Multispinosa/Zebrina with discus and angels?

[illumnae]

I've been trying to read up on keeping crenicichla with discus, but most searches turn up questions and answers about the more aggressive lugubris likes, which I already know from personal experience won't work. I had a pair of tapajos red with my nhamunda heckels in a 240 gallon about 5 years back and the pikes terrorized my discus. Incidentally, I had an atabapo 2 kill a juvenile motoro ray too.

I've been away from the freshwater hobby for about 5 years dabbling with the marine side of things. Finally conquered having a successful sps tank, and I'm about to move to a new place and decided to tear the marine tank down in preparation for the move. I'm done with high maintenance tanks so I decided to go with a biotope style tank at my new place. The tank will be 7' x 3' x 3' so about 450 gallons and I'm intending to go with wild discus, some eartheaters and either Santa Isabel or Altum angels. I would very much like to have a pair of pikes in the tank, but am not sure if it's possible.

There's a thread I came across in the discus subforum where someone kept a group of saxatilis pikes with his wild discus and apparently the discus even bully the pikes sometimes so I guess as a fallback plan that's possible. However, my regular lfs has managed to bring in multispinosa in the past year, and they are regularly able to bring in zebrina, and I really like both of these species. I've read that both these species tend to be very laid back so I'm seriously considering keeping either of them in my tank. Would much prefer multispinosa of course, but I'll settle for zebrina if my lfs is not able to bring them in again.

Would it be possible for me to keep a pair of either of these pikes in my tank? I will have a couple of spare tanks set up for qt/breeding purposes so I'm also open to getting a group to house together and get a bonded pair before introducing them into the tank.

 

[tcav88]

I've been trying to read up on keeping crenicichla with discus, but most searches turn up questions and answers about the more aggressive lugubris likes, which I already know from personal experience won't work. I had a pair of tapajos red with my nhamunda heckels in a 240 gallon about 5 years back and the pikes terrorized my discus. Incidentally, I had an atabapo 2 kill a juvenile motoro ray too.

I've been away from the freshwater hobby for about 5 years dabbling with the marine side of things. Finally conquered having a successful sps tank, and I'm about to move to a new place and decided to tear the marine tank down in preparation for the move. I'm done with high maintenance tanks so I decided to go with a biotope style tank at my new place. The tank will be 7' x 3' x 3' so about 450 gallons and I'm intending to go with wild discus, some eartheaters and either Santa Isabel or Altum angels. I would very much like to have a pair of pikes in the tank, but am not sure if it's possible.

There's a thread I came across in the discus subforum where someone kept a group of saxatilis pikes with his wild discus and apparently the discus even bully the pikes sometimes so I guess as a fallback plan that's possible. However, my regular lfs has managed to bring in multispinosa in the past year, and they are regularly able to bring in zebrina, and I really like both of these species. I've read that both these species tend to be very laid back so I'm seriously considering keeping either of them in my tank. Would much prefer multispinosa of course, but I'll settle for zebrina if my lfs is not able to bring them in again.

Would it be possible for me to keep a pair of either of these pikes in my tank? I will have a couple of spare tanks set up for qt/breeding purposes so I'm also open to getting a group to house together and get a bonded pair before introducing them into the tank.

mrrobxc

 

[mrrobxc]

The zebrina will not work long term and I’m speaking from experience. The tank was a 180.

That said, with a 450, it may work. Just benorepared to Move them.

I keep Crenicichla Saxatilis with wild discus and it’s been working for a few months. I’m keeping my eyes on them since things can change once/if the Saxatilis breed.

 

[mrrobxc]

Multispinosa should work. Mine were the most mellow Crenicichla ive owned.

 

[illumnae]

Awesome thanks! So that was your tank that I saw keeping wild discus with saxatilis pikes! Beautiful tank and it's what inspired me to look into keeping pikes with my discus

 

[Goggy]

I have been keeping scalare angels, discus and a bonded pair of atabapo 1 together.

The twist is that I raised the Atabapo from a small size and the angels and discus were purchased as adults the entire time the tank has been running. Also my tank is 800 gallons. Also I had adult Severums that took some of the pike’s directed aggression.

Wanted to ask, where are you getting your pikes from? JZX? Did they get new crenicichla? The last time they had a multispinosa shipment was in February I believe?

 

[illumnae]

I have been keeping scalare angels, discus and a bonded pair of atabapo 1 together.

The twist is that I raised the Atabapo from a small size and the angels and discus were purchased as adults the entire time the tank has been running. Also my tank is 800 gallons. Also I had adult Severums that took some of the pike’s directed aggression.

Wanted to ask, where are you getting your pikes from? JZX? Did they get new crenicichla? The last time they had a multispinosa shipment was in February I believe?

Good to see someone else from the region here! Yup I buy most if not all my freshwater fish from JZX (well I did anyway before I went on my marine foray). They don't have a new shipment of crenicichla currently but like I mentioned they managed to get multispinosa recently (February is recent to me haha) and they seem to always have zebrina in stock. I believe they currently still have Xingu 2 in stock too.

Once the covid19 restrictions are lifted and I'm able to renovate my house and set up my new tank, I intend to ask them to see if they can get more multispinosa in.

Separate query, I know it's possible to get pikes adapted to pellet food. Any idea if its possible to get them to eat Repashy gel foods?

 

[Goggy]

Good to see someone else from the region here! Yup I buy most if not all my freshwater fish from JZX (well I did anyway before I went on my marine foray). They don't have a new shipment of crenicichla currently but like I mentioned they managed to get multispinosa recently (February is recent to me haha) and they seem to always have zebrina in stock. I believe they currently still have Xingu 2 in stock too.

Once the covid19 restrictions are lifted and I'm able to renovate my house and set up my new tank, I intend to ask them to see if they can get more multispinosa in.

Separate query, I know it's possible to get pikes adapted to pellet food. Any idea if its possible to get them to eat Repashy gel foods?

Didn't know they had Xingu 2s, do you know how big they are?
JZX had an amazing bonded pair of Xingu 3 that I was asking them about early last month, but I ended up taking their pair of Tapajos 2 instead. Currently waiting for this pandemic to be over so they can fly over to Thailand.

Both of my pikes accept repashy, but they have already been accepting pellets for a long while now. I would focus on getting them on pellet, gel foods would be really easy after that.

 

[illumnae]

Oops sorry I just asked, they are Xingu 1s. I just saw your other thread, you mentioned removing the discus and angels in your tank in a couple of months?

 

[Goggy]

Oops sorry I just asked, they are Xingu 1s. I just saw your other thread, you mentioned removing the discus and angels in your tank in a couple of months?

The pikes have been with me for a while, since they were 5”, when I made that post I was unsure if the crenicichla were matured yet, I eyeballed their size and assumed they were 9”, which is subadult size. Because of that, I was unsure whether or not the fish would start causing problems as they developed into adults, so I prepared cycled aquariums to take in misbehaving pikes/angels and discus

But now, I have measured each fish officially and they were both 12” which is how I learned they were grown adults. And they are very well behaved and interactive with me as of now.

Because of this, I have decided not to move any fish.