ID this Lungfish!

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SimonL;5061120; said:
What? Find me an example lol. I've had three 2-3 footers with all kinds of stock and never a problem. The only thing they object to is each other.

My 30" male SAL slaughtered two larger eartheater cichlids (Geophagus "abalios") one night a few weeks ago for no apparent reason. He was fed the night before, so he definitely wasn't killing them out of hunger. I was extremely surprised when I discovered their corpses in the morning sans their entire tails plus part of their bodies; the only other fish in the aquarium with them was the SAL, too.
 
Interesting, never heard of that before.
 
Simon,

ricky (infblue, and plenty of other names depending on where) had an SAL with a lot of other bichirs and it randomly attacked at least one of them, if not a few, back in the day (we then re-homed that SAL in our lab, and now it's at the Nature Zoo where richard works).

SALs will usually get along with other fishes as seems to generally hold, but i usually just advise not keeping them with anything not armored OR that you're willing to lose. i've kept my current one with gars for about 3-4 years (i lose track) and haven't had any serious problems...some nipped tails in both species' directions here in there, but that's it. AUL seems like a pretty safe bet as long as it can't swallow the tankmates.

ALL that being said, that dorsal shot of the lungfish by the OP reminds me of my P. a. congicus when it was very small...BUT i have been out of the YOY lungfish ID game for a while so i'm probably pretty rusty. agree with earlier posts that it's likely annectens, but no way it's a dolloi. nice specimen either way--
--solomon
 
Guess i won't be getting the WAL anymore. Not taking chances with my Afro. Thanks for all the feedbacks guys!
 
SimonL;5061120; said:
What? Find me an example lol. I've had three 2-3 footers with all kinds of stock and never a problem. The only thing they object to is each other.

Had a SAL too before that went berserk. I sold that one back in 2008. Well that was my early days of lungfish keeping.
 
Interesting, I've never had a problem with them. I wonder if it's a gender thing. That said, I'm sure they can inflict some massive damage...I defleshed the head of a deceased three footer once, the dental plates are scary! The lower one especially has ridges the size of my teeth.
 
SimonL;5063604; said:
Interesting, I've never had a problem with them. I wonder if it's a gender thing. That said, I'm sure they can inflict some massive damage...I defleshed the head of a deceased three footer once, the dental plates are scary! The lower one especially has ridges the size of my teeth.

Check the back fins to see if they look like this:

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You have a male if the fins have those little fleshy, furry looking things on them. Apparently mature male SALs develop them to help keep the eggs that they guard aerated.
 
Neither of my big ones ever had the feathering, although I was under the impression they developed it only when breeding.
 
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