i brought home two fish in mid-1995, intending to set them up in a 20-gallon long. one was a young silver arowana (about 4"), and the other a juvenile ornate bichir (about 3"). it was the fulfillment of two long-time fish dreams at once!
i plopped the fish into their new tank, watched them swim for a while, and went to bed. imagine my surprise when i woke in the morning and found one FAT polypterus and one severed arowana head with a chunk of spine attached to it - nothing else.
it's been a feeding frenzy ever since. he's eaten or killed everything i've ever tried to keep with him - includiing pieces of me on several occasions; more on that in a bit. staple foods have included beef heart, nightcrawlers, bullfrog tadpoles, occasional mice or baby rats (leftover from feeding my snakes), crayfish, bait shrimp, trout chow and once, when he was desperate, a hunk of zucchini.
a few weeks after the arowana episode, i tried some iridescent cats (aka 'pangasius sharks') that were - i thought - size compatible. all but one disappeared in the first night. turns out he developed a taste for them: years later, at about 15", he was temporarily housed in the orphan tank of a pet shop i used to work for in seattle. we got a few large iridescents in (smallest about 10", largest about 14"), and into the orphan tank they went. i came in to work the next day, received a dirty look from a kid on staff (who was wearing a very wet shirt and looking miserable), walked into the office and was told by the owner of the store to "take my damn fish home." turns out my bichir had swallowed the smallest catfish - or started to, when the guy in the wet shirt (it was dry up until then) all but dove head first into the tank and pulled the catfish out of my ornate's mouth. i went to look, and the cat was swimming erratically, leaning heavily to one side, with a whitish scar around its body just past the gill covers. my polypterus looked about the same as always: hungry.
so, back home the fish goes. into a 50 gallon breeder tank with a 12" common pleco, which lasted about a day and a half before i separated them and whisked the pleco off to the orphan tank at work for its own safety, missing most of its dorsal fin.
he's beaten up on oscars and dempseys, and killed numerous convicts (most of which were added at various times by a friend of mine as "punishment" for their killing others of his fish). so much for the reputations of those fish.
i experimented with handfeeding at one point, to see if it would calm him down any. this ended one day when, as i was dangling a nightcrawler in the tank, it slipped from my fingers and drifted to the bottom. "no biggie," i thought, reaching in to grab it and try again. next thing i'm aware of is a foot-and-a-half long fish attached to the skin of my forearm, jaws clenched, wrenching back and forth like a pitbull. had a nice ring of scabs on my arm for a while after that, and we no longer hand feed the polypterus.
he's bitten me on several other occasions as well, mostly during tank maintenance, but never as spectacularly as that first time.
a good friend in seattle used to keep a 300g with about eight ornates in it, all of which did fine together for several years (until the group was traded as part of a deal on a trio of subadult blue arowanas) and appeared to be the mellow, relaxing fish they're alleged to be.
mine has never contributed to that illusion. i'm still, after all these years, trying to catch him standing still long enough for a decent picture. reading some of the other posts in this forum and seeing ornates described as 'mellow' or 'slow moving,' i gotta wonder. he's now about 20" long, has a few scars both from brawls and from an unfortunate water-quality episode during a 300-mile move several years ago, and shows no signs of settling down.
i get splashed when i walk past his tank at night, triggering a strong attack response that it's made more than one visitor to my house jump when they provoke it. it's a wonder anyone comes to visit us any more, me and my killer attack sea monster...
i need to upsize the tank and add stronger filtration; i'd also like to get back into the 'aquascaping' aspect of the hobby (he did great in a planted tank several years back, albeit when he was a bit smaller...) it's been a great decade, though. i'm looking forward to the next few!
thanks for indulging my long, rambling post. happy to be aboard!
i plopped the fish into their new tank, watched them swim for a while, and went to bed. imagine my surprise when i woke in the morning and found one FAT polypterus and one severed arowana head with a chunk of spine attached to it - nothing else.
it's been a feeding frenzy ever since. he's eaten or killed everything i've ever tried to keep with him - includiing pieces of me on several occasions; more on that in a bit. staple foods have included beef heart, nightcrawlers, bullfrog tadpoles, occasional mice or baby rats (leftover from feeding my snakes), crayfish, bait shrimp, trout chow and once, when he was desperate, a hunk of zucchini.
a few weeks after the arowana episode, i tried some iridescent cats (aka 'pangasius sharks') that were - i thought - size compatible. all but one disappeared in the first night. turns out he developed a taste for them: years later, at about 15", he was temporarily housed in the orphan tank of a pet shop i used to work for in seattle. we got a few large iridescents in (smallest about 10", largest about 14"), and into the orphan tank they went. i came in to work the next day, received a dirty look from a kid on staff (who was wearing a very wet shirt and looking miserable), walked into the office and was told by the owner of the store to "take my damn fish home." turns out my bichir had swallowed the smallest catfish - or started to, when the guy in the wet shirt (it was dry up until then) all but dove head first into the tank and pulled the catfish out of my ornate's mouth. i went to look, and the cat was swimming erratically, leaning heavily to one side, with a whitish scar around its body just past the gill covers. my polypterus looked about the same as always: hungry.
so, back home the fish goes. into a 50 gallon breeder tank with a 12" common pleco, which lasted about a day and a half before i separated them and whisked the pleco off to the orphan tank at work for its own safety, missing most of its dorsal fin.
he's beaten up on oscars and dempseys, and killed numerous convicts (most of which were added at various times by a friend of mine as "punishment" for their killing others of his fish). so much for the reputations of those fish.
i experimented with handfeeding at one point, to see if it would calm him down any. this ended one day when, as i was dangling a nightcrawler in the tank, it slipped from my fingers and drifted to the bottom. "no biggie," i thought, reaching in to grab it and try again. next thing i'm aware of is a foot-and-a-half long fish attached to the skin of my forearm, jaws clenched, wrenching back and forth like a pitbull. had a nice ring of scabs on my arm for a while after that, and we no longer hand feed the polypterus.
he's bitten me on several other occasions as well, mostly during tank maintenance, but never as spectacularly as that first time.
a good friend in seattle used to keep a 300g with about eight ornates in it, all of which did fine together for several years (until the group was traded as part of a deal on a trio of subadult blue arowanas) and appeared to be the mellow, relaxing fish they're alleged to be.
mine has never contributed to that illusion. i'm still, after all these years, trying to catch him standing still long enough for a decent picture. reading some of the other posts in this forum and seeing ornates described as 'mellow' or 'slow moving,' i gotta wonder. he's now about 20" long, has a few scars both from brawls and from an unfortunate water-quality episode during a 300-mile move several years ago, and shows no signs of settling down.
i get splashed when i walk past his tank at night, triggering a strong attack response that it's made more than one visitor to my house jump when they provoke it. it's a wonder anyone comes to visit us any more, me and my killer attack sea monster...
i need to upsize the tank and add stronger filtration; i'd also like to get back into the 'aquascaping' aspect of the hobby (he did great in a planted tank several years back, albeit when he was a bit smaller...) it's been a great decade, though. i'm looking forward to the next few!
thanks for indulging my long, rambling post. happy to be aboard!
. I think the maniacs have more personality than normal bichirs.
