Gentle Giants

[Ansorgii]

Hello everyone,
I would like to use this thread to make a collection and have a discussion about all the gentle giants you have kept over the years, as I am really curious to hear your experiences and see your pictures.

Those gentle giants can be both gentle by nature, or just exceptional individuals, and refer to large fish that showed no interest in eating smaller fish.

I will post the animals I've kept in the following posts.

 

[Ansorgii]

For the first I would like to show my Astronotus Crassipinis. I received 4 animals of which two formed a pair. I kept them with guppies and tetras, and while in the beginning one of the females enjoyed chasing them, she lost interest soon and both were able to breed in that tank. Sadly the crassipinis themselves, despite laying eggs many times never managed to make them hatch.

I always fed them pellets and whole shrimp. I don't think they ignore fish by nature but turned out like this due to not learning that fish are edible and being used to eat what is thrown in.

 

[Ansorgii]

 

[Ansorgii]

Another truly gentle giant I kept is Oxydoras Niger. Sadly I don't have a lot of footage, but I raised them from 8 to 45+cm and never encountered any issues with them. (Apart from redocerating the entire tank by just existing)

They ignored anything that wasn't pellets and when I observed them eating, they sometimes inhaled a young cory with the pellets but spit them out again right away. Even in the night, when the tetras slept they did not go for them or tried to inhale them when their barbels touched them.

As they can grow quite massive they might be the biggest fish on this thread, and I hope I can keep them again once my pond is finished.

The last two videos are not mine but showcase their gentle nature and beauty a lot better than my awful footage

 

[danotaylor]

Love the crassipinnis freckles mate! Are they wild fish? Very nice
Ole Hoover mouth! I had a 14” version. Super cool. Never hurt anything g even when housed with much smaller fishes

 

[Ansorgii]

Love their freckles mate! Are they wild fish? Very nice

Thank you! I think they were wild caught, but I don't know for sure. The original owner died and I just took them over. They were awesome fish and I miss having them a lot.

The colours irl were a lot stronger, I don't know why my phone likes to "correct" orange away, but I didn't have any other way to record them. Irl they had about 3 times more colour than in the pictures, the smallest had it all over the body.

 

[A201]

No "gentle giant" thread is complete without mentioning
Tinfoil Barbs.

These two Altus Tinfoils have been together nearly seven years.

 

[Username6942098]

Not sure if this is just my individual but I would have to say my 13" female endli bichir. I am currently keeping her with other bichirs smaller than herself, different species of catfish such as pseudopimelodus bufonius and Spotted Raphael catfish, and larger SA cichilds. She is very calm and has not shown any aggression towards other fish.

 

[duanes]

Some of my favorites were Malagasy cichlids Paretroplus menerambo (above), and Paretroplus maculatus below.
The menerambo easiy hit 15¨ (38 cms) the maculatus slightly less.
Both are snail eaters and can rid a tank infected with MTS or other snail species overnight




They are each shoaling species species, and if grown up together work well in groups.
If split up, the group dynamic can fall apart and create chaos, or if the space becomes too small, aggression may be the result..
When my 6 ft tank became cramped, I move dthe maculatus group to a 900 gal kiddy pool to mitigate aggression.
They shared the pool with a 12¨Paeatilapia.

 

[Ansorgii]

That is a very beautiful picture of the barbs!

Not sure if this is just my individual but I would have to say my 13" female endli bichir. I am currently keeping her with other bichirs smaller than herself, different species of catfish such as pseudopimelodus bufonius and Spotted Raphael catfish, and larger SA cichilds. She is very calm and has not shown any aggression towards other fish.

I read somewhere very long ago that Bichirs do not cannibalize, but that was very long ago and I forgot where. I also once had a group of endlicheris and ornatopinis that ended up having animals twice the length of the smaller ones, but they never tried to eat each other.