how fast do bichirs grow??

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Cosmic_surfer said:
Water changes are always important. The thing anyone who keeps fish must consider is stress levels. Fish literally breath their surroundings in, so a poor quality water with amonia and nitrite would spell disaster for most fish. Bichir are still subject to stress, but they are alot less susceptible to stress than other species of fish. Bichir have modified swim bladders and can literally gulp air from the water surface. This is an adaptation for their natural occuring environment, they have been known to inhabit stagnant pools of water where water oxygen levels are nearly non existant. This isnt to say they can live in a pool of feces either. Clean water means happy fish. If you want a challenge, try keeping discus and knife fish, both of which are very picky about water quality.
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Cosmic_surfer said:
Water changes are always important. The thing anyone who keeps fish must consider is stress levels. Fish literally breath their surroundings in, so a poor quality water with amonia and nitrite would spell disaster for most fish. Bichir are still subject to stress, but they are alot less susceptible to stress than other species of fish. Bichir have modified swim bladders and can literally gulp air from the water surface. This is an adaptation for their natural occuring environment, they have been known to inhabit stagnant pools of water where water oxygen levels are nearly non existant. This isnt to say they can live in a pool of feces either. Clean water means happy fish. If you want a challenge, try keeping discus and knife fish, both of which are very picky about water quality.
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Thanks for the reply. :)That makes sense about breathing in their surroundings. Guess I didn't think about it past face value. Of course heightened levels of stress, would affect the other body systems. Didn't know it could stunt growth. However, I guess that also makes sense because the environment is not ideal, so the fish is having to use all of its resources/systems just to survive. Do you know what specifically causes that? I think that's really fascinating!

Have never kept discus for that reason, but have kept puffers and knives. Puffers successfully for years, knives, not so much. lol. With the puffers, I overfiltered and did frequent water changes because of their heavy bioloads. Will need to keep this up if I ever go into knives again.

Are bichirs scaleless? I know the knivefish and puffers you mentioned are more sensitive to water quality. But I wonder if bichirs are with the exception of their adaptation of breathing air.

Thank you for the thought provoking response! I'm excited to hear back. :D
 
Bichir are not scaleless, in fact i have read that it is believed that they are the genetic bridge between fish and amphibians. There is a video on youtube you can watch about bichir evolution. Basically it goes on to show that scientists kept bichir in terrariums that were high humidity. What resulted was bichir that were able to traverse land with less slipage and more lift of the head. Indeed they were walking (kinda). What was discovered was the anatomy of the bichir changed, specifically the bone structure. They called this elasticity, a way for an organism to adapt to its environment.

Back to stress in bichirs to water quality. Yes they can breath air, but poor water quality would still cause problems with their tissue in the gills. Infections could develop. Bichir are known to leave bodies of water to find other bodies. I bet this is to find a body of water that isnt as harsh. Stress can stunt and even kill a fish, this is evident in the hobby as very few bichir reach the 2.5 or 3 foot mark they are known to reach in the wild in some species. Yes we are capable of keeping a fish in a healthy environment, but neglect can happen, and it leads to some bad outcomes in a moments time. There was a koi fish in japan that was kept by severap generations of a family in a pond, it lved for something like 225 years. So with non-neglect some fish can live extremely long lives they wouldnt normally see in the wild as well.
 
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Nitrates are toxic to fish just less toxic than ammonia and nitrites.

Im not sure if this applies to poly's but when we do wc's we are removing allot more than just nitrates. I read that dominant cichlids will emit growth inhibiting hormons and heavy wc's help reduce the affects on other fish, i always wondered if this same principle applies to polys ?

Plus when adding fresh water we are replacing minerals that get depleted over time in our tank water
 
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Cosmic_surfer said:
Bichir are not scaleless, in fact i have read that it is believed that they are the genetic bridge between fish and amphibians. There is a video on youtube you can watch about bichir evolution. Basically it goes on to show that scientists kept bichir in terrariums that were high humidity. What resulted was bichir that were able to traverse land with less slipage and more lift of the head. Indeed they were walking (kinda). What was discovered was the anatomy of the bichir changed, specifically the bone structure. They called this elasticity, a way for an organism to adapt to its environment.

Back to stress in bichirs to water quality. Yes they can breath air, but poor water quality would still cause problems with their tissue in the gills. Infections could develop. Bichir are known to leave bodies of water to find other bodies. I bet this is to find a body of water that isnt as harsh. Stress can stunt and even kill a fish, this is evident in the hobby as very few bichir reach the 2.5 or 3 foot mark they are known to reach in the wild in some species. Yes we are capable of keeping a fish in a healthy environment, but neglect can happen, and it leads to some bad outcomes in a moments time. There was a koi fish in japan that was kept by severap generations of a family in a pond, it lved for something like 225 years. So with non-neglect some fish can live extremely long lives they wouldnt normally see in the wild as well.
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woah. that is fascinating! I learned a lot. Wow! That's crazy about the bichirs adapting their anatomy to living on land! They truly are amazing creatures. Also, didn't know that water poor water quality caused problems with the tissues in their gills. Or that a koi lived for 225 years! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with me. Glad to have you on the forum :)
 
Bichirs will adapt to your ph no matter what, i was paranoid with the ph before too but members here told me not to mess with ph and stop adding solution for ph, they will adapt to it. But thats only if you wanna do power feeding. I have alot of bichirs when i first started and i feed alot, soi dont consider mines power feeding cause i only feed one time everyday but i put alot of food in that one feeding, then ill wait 45 min to check if there is any left over, if there is a left over i scoop it out.
 
@mbupuff1234 est your water before water changes that will tell you where your nitrates are. Say your goal is to not let nitrates get above 20ppm and the day your doing your wc its at roughly 20pmm your good. But now say your at 40ppm on wc day you'll need to increase your wc's. I've been doing two fin level wc's plus a 50% thats because im over stocked and know that if i dont it'll probably hit 60 or 80 ppm.


I havent cared about ph for yrs but some people are concerned about ph swings i think you should test your tap ph along with the tanks oh on wc day then again a couple of days after wc
 
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