When I was 9 or so I got a micropeltes about 3 inches, grew it out to over 24 inches and sold it to someone with a bigger tank. Around the same time I grew out some p's from 1 inch to around 8-10 inches, and a longnose gar in the same tank from 3 inches to about 15 inches. After the channa I had an electric catfish, grew it to about a foot, was really boring, so I sold it. I then got an electric eel but had to sell it quickly because I moved to my mum's. Around the same time i had a badis badis, ornate bichir, native perch in a big cube tank, and others that i've forgotten, oh and an annectens.
And more recently, in the last year I've had or have a brazilian mal, a few hujetas, 2 acestrorhynchus altus, a pbass, an albino striata, a juvenile micro, a hydrolycus scomberoides, a cynodon gibbus, a hydrocynus vittatus, a punctata, a marulioides a bleheri, a parachanna, a hemibagrus nemerus, a clarias fuscus, a few senegalus, a delhezi, a weeksi, an endy endy, an endy congicus, 2 lapradeis, a reedfish, a dovii, a jag, a few oscars, a dormitator, a few convicts, a texas cichlid, a dempsey, a raphael, a pictus, a columbian shark, a couple of ctenopomas, a nicaraguensis, a GT, a loisellei, a festae, a salvini, a blochii, a sorubim lima, a synbranchus marmoratus, a mastacembelus mastacembelus, a papyrocranus afer, a jardini, a silver, a spotted gar, a few tilapia mariaes.
Oh and I have had 5 dovii's, all bigger than your 16 inch one and they were all ripped apart by my snakeheads
And like I said, a dovii is cheap and easy to look after, it's hardly an expert fish. Ironically back in England, the people I knew who kept doviis and jags were my age or younger. The people I knew who kept channas were 30's and 40's and had been keeping them for years.
So all you've had is a cobra snakehead? Why did you scoff at a striata if you've never owned one? They grow big, almost as big as a micro, and they are mean mean fish. MOre attitude than a red.
God i love this fish!!! 
