Are my bichirs blind or con artists?

[balton777]

When my senegal and delhezi eat pellets, it's as if they're fumbling around in the dark or something. They rummage around the tank and stumble upon pellets almost by accident, like they know the pellets are in the tank but don't know exactly where.

When I put live guppies in the tank it's all different, they zero in on them and make a direct hit. My senagal just lunged halfway across the tank and gulped down a feeder fish as if he has perfect eyesight? What gives, maybe they have a super sense of smell or radar?
(I very seldom feed live btw so that's why I'm just figuring this out)
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[ironmunki]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.

 

[balton777]

 

[bigspizz]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.

Mine seems to see just fine. Not saying the bad eye sight thing is false just saying how mine is

 

[Oni Angel-Hannya]

Speaking of eating,how about there stomachs sticking out like there literally going to pop.Scared me first time i saw this.Youd think they would stop at visual satiation,but nnooooooooo,gotta eat it all like pigs. I think there eyesight is ok,they shure find everything ok in my tank

 

[jiapei]

as far as i know they hunt by a keen sense of smell. their eyesight is definitely suspect and poor at best.

i think so

 

[channarox]

i think they do have a bit of a poor eyesight.
depending on species.
my bichirs also swim around until they find pellets.
like they dont really know its there.
i think with live fish they can sense it very well because they can sense movement in the water.
i dunno.
something like that.

 

[beeline]

My senegal bichir swims around a bit and only eventually finds his food. A bit annoying when I want to hand-feed him. My severums and my fei feng usually eat out of my hand as soon as I put the food in the tank. Which means another trip to the fridge for more ox heart coz my poly is a dumb-ass. So I guess it all depends on the poly's personality.

 

[FishGoneWild]

Here is what I noticed from my observation. The senegal and polli palmas are quick to strike when I put shrimp in the tank. They swim by the food and gobble it up right away. The delhezis and endli will swing around the food until they bump their nose right onto the food. Generally speaking bichirs do have poor eye sight but I do think some specy of bichirs have better eye sight than others. For example, senegals and polli palmas are consider the more active bichirs so they would need the better eyes to move around the tank gracefully.

 

[deR]

yea they follow smell before vision, if you have ever thrown something that has a strong smell like frozen krill you will noticed he will be trying to find it far from the place where it actually is at.