Grumpy Bichir

[grmanrocks]

a while ago i added a elephant nose to my tank with a baby 3" ornate. they appeared to get along just fine and the nose was eating . then the nose started to stay in the middle of the tank and only eat the food as it sunk. then mysterious chunks of its finns would dissapear. lastly about 2 weeks after introduction i saw my bichir dragging my elephant nose around the tank by its tail stalk . i immeadiatly intervened and separated the two. the next day i traded the nose to a LFS.

scince the elephant nose incedent i have added an L-200 Plec which has been ignored by the bichir and a 3" butterfly(these things rock, they are totaly like little arrows ) that has also been ignored.
try as i may i have ot been able to figure out what sparked my bichirs agression towords the nose when it just ignores the rest of the fish in the tank

any ideas?? but now im worryed about getting the leopord Ctentanoma ive been wanting? should i just get him and hope for the best or hold off and choose a different fish? Perhaps a school of tiger barbs?

 

[rasdbo]

in about one month your ornate will try to eat the butterfly or at least hunt it, watch out!!!

 

[is300zx]

you should watch out for the pleco. plecos have been known to scrape off or eat the slime coats of bichirs. how big was the elephant nose? if it was still small then the bichir probably saw it as food.

 

[grmanrocks]

the plec is too big to suck the slime of the bichir if he tried heed end up slurping the bichir up like a worm, and the nose was bout 6 inches long, way too big for my ornate.

i dont know bout the whole hunting the b-fly thing , in a month he will barley be 4 inches long, i dont think he could eat a fish his size and twice as thick