5 each. No more than 100 per 40 gallon. When I was running five tubs, I had a total of ten to switch out 100% water daily!
Ive kept my bowfin with an endi, lap, and senegal. my bowfin never was aggressive with them they all park together on the bottom. Only time my bowfin was aggressive was with a royal clown knife that kept biting his tail.
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Yeah they all show they spot on the tail 2 are just must lighter in overall color and markings. Maybe 2 females and a male? Again thanks so much for your help I appreciate it
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