Hi fellow pike keepers

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
R

Rambo85

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 15, 2008
145
0
0
My own happy little world
Im Ian (a Noob), 23, been keeping fish for 8 yrs now mostly keeping the generic tropicals up until a few years ago when i fell for pike cichlids. Currently i have a Crenicichla lepidota Female (7") who is my pride and joy - she is in my 400L and was originally in with a female salvini and a JD but as the pike got older she savaged them both, almost to death forcing me to rehome them. so now she is the queen bee in the tank and is as aggressive as hell, constantly attacking me when i try to clean her territory. If anyone has any experience with pikes and could suggest suitable tankmantes for her (was maybe thinking a male lepidota?) and can point me in the direction of good info on keeping them then i am all ears.

This may sound daft and i may well get slated as the inexperienced noob but my pike is kept with Clown loaches and......... a small shoal of Corydoras............... as they kept trying to jump out my planted tank.

The pike wont touch the cory's (both been living together for well over a year) but any live feeder fish up to 2.5" she will chomp without a second thought! and would attack other resonably aggressive cichlids i put in (salvini) and go for me as well. Anyone ever heard of this? I am happy to post pics of them together if anyone thinks im havin a laugh. the original odd couple i tell ya!:screwy:

Some pics should be attached but im new here so i may have done it wrong...

Cheers,

IDR

pike hiding.JPG

Tank.JPG

1.JPG

2.JPG

3.JPG

4.JPG
 
Rambo85;2202403; said:
Im Ian (a Noob), 23, been keeping fish for 8 yrs now mostly keeping the generic tropicals up until a few years ago when i fell for pike cichlids. Currently i have a Crenicichla lepidota Female (7") who is my pride and joy - she is in my 400L and was originally in with a female salvini and a JD but as the pike got older she savaged them both, almost to death forcing me to rehome them. so now she is the queen bee in the tank and is as aggressive as hell, constantly attacking me when i try to clean her territory. If anyone has any experience with pikes and could suggest suitable tankmantes for her (was maybe thinking a male lepidota?) and can point me in the direction of good info on keeping them then i am all ears.

This may sound daft and i may well get slated as the inexperienced noob but my pike is kept with Clown loaches and......... a small shoal of Corydoras............... as they kept trying to jump out my planted tank.

The pike wont touch the cory's (both been living together for well over a year) but any live feeder fish up to 2.5" she will chomp without a second thought! and would attack other resonably aggressive cichlids i put in (salvini) and go for me as well. Anyone ever heard of this? I am happy to post pics of them together if anyone thinks im havin a laugh. the original odd couple i tell ya!:screwy:

Some pics should be attached but im new here so i may have done it wrong...

Cheers,

IDR
Click to expand...

beautiful pikes... you did the pics just perfect... i love your collection and tanks...welcome again to MFK
 
welcome to mfk. love your lepidota. you could try other sa cichlids like convicts maybe but might run into the same problem as with the salvinis. another option is some sort of dither fish. something fast that likes to swim mid to upper part of the tank. first thought is alwways silver dollars but they might eat ur live plants. i think those are live right? could try tinfoil barbs as well but they will get large.
 
Welcome very nice looking pike it isn't very common for pikes to be nasty like that but there are some that do behave like yours i would try fish like Convicts cichlids there tuff fast and cheap if thats a no go you may wan't to try faster moveing fish like barbs or non cichlid fish
 
Let me start out by saying beautiful Lepidota and I love the tank setup

I've noticed the cory immunity to predication thing myself. I've seen my belly crawler suck up a small cory and spit it out like it was a hot ember. The spikes on its pectoral fins might be the reason?
I've also had my cobras kill three salvinis that were to large to eat. I'm not sure why but they singled them out first for some reason.
They also killed a male red devil that was far to large to consume 4-5"?
The female red devil was about 6" and had much more girth, she held her own but did get attacked.
As killerfish said convicts are an excellent choice just make sure they are smaller than the pikes.
They left the red hook silver dollars alone. they would swim beside each other (the red hooks 4-5" and the cobras 9+") and would shiver (best description I can give maybe qwuiver would work too) but would never attack?
They also left a pair of red head veja alone that were smaller than both the slavinis and the male red terror?
The sailfin pleco 8-9" got terrorized. The cobras would take the algae discs from the pleco but not eat them? They would just take them and put them behind the pleco and nail him a couple times when he tried to take them back.:screwy: I feel a little bad because he did die eventually but I think it was from starvation not from the aggression.
Here is a pic you can see the algae disc the cobra pulled out of the plecos mouth laying below the cobra as he tries to take the other disc from the plecos mouth. The cobra was small in this pic as it got bigger it really pounded the pleco.
2008_0406Abbybob0010.jpg


Here is a group shot before the killing began

2008_0510Abbybob0024.jpg
 
Cheers for the comments,

The plants are real, so silver dollars arent really suitable. I like the idea of convicts and may give them a go but i am worried if i get them too small they wont be able to put up enough of a fight against her?

She isnt always aggressive but does have serious mood swings - one day she would be happy to have the JD or salvini in the tank the next she was on a mission to wipe them out.

I will leave the corys in for the moment as she has been fine with them for a year but i will try and rehome them in the near future.

Does anyone else have a lepidota that they can post pics of? I have only ever seen my one and the one on google images. Are they rare?/expensive? i bought mine as a "dwarf pike cichlid" for £10 and havent seen one since (in warrington UK)

Im guessing adding another pike would be unwise?

turtle_slayer - that cobra pike looks cool. never seen 1 before. how big is it? sweet set up btw - how did you keep silver dollars and plants together?!

Cheers,

IDR
 
get the cons at about 4", I would say

the corys will probably be fine, but, yeah, if it does decide to turn on them, it won't be good for either of them

lepidota are pretty rare. a lot of fish are called lepidota but aren't.

you could try a male, but they will probably be the only 2 in the tank. who knows, another species might work, too. sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom