Are bichirs good at cleaning up the left over food?

[MilitantPotato]

Sounds like an expired test kit...

 

[Infblue]

as mentioned they are good at eating leftover food that they like, BUT once they are full they won't touch anything. they also won't eat scraps and pieces that are too small compared to their bite size. They can also be messy eaters. If you are looking for a fish that will eat ANY leftover and scraps and pieces, bichirs might not be the best choice. some bichir keepers actually get other fish to clean up after the bichirs.

also some bichirs will grab food from the surface, but most of them won't.

 

[awesum]

whats with the low pH??

my ph is low because of my driftwood. it's been 6.0 for 4 years. the only fishes i've lost were catfish and pleco's and those fish are suppose to kept between 6.0-7.6ph. My tap is at 7.6. 7.6-6.0 is a huge difference but for some reason it doesn't effect my fish when i do water changes.

Sounds like an expired test kit...

Nope my test kit is not expired. I've recently tested a few peoples tanks recently and i get different readings so i'm assuming it works.

Wow, whats your secret to 0 nitrate with only every other week water changes?

my nitrate is actually at 30ppm. i had a major typo in that first sentence. i only feed my fish once every other day because I do not want them to grow too fast and it keeps my water clean. sometimes they would go without food for a week because I travel a lot. Every week i rotate in cleaning my fx5 and wet/dry. every 2 weeks i do a 40% water change.

Thanks guys for all your help. I guess I won't be getting a bichir.

 

[baracuda]

In my experience they are ok at eating leftover food but not as good as say a pictus catfish which will probably eat anything. Also like mentioned before, they only eat leftover foods that they like which is usually meaty foods. GL.

 

[ninoe]

i agree w/ infblue,

funny cause in my case, i added a blue botia and a bgk to eat the leftovers, and act as my clean up crew after feeding my bichirs, and yes bichirs are messy eaters.