Don't let your bowfin gorge on borderline rotten fish...

[thebiggerthebetter]

... or so I think.

Got my first bowfin about 3 months ago from Jeff Rapps at ~3" and $40 before shipping. It started eating catfish farm pellets soon, no problem, then it discovered I serve baitfish too and that became its first and foremost preference. Grew to ~7.5". Very personable and smart fish. Just too greedy a bowfin plus stupid keeper is a bad combo.

I fed the gang (12 tanks) as usual, including three gulper catfish behind a divider in the bowfin tank. The bowfin ate its lion's share. The gulpers have not finished their baitfish - in the morning I saw in passing two uneaten fish stuck in/under the divider - no biggie, it happens - but I was in a great hurry so thought I'd pull them out when I am back in a few hours. When I came back I didn't find the uneaten baitfish, which from experience I know usually is barely edible by the morning (in 85-88 F water overnight). There are three other fish in with the bowfin, kind of misfits - wels catfish, slobbering catfish, and a Prochilodus lineatus.

So I thought, well, someone has eaten the two uneaten baitfish.

On a second day, the bowfin was dead. I can only think from food poisoning. It was plum and red, perhaps from septicemia.

 

[Wailua Boy]

Thats too bad, it probably is related; he looks some what bloated.

Do you catch the bait fish yourself? If so what species

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I stock about 14 cu feet for the whole year. Yes, I catch them with a cast net in the Gulf of Mexico. There are about 20-30 different species. Most common ones are several spp of herring, anchovy, mullet, whiting, pompano, jack, pin fish, etc. Most of them 2"-5".

 

[Pomatomus]

That's too bad, I'm sorry for your loss. Did you perform a necropsy?

Your water temperature is very high, but probably not the cause of death.

Idk where Rapps gets his fish from, but if it was from a bowfin farm then chances are you got a suboptimal specimen. That's how it goes for most fish that are farmed for food. The runts get sold in the aquarium trade. It could have been related to bad genes.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Hey, neighbor. Thanks. This is the usual start of my learning experience, it seems. No I haven't cut up the dead bowfin yet, just froze it for now.

I neither heat nor cool my water. It is what it is. My fish room is a semi-outdoors pavilion. A heavily shaded atrium structure covered with tarp.

Again, I am an utter newbie when it comes to bowfins but I've never known that they can be farmed. Seems to me they are too slow / small growing and likely too voracious / cannibalistic feeders to be of value to food fish farming. I can be way off though.

Still, you're right. I couldn't agree more with our trade getting the waste from the food fish farms. Only recently have I began to realize the enormous extent of this practice.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

These so called farming operations are usually just farm style ponds with. Bowfin in them,but what really puzzles me is when platinum bowfins r for sale,where do those individuals come from?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Managed to kill another bowfin. Talented me.

~15" Bowfin from snookn21, just got it a couple of months back, not sure what happened. It took a couple of weeks to learn the tank and the tank mates and the foods offered.

It ate exceptionally well and got bold and started to claim the whole center of 4500 gal to itself, dominating all other fish, and not only benthic but mid water too. I did a Malachite Green treatment recently so that could be it. Or not.

It was collected from the Everglades just before sold. Its brother at 14" still doing ok in the same 4500 gal.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

You can see the surviving bowfin in 4500 gal if you look intently to the right haha:

 

[Dieselhybrid]

Sorry for your loss.

I've always loved bowfin and been fascinated by them. I grew up when Channa were legal in US so the bowfin seemed similar enough to "scratch the Channa itch" and they certainly did. I had a small colony back in college and loved them. Got them from TFD before Joe retired. I lost two inexplicably after 2 or 3 years. I thought at the time from overfeeding or bad foods (i caught all of their food). I'm wondering if they have a sensitive digestive system or weak immune system.

Keep up the good work, sometimes loses happen in the hobby. I'm a fan of your collections and systems.

Cheers

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Hey mate, thanks! They are amazing survivors. Being the only one in your family, they have to be.

I fathom that when it comes to any natural dangers, they can handle them superbly. I think what can get through to them better are some chemicals and medicines.

Could be kind of like pacu. Tough as nails but a trace of clout medicine or rather its one particular ingredient Trichlorfon, a brand name for dimethyl trichloro hydroxyethyl phosphonate, and pacu is no more. Clout also contains malachite green and metronidazole.