"Baby dolphin" mormyrid -- my dream fish. Advice?

[Joshuakahan]

Oh wow! 2.5 feet is huge. Maybe I would be better off keeping a group of the smaller mormyrids like the elephant nose. I definitely wanted just one fish as a pet, but I'm also obsessed with mormyrids and willing to compromise.

There’s some cool ones like ENs and baby whales, I don’t know much about them, I’ve just read about the freshwater dolphin fish amd watched some vids on them and most sites say they get around 30”. I have kept baby whales and really liked them.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I love mormyrids - they’re some of my favorite fish but I’ve found them to be quite challenging to keep. I’ve briefly housed Campylomormyrus rhynchophorus and Mormyrus longirostris at different times. In both cases the fish seemed to be doing fine for several months but then mysteriously passed away for no obvious reasons that I could discern.

Given I wasn’t that successful long term I’m not sure how useful my advice is, but here are some of
my impressions:

They will almost certainly be wild caught, and likely parasite infested, so give them a full treatment of prazipro or some other dewormer during quarantine. They are sensitive to metal-containing meds.

They need clean, well oxygenated water, so provide good filtration, decent current and good aeration. And keep up on your water changes.

They eat a surprising amount and seem to need a regular supply of food available or they start to get skinny. I used to feed frozen foods (bloodworms, mysis, finely chopped shrimp) twice a day and also dump in a bunch live blackworms that would burrow in the sand so they could forage throughout the day. Mine never ate any prepared/dry foods. They were reasonably aggressive eaters once they’d settled in but didn’t compete for food very well with other fish. Despite being a bit shy, they also didn’t seem to like tankmates and harassed them quite a bit. The dolphin in particular was constantly bothering other fish.

I had the elephant nose housed in a 65g and the dolphin in a 120g. The tank sizes seemed ok for the size and activity of the fish while I had them. Depending on which dolphin species (kanume get much bigger than longirostris) you’re likely going to need a much bigger tank eventually.

Where did you find the Campylomormyrus rhynchophorus?

 

[the_deeb]

It was many years ago so I’m not certain, but I think I got it from any aquarium in NYC Chinatown that has since closed down.

I think the more common elephant nose (G. Petersii) are a much more common and manageable mormyrid to start with and would be fine in <150g tank. They are definitely more reclusive than the dolphin mormyrids but still a very cool fish.

 

[MormyridLover]

It was many years ago so I’m not certain, but I think I got it from any aquarium in NYC Chinatown that has since closed down.

I think the more common elephant nose (G. Petersii) are a much more common and manageable mormyrid to start with and would be fine in <150g tank. They are definitely more reclusive than the dolphin mormyrids but still a very cool fish.

Do you know if they can be kept as a single fish with no other tankmates and still be happy? I've heard mixed advice. Some say alone is fine while others say they are social and really need a large group of 6 or more.