New Poly Senegal

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Davey_8313

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 17, 2007
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With Wife & Kids in Stafford
I just bought a new Senegal and I was just wondering what I should feed him and stuff... He's only like 2-3" right now, he's a little guy. I'll get some pics when I get some new batteries. Right now, I have blue and green gravel b/c it was my g/f's tank and I was thinking that I should probably change that, right? This is my first Poly, thanks...
 
I've got mine with some gravel and he seems to be doing fine. I would have done a bit of research before buying the fish though? Petsmart carries omega one shrimp pellets that you can use. (None of their other dry food seems to work.) You could get frozen bloodworms etc if your gf doesn't mind having that in her freezer.
 
Hope you enjoy the world of keeping polypterus. Any FW substrate is fine as these fish can thrive in harsh conditions, hence the adaptive lung mechanism...btw leave room at the top of the aquarium for the fish to breathe air, regardless of aeration. Feeding all depends on how quickly you would like the fish to grow and its tankmates. P. senegalus enjoys live food when available, such as guppers, rosies and comets, but you will find it is not the most adept hunter on its prehensile fins. Beefheart will encourage some quick growth if thats your goal, bloodworms work well for young polypterus. If the fish is finnicky you may have to use some tongs or tweezers to initiate interest in front of the fishes face. Either way, bloodworms, beefheart, rosy reds will all do as more than adequate food sources. Try to wean on freeze dried or packaged foods early and wave around using the same methods to try to entice it to eat, is thats the route you'd like to take. Once reaching a decent size, the fish will accept all kinds of food. My senegalus is around a foot long and eating feeder comets, krill, beefheart, bloodworm blocks, and clams. It is very important to provide adequate nutrition for these fish to get adequate sized however, so make sure you supplement their diet accordingly.
 
Welcome to bichir keeping! :headbang2

Try to stay away from live food. Some people don't mind QT'ing feeders constantly, but it's a PITA IMO.

Instead, get it on some sort of prepared foods such as hikar gold/bio gold plus, massivore, etc..

such a small sen should be feed frozen market shrimp (cut into really tiny pieces of course), chopped up pieces of earthworms/night crawlers, frozen blood worms, etc.

HTH
 
First of all, nice pickup! Second of all, the best things to feed little polys would be pellets and various frozen foods. I've found that my delhezi really loved frozen bloodworms when it was little, so you might want to try those.
 
Alright, thank you guys. He seemed to eat a few of my frozen brine shrimp that I put in there. Should I buy sinking pellets probably and where can you buy Massivore? I've seen a few people on here talk about it, thanks...
 
Welcome to the world of Birchirs, I haven't looked back after getting mine!

I feed mine Ornate frozen spelt fish, frozen bloodworm cubes, sinking catfish pellets. She is quite sneaky as i put in some live locosts for my african butterfly fish and they sometimes leave one for later, she will stalk it and all of a sudden there is a spalsh and she is at the bottom chopping away on it!

I think there pretty hardy and will eat pretty much anything there given, as said above certain things increase growth!
 
i wouldn't get massivore especially at the size he is right now.

i'd get him on a diet of some pellets such as aquarian sinking pellets, or any catfish pellet, even spirula, and then add in small pieces of frozen shrimp, fish fillet, mysis shrimp, ect.

if you want really good growth, when he gets to around 5" QT feeders and add those to its diet and he should grow pretty darn quick.

GL!!!
 
With young bichirs, I try to get them on floating pellets. I did this with my endli, and there's nothing quite like watching my 11.5" endli swimming around the surface carefully eating all the pellets.

If you wait too long, it's very difficult to get them to do this behavior (I'll have a video up soon of the endli eating floating pellets).


You could always break up the massivore pellets (it's easy to break up). The younger you start them on foods you want them on, the better. Especially such a protein rich diet, because it will give you good growth rates and healthy fish.
 
Cohazard;1239734; said:
With young bichirs, I try to get them on floating pellets. I did this with my endli, and there's nothing quite like watching my 11.5" endli swimming around the surface carefully eating all the pellets.

If you wait too long, it's very difficult to get them to do this behavior (I'll have a video up soon of the endli eating floating pellets).


You could always break up the massivore pellets (it's easy to break up). The younger you start them on foods you want them on, the better. Especially such a protein rich diet, because it will give you good growth rates and healthy fish.
Alright, thanks man. Looks like I have to go shopping for food for him now. The floating pellets I have are too big definitely for him. I have some sinking ones though... any certain brand of floating ones I should get?
 
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