how many bichir in tank?

[Dragon2]

I'm planning on buying a 120cmX40cmX50cm tank (juwel rio 240). How many senegalus can I keep in this tank, for life?

And as a sidenote, can Discus be good tankmates for bichir? There are a number of 2nd hand tanks here that come with fish, most often discus it seems. I like cichlids, not particularly a discus fan, but if they're free...

thanks for answering,
Saskia

 

[Dragon2]

Another question, is salmon OK to feed? I got some leftovers from the shop today, and the bichir + cichlids went for it straight away. Seems to mess up the water real quick though...

 

[Llamalord]

Personally I prefer not to feed salmon (and even trout) just because of the fat content. If I end up feeding locally caught fish to my polys I tend to stick with yellow perch and walleye, both are white meat and aren't as fatty or greasy as other species. To be honest I wouldn't really worry about it too much. Keep the water clean and it should be just fine. While I don't like to feed trout to my polys I do make sure to keep the hearts when I clean the fish, my polys absolutely love them. They're bite size too

 

[dpete88]

Salmon is too greasy to thrown in a tank IMO. Like you said it murks up the water real quick. It is however one of the most readily devoured fish meat by our predatory friends. Any fish that I've had any issues getting off of live will usually go foe salmon straightaway. Or smelt. Smelt is healthier but often times I find a lot of scales floating around my tank afterwards

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[Llamalord]

Sorry forgot to answer your first question, I'd personally limit it to around 3 sens, so long as you have adequate filtration I wouldn't worry too much about it, they live together well. Make sure there are plenty of hiding spaces, you could get away with more than that but I think 3 would be a good number. As for discus they'll work, polys tend to be more robust and capable of surviving varying water parameters, but discus are a bit more finicky, so as long as the discus are happy the polys will be fine.

I would shy away from keeping cichlids with the polys though, the cichlids will be far more aggressive than the polys and may end up harrassing them. Hope that was some help.

 

[Dragon2]

Cool, i'll stick with the 3 youngsters I have now then. I thought, if I was going to add some more, I'd better do it now and let them go up together so they're the same size. But 3 is fine anyway.

The cichlids I have the with now are wusses (Leptosoma), so no worries they're going to harass the bichir. Rather, they're going to end up as lunch if I leave them in the tank much longer methinks...

I'll figure something else out for the food, for now it's shrimp + a little bit of salmon, more foods to try...

 

[Llamalord]

If you're looking for a good replacement for the salmon check out tilapia, the fillets are quite affordable and far more nutritious than most of the other stuff you'll be able to get a hold of. You can easily get the fillets individually packaged, and they're quite tasty so you can enjoy them while your polys do the same.

Not sure if it's your thing but steam the fillets with finely diced ginger, a tiny amount of fish sauce and green onion, and a small amount of butter. It's awesome

If you ever decide on introducing more polys you'll always be able to keep them in a grow out until they reach proper size. Although to be fair most mfk'ers already overstock their tanks, you could probably get away with 5 or so, as I said before the primary concern will almost always be filtration.