Birchir Help!!

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kavin2845 said:
so r u guys positive a sen can live happily in a 40 gal?
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Yes. I have two bichers that are about 12" and have lived for years in a 40 gallon breeder
With a 6" African clawed frog and a couple African leaf fish.

If its a breeder tank like mine, with a 36x18 footprint and some hiding places, I would say you can keep 4-5 Senegal or other small lower jaw species. Maybe less in a standard 40.

If you just keep one he should be fat and happy. Although i think they do better and are more active in groups


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lol i called some guys at my lfs and they said i can keep a sen in a 40 but they can get big enough to eat like rainbow cichlids, Blue acaras, and key hole Cichlids is that true?
 
lol he was on the phone and he sounded busy so maybe he though i was talking about bigger bichir. so what do u gus think about my fish selection.
- Blue Acara Cichlid x1
- Rainbow Cichlid x1
- Key Hole x1
- Senegal Birchir x1
if u guys think there is some more space for like 1 more fish please feel free to add
 
I've had my Bichir for about 6 months now. It loves the Hikari sinking carnivour pellets (not really big enough for the massivore ones yet) and I have it in a tank with a Brown Knife and Ompock Catfish.
You never said if you're using a regular 40g or a 40 breeder tank. In a breeder, you can have 4 Sens easy with some middle and top dwelling fish. In a standard 40, I wouldn't go with more than one, maybe 2. Mine gets fed once a day and it's growth rate is rather slow. I would recommend getting other fish that are about the same size as the sen and will grown at an average rate so as the sen grows, they'll be too big to fit it's mouth. The sens are usually pretty good about not going after anything considerably bigger than their mouths! Mine's about 5 or 6 inches right now and it doesn't even look at the 2 inch guppy that's in the tank!
The Bichir's don't mind high currents so as long as you got good filtration, you're really not that limited to the number of fish in your tank. I would just stay away from fish that produce high amounts of waste since they tend to sink down to the sens feeding area.
 
I have four bichirs and they have not attempted to escape their tank at all. From some of what I have read, they will not do so as long as they are happy. I make sure that they have lots of hiding places, the best of food and they seem very content. One of them even comes to the top now to let me pet him. I love my bichirs. I keep gravel and several different sizes of rocks in the tank. I mostly feed blood worms and beef blood cubes. I gravel vac 2x a week ( their food can be messy ) and net out the left over food daily and do a partial water change once a week ( about 10 gallons ) . I had a cool ornament that resembled a small tree that all my fish seemed to love but finally removed it as all they were doing was hiding in it and I hardly ever saw them. Instead, I put some old clear kitchen glasses and a large clear drinking pitcher in the tank and now I can watch them and they seem to find it acceeptable. Right now I temporarily have them in a 29 gallon they have just about outgrown and am getting ready to buy a bigger tank. Mine have grown very quickly since I got them.......I did have two tanks going with bichirs and my other fish but as my pump and heater both died recently on one of the tanks, I combined them until I by a bigger tank as I need to upgrade all that stuff anyway. Raising bichirs is a rewarding experience ! I get excited everytime I can tell they have grown and they all have such different personalities.
 
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