New Channa bleheri

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PuffPeep

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 1, 2010
23
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Mansfield, England
Actually I've had this Channa for about 3 months, but I've only just found out my log-in information, so haven't been on this site for a long time. He's finally starting to fill out. He's maybe 4" long, but starting to get more mature looking, not so skinny anymore. He's a bit stupid when it comes to food though. If he doesn't see where I've dropped it, he looks all around like he's got no clue. I do think he's improving and he certainly isn't missing any meals by the size of him.

Just wondering, has anyone had any success with keeping any clean-up fish with a Rainbow snakehead? I was thinking Bristlenose but didn't want to chance it unless someone could tell me they had no problems. I would hate to have my snakehead kill anything. I do not feed him live food, I give him frozen mussels and sometimes a bit of bloodworm. I'm curious what other people are feeding theirs, especially bigger ones. I really don't want to resort to feeding live fish, as there's such a chance for the snakehead to get parasites .... although I used to breed guppies to feed to puffers, so it's not as if I'm squeamish, just would have to make room for more guppies I suppose.

Anyway, I am new to the world of snakeheads, so any information would be appreciated. I am thinking of getting a birchir at some point, of course, not to go in with the snakehead!!

Cheers :)
 
Hi Bleheri are a great little species.

I recommend against any type of pleco, I've had snakeheads kill pleco's and I've also seen a plecos take a bite out of a snakehead while it was resting under a log. In my opinion and experience it just doesn't work out. Temperatures will also be a factor in this case as many pleco's like the warmer ranges and Bleheri need to be kept in the colder end of sub tropical range.

As for feeding I feed a mixture of Chopped shrimp and meal worms. any meaty food will work. Bleheri are a species that will do well on a diet high in insect content, meal worms are my preference easy to keep and breed a steady supply, and you can "gutload" them by feeding them fresh veggies before feeding them to the snakehead. Most will except pellets as well if you prefer take that route it's an easy species to convert to pellet feeding. With that said if he's just sniffing around during feedings your probably feeding too much/too often he's not actually hungry, I'd cut feedings back until he's actively eating.

hope that helps! Now let's see some pic's !
 
Would you guys happen to know what this guy, I got him from petco only because I knew he wasn't a regular pleco, is he a sailfin or high fin spotted pleco? Thanks guys


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I dont know about yours, but my pulchra tried to take a bite out of my snail last night (a test to see what might happen with a plec), so I would suggest trying a snail and see how they deal with that first before risking any other fish... Thats only my complete beginner opinion though and i dont know anything about other snakeheads :-/


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My guy is in a tank that's becoming overpopulated with ramshorn snails, and he just ignores them. I've even got some cherry shrimp in there with him. The snails do eat the leftover food, and probably the shrimp too, but the only problem with that scenario is that my ramshorn snails are taking over the tank, slowly but surely. I was thinking about temporarily moving the snakehead to another tank, and then putting my puffer into his tank to eat all those snails, and then switching them back. But moving fish can lead to problems, especially puffers ..... so maybe I will just leave things as they are for now.
 
Snail populations normally will only get out of control if your overfeeding, If you cut back the feedings until the snake heads is actively excepting food as I suggested above you'll have the added bonus of forcing the snail population die back to a more reasonable level without food snails will disappear very quickly.

How often and how much are you feeding ?

To give an example I currently keep auranti and asiatica both are sub tropical species with care and reuirements very similar to bleheri,

The auranti are about 12" still growing at a steady pace and i'll feed every other day or so. IN a feeding they will receive 3-4 dozen meal worms. Once a week or so I'll swap the meal worms out for 2-3 raw shrimp chopped up into bite sized chunks. This routine is not set in stone, if the feeding response slows or if they look to still have full stomachs i'll skip a meal. Or if they devour them in a flash and are still actively hunting I'll do a second smaller meal later that same day.

My Asiatic is full grown mature adult 14+ inches and very heavy bodied. I'll toss her 3-5 meal worms once or twice a week tops, every couple weeks I'll give her a couple chopped shrimp. Any more then this and she gets lazy and obese developing fat rolls on her neck. Even with this limited diet she's still very healthy and quite fat.
 
I feed my snakehead a small piece of mussel, maybe every other day, but not every day. The snails are taking off because I took the puffer out of that tank .... but trust me, you don't need to feed much to have a growing population of ramshorn snails.
 
You know, I feel a bit guilty ... I've got my Channa up for sale, but I have to be honest in that he's really growing on me. I don't particularly think the Rainbow's are all that pretty, I had a pulchra that I thought was beautiful .... but the bleheri is definitely growing on me. It's not his looks, but rather, his personality. He will come to the glass and sit and look at me. He definitely knows when it's feeding time and gives me "the eye". He will also take food from my hands, although I am not sure I will continue doing this considering he will grow much bigger than he is now. Do they have teeth at all, does anyone know? I do think it's cool how slowly he goes to the top and takes a breath of air just barely breaking the surface, he's so gentle in doing so. I've had birchirs that will race towards the top and nearly leap out to get a breath, but my bleheri is very calm about it all. He is quite interesting.
 
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