Ornate bichir Info Needed
- Thread starter bigme213
- Start date
my ornate was pretty shy in eating and swimming about till around 8" or so. Now its very active and kind of a jerk during feeding time.
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I keep mine in low lighting as well. Mine are pretty active,but my big ones do run my tank. They are only aggressive to certain fish in my tank. (my big delhezi) I just added some drift wood so they can have their own areas of the tank and it works well.
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Like others have said, it all depends on the individual... I have an ornate and a delhezi, both around 12 inches and, apart from the (very) occasional glimpse, all i see of them is either snout or tail poking out from the pvc drain they share. I have AquaFX LED lighting which is dimmer than the original T8s that came with the tank and even when they are set to moonlight or night time mode they dont venture out. Even at feeding time for everyone else they arent interested. I feed them after lights out and once everything is pitch black they come out. If i turn the room lights on I see them feeding but they scurry straight back to their cave. Maybe if i only fed when the lights were on hunger would eventually bring them out? As for aggression, Ive seen none. However I had a 3-4 inch flying fox and a 3-4 inch rocket gar disappear under 'mysterious circumstances' and all blame falls on the ornate. So smaller fish beware! Ive had the ornate for 6-8 months and he has grown from about 4 inches to around 12 and hes really thick. Mine eats mainly massivore/sinking carnivore pellets when lights go out. Although when i first had him he was more active and would eat eathworms, krill, bloodworm, shrimp anything at all really. Both the ornate and the delhezi will eat fish but i have to poke it into their cave. They wont come out to get it. Cool fish though, and the (only?) positive side to hardly ever seeing them, is that once in a blue moon sighting, its a little jaw dropping how much bigger they have gotten from the last time...
Oh, I will say that I am upgrading to a 180 in the next month or so, so the change and the extra space may make a diference. Ill be using the same lights on the 6 foot that i have on the 4 foot so there will be more shaded areas. Only time will tell!!
good luck i hope the switch brings them out more. they really are cool fish. ive got 1 senegal and 1 albino senegal and they are both quite active. eventually all will be in a 220 gal and id love to grow out an ornate to go in there as well.
My senegal is out 24/7, really active. Fat as mud to quote steve irwin. Interestingly it wont eat pellets, other than hikari sinking wafers- the general community kind not the carnicore type. Anything fresh or frozen though and he eats and eats and eats... I have an albino senegal growing out in another tank, when hes big enough hell be in with the others. Hes the same though always out always active. Senegals are definitely the way to go if you want almost guaranteed activity and visibility. The others are cool though. I passed up an ansorgii the other week. Changed my mind a few days later, but it was too late. Next time i wont hesitate!
those are cool. yeah senegals are fun to watch swim around. always floating and sniffing around. i think im gonna go with an ornate if i can find one here for reasonable price. i have found them online but it would cost about 70$ after shipping. thats pretty high for a 4" fish.
