Ok, so i'm pretty new to keeping any bichirs at all, but have wanted to keep them for a while just didnt have the space/means and so didn't look into it too seriously. I recently picked up a P. palmas (assumedly palmas palmas) who is living with my jack dempsey babies until my new tank gets cycled. I'm hoping he can stay with them for life, but i'm also wondering: i found out that a local store can get in ornatipinis and is willing to hold it a few weeks for me to prove its worth spending the money on. Would it be possible to keep them both and also to keep them with the jacks? i'm looking to upgrade to a 125 or 150 in august or so (i'll be picking the tank up soon and getting it set up and cycling). would this work out ok, the only other tankmates would be a small schoal of angelicus botias when they get big enough and maybe some dither fish of some kind. what does everyone else keep with their polypterus sp. and in what size tanks and can they be kept safely together???? I'm really hoping to figure something out because I'm totally smitten on the palmas i have!!!!!!!
ornate tank and tankmates
- Thread starter bokononist
- Start date
ornates can eventually get to 18"-20"+ in captivity so i'm sure you'll have to separate it and the botias. good news is they take a long long time to get that big. they grow fast when small (say when <10"-12"), and then grow at a slower but steady rate until maybe 16" or so, and then after that growth slows down a lot. i'm keeping my bichirs with several gars, but mostly just with other bichirs. don't have other types of fish with them, so i can't help you much with tankmates.
as for your palmas if you can get a pic, we can help you ID it. sometimes lfs mislabel senegalus as 'palmas'. but if its indeed a palmas subspecies, and its very active (in bichir's standard), then its probably a palmas polli.
as for your palmas if you can get a pic, we can help you ID it. sometimes lfs mislabel senegalus as 'palmas'. but if its indeed a palmas subspecies, and its very active (in bichir's standard), then its probably a palmas polli.
I would definitely agree that the botias would eventually be lunch! Clown loaches might be better if you have your heart set on a loach species, they get MUCH bigger than angelicus. I have my bichirs in with a flowerhorn, two Uaru, a Red Tiger Motaguens, a black Arowana, 7 clown loaches, several types of catfish and a bunch a plecos. Most people don't like to get bichirs and plecos together because the plecos could suck the slime off the bichirs, but I haven't had any problems in the last year and a half. Oh yeah, I also have a school of Red Hook silver dollars as dithers.
well maybe i'll put the angelicus in something else then cuz i think they're funny and i'd like to keep them. the "palmas" is very active, he's all over the place, but he doesn't look like the senegalis that i've seen in photos. i'll try to get a pic, my digital literally cost me $10 and takes ok pics but not great ones and i find it difficult to post scanned photos on anything. maybe i can borrow a better digital from a friend. I really like oscars, do you think if I went with the bigger tank that i could maybe keep a pair of oscars a pair of jds and the two polypterus' and thats it? I don't really care for larger plecos much in my own tanks, i like to look at them, not keep them... or some kind of arowana maybe jardini? dont know much about them, but i just want a couple of fish with these. btw jconley, how big a tank do you keep all those in??
bokononist;916145; said:
I'm embarrassed to say that they are in a 125 at the moment
I am getting a 180 this month(for free
) and all the bigger guys will be going into that.I have my ornate in with a JD approx 8", 4 small convicts, fire mouth cichlid, honey gourami (the ornate and pleco killed the other 2), 2 jag cichlids, and an 8" hypostomas pleco. The ornate is around 14-15 inches. Not sure how old it is as I just got it in April. After her first week in the tank (120gallons) she has settled down and doesn't chase after the fish anymore. I did have to move my ID shark out of there though because for some reason the ornate loves to stalk this fish during the night and I'd wake up to the ID with bleeding fins and missing part of it's tail. Luckily the ID's all healed up now, but going to wait until it's bigger before reintroducing it to the 120.
as an update i tried very hard to get pics but hes so flighty that when he's resting is usually in some really hard to get to place (there are silk plants stuck up in the corners of the tank and he likes to rest in those) or if its in the front or in one of the pvc chunks if i try to get down to get a pic he sits for a second then darts away. so all i got were very blurry pictures that looked like nothing. i will keep trying though since I would really like to know. I was looking over some pics of senegalus and he does look very similar but he doesn't have much in the way of the little black dots above the head/down the back, dont know if those are a constant feature of them though, he also seems kinda stumpier to me. I dunno though. i'll post pics for id when i can, i really wanna know.
i kept my ornate and del with tinfoil barbs,indo dat,gachua snakehead,sun cat,fire eel,redfin giant gourami and gold severums,i suspect oscars would be ok and most medium cichlids that are not too aggressive