Bichirs in a planted paludarium?

[magpie]

I have the chart saved...


Upper jaws - they are all of the polys below the Lapradei bichir in the chart

the larger 3
-Ornate
-Weeksii
-Teugelsi

The rest
-Senegal (with albino variant typically listed as staying smaller)
-Delhezi
-Palmas complex (palmas, polli, buettekoferi)
-Mokelembembe
-Retropinnis
-(Rope fish)


-Also interesting to note that there are now CB Palmas Palmas available.

 

[magpie]

I am really excited about this idea, reading more about how you'll be doing it.

I am still unclear on how much water space the fish will have - you may have already said this. You mention around 150 gallons, but what would be the floor space so to speak?

My only question to the experienced poly owners here is... since they can breathe air and are known to move across land or marshy type areas to other bodies of water, how can she be sure she won't end up with a stranded poly? Do you think they'd be able to get back into the main body of water if they got up on the land part or in the "lake?"

 

[moe214]

Chalceus don't need to be kept in schools. And I'd say you can add some ropefish, I'd do 3. If you can locate the archer you will be fine as far as it being a snack if it's a reasonable size.

 

[magpie]

I would be really jealous of a bichir and FW archer tank. Wet Spot has the freshwater ones at this time - I had not heard of them until I saw them there. They're gorgeous.

Agreed with 3 ropes.

 

[kno4te]

Good save with the chart magpie ! Weekends I'm busy with my boys.

 

[Bad Kitty]

It really depends on the species, there are few question need to be asked if the poly can reach its max size.
1. Is it a captive breed?
2. Is it young wild caught?
3. Is it wild caught?
kno4te can provide a chart of the size range for this question(i tried to look for it but cant find it).

Here's a good example, most senegal being sold in the lfs are captive breed, some people will claime that their sen grew 1' and some will say their's only grew 5"-7". I grew my sen 6"-8", biggest one i saw was a 10" in my lfs. Genetics play a big part on captive breed specimen, you wont know if they will big or short or gonna have diffects. Vancouver_98683 kno4te moe214 J jaws7777 Hao they can tell you where they mass produce this fish and the quality of the fish.

I have the chart saved...
View attachment 1231828

Upper jaws - they are all of the polys below the Lapradei bichir in the chart

the larger 3
-Ornate
-Weeksii
-Teugelsi

The rest
-Senegal (with albino variant typically listed as staying smaller)
-Delhezi
-Palmas complex (palmas, polli, buettekoferi)
-Mokelembembe
-Retropinnis
-(Rope fish)


-Also interesting to note that there are now CB Palmas Palmas available.

Thank you so much for this. It makes sense to me because some plants are the same exact way when concerning "wild" and propagated in an aquarium.

 

[Bad Kitty]

I am really excited about this idea, reading more about how you'll be doing it.

I am still unclear on how much water space the fish will have - you may have already said this. You mention around 150 gallons, but what would be the floor space so to speak?

My only question to the experienced poly owners here is... since they can breathe air and are known to move across land or marshy type areas to other bodies of water, how can she be sure she won't end up with a stranded poly? Do you think they'd be able to get back into the main body of water if they got up on the land part or in the "lake?"

So Imagine you are looking at the tank from the top, 6' x 2' the realistic width of the tank would actually be closer to 20" due to the size of the background. The only Features on the bottom that would take up space besides the rock column would be the walls of the cave. So ideally the bottom dwellers would have maximized space.

Now the actual background will widen away from the back of the tank around 12 inches up to hold the integrity of weight due to land features. This will be offset by the pvc "rock" columns and the right side above the cave. This is why I was looking for smaller fish that would be okay for bichirs (in relativety to the bichirs size). They will have a smaller (still pretty large) area than the bottom dwellers.

Since the archers would be good with 15" bichirs, I will probably get 2-3 and a couple other larger top swimmers. I plan to have branches leading from the land to the water with "food" to entice the insects to climb out onto the branches. I was really unsure if they would work with the Bichirs but since everyone thinks they will be okay I may thin the width of the land feature and add more branches so the archers can do their thing.

I will be documenting the build as it goes and posting on here and a few FB pages.

 

[jaws7777]

Please post that build. Would be very intersting to follow. I say go for it. Never know unless you try. Also your treading into areas that many of us havent so take all the advice given with a grain of salt.

 

[Bad Kitty]

I have the chart saved...
View attachment 1231828

Upper jaws - they are all of the polys below the Lapradei bichir in the chart

the larger 3
-Ornate
-Weeksii
-Teugelsi

The rest
-Senegal (with albino variant typically listed as staying smaller)
-Delhezi
-Palmas complex (palmas, polli, buettekoferi)
-Mokelembembe
-Retropinnis
-(Rope fish)


-Also interesting to note that there are now CB Palmas Palmas available.

Does the wild caught factor play a part in knife fish as well such as these?
Centipede Knifefish
African Knifefish
Barred/Tiger Knifefish
Glass Knife Fish

Gonna scratch the BGK if it cant fit comfortably and just go with a couple (depending on what I can get) that can live in the tank.

 

[magpie]

This sounds super cool.

I don't know know about CB vs WC knives but I'd skip the BGK and go smaller like the African instead. I don't know about the other knives you listed but the African browns are supposed to be out more too. Less reclusive.