Nasty baby senegal!!

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Longimanus

Longimanus

Candiru
MFK Member
Feb 19, 2009
405
19
48
BC, Canada
So I have two three inch baby senegals in my 37 gallon tank, along with a four inch clown knife and four 2.5 inch boesmani rainbows. The senegals are super cute and I thought nice and sweet.

I recently bought a two inch fei feng and had it in a ten gallon temporarily and today I got him out of the ten to put in the 37. Well I kind of forgot about him while he was in a juice pitcher acclimating, and of course he jumped out.

I picked him up and held him in front of the filter and he was eventually fine. So I was watching him swim around and the smallest baby sen comes up and grabs the poor fei feng by the dorsal fin! Darn thing held on and ripped a big chunk out of its fin! I couldn't believe it! I'm wondering if it is because the senegal was hungry, maybe it is having trouble getting food as the clown knife is an uber pig? Or maybe it was because it sensed the FF was hurt already from being on the floor?

Now I'm too worried about the poor thing to leave it in there, it will have to go back in the ten gallon with the betta and baby severums. Poor thing. I had no idea a baby senegal could be so nasty. I put the FF in a breeder trap with a lid on it so that the senegals can't get at him. I would put him in the 90 gallon but I'm not sure what he would eat in there, as there is no algae.
 
that's an exceptionally aggressive senegal. has it been fed sufficiently?
 
Well now I'm not sure. I have a feeling after seeing that that it may not be getting enough. I've been feeding them NLS pellets, size large. I have seen at least one of them eat them, but maybe this one hasn't. Plus the CK goes around scarfing everything it finds.

Any advice for different foods to make sure it is eating? Maybe blood worms? They are on a largeish gravel substrate so I'm worried the blood worms will just fall between the cracks in the gravel. (I'm moving and when I have a new 50 set up for them it will be sand)

I have a shrimp thawing right now, so I will make sure they both have a good meal.
 
Well I fed them some shrimp and they inhaled it, and are so fat they can barely swim lol!

Do you think it is safe to let the FF out? Or should I just put it back in the ten gallon?
 
Longimanus;3424783; said:
Well now I'm not sure. I have a feeling after seeing that that it may not be getting enough. I've been feeding them NLS pellets, size large. I have seen at least one of them eat them, but maybe this one hasn't. Plus the CK goes around scarfing everything it finds.

Any advice for different foods to make sure it is eating? Maybe blood worms? They are on a largeish gravel substrate so I'm worried the blood worms will just fall between the cracks in the gravel. (I'm moving and when I have a new 50 set up for them it will be sand)

I have a shrimp thawing right now, so I will make sure they both have a good meal.
Click to expand...
u can try feeding earthworms mealworms silversides krill fish fillets or almost any food that sinks
 
I can't bring myself to chop up live worms so that's out. I will head to the market today and buy some fish fillets. What about mussels? Or squid?

I do have frozen krill, I will use that as well.

Thanks for the help.:)
 
The two little sens each ate two small chunks of shrimp, it must have really filled them up because I don't think they have moved since!

I did let the Fei Feng out of the breeder trap and it is doing fine and none of the others have bothered it.

I bought a bag of tilapia fillets and a bag of raw shrimp. I saw the silversides but they are fairly large so one of them would be way too much for all my fish. I'll have to wait until they get bigger for that I think. The fillets I should be able to just break chunks off while its frozen.
 
You need to remember that all bichirs are oppurtunistic feeders and will take down bigger prey if they are capable of doing. And Armored_delhezi is right, small bichir are more fierce as they get hungry more and will need more feeding as their metabolism is a lot faster than adult bichirs.
 
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