Excuse the length ><, I originally posted this elsewhere but was told this was the better place to be 
My goal was to get into aquascaping and just have life that helped maintain the tank... & then I saw my first bichir. Bought her, and immediately bought a 40 gallon set up in order to accommodate my new pretty. Then went back, and bought a 2nd one. So now I'm a proud mom of 2 and have a lot of questions about not what is good for my senegal bichirs... but what is best for'em.
1. My 40 gallon is in the process of being made a home, I'm going to be adding live plants soon and any recommendations would be appreciated. I've been spending a lot of my time viewing other keepers tanks on this forum and trying to get an idea. I have a pretty well established community of fish (10 tetra, 1 assasin snail, 3 corydoras and a recently deceased ghost shrimp) that I'm more then happy to sacrifice to my bichirs, but are there any small fish/snails/shrimp that would be a good recommendation to keep stocked and in the tank consistently for snacks? I had a ghost shrimp in my tank that died, and neither bichir was interested. I removed it after a couple hours and just assumed my bichir's knew something I didn't.
2. My biggest question comes down to feeding. I enjoy and would like to continue to feed them both fish. So far I've been taking baby guppies from a family members tank, killing'm and feeding with tongs. But I've noticed while perusing through this forum that a lot of people use pellets. I've even seen mentions about how its important to feed pellets early because its a little difficult to get them to eat pellets as they get older. I'm assuming I should do both? I've read on here about vitamin stuff that should be added to the fish in order to make the diet more balanced, live fish are only half as good as what they are fed and wondered if anyone had success/recommendations with that?
My corydora's, tho practically blind, tend to swarm any pellets put into the tank so I'm assuming floating pellets would be the only way to go. I'm assuming New Life Spectrum floating pellets would be the best? I've seen a lot of keepers use that brand specifically.
3. I was told at the time of purchase that it'll take my bichir's about 5 years to hit 14 inches & that a 50 gallon tank would be needed. I'm not so sure about that guesstimate... I figured the 38 gallon would keep'm easily for the next 2 years, at least. I've seen a lot of mentions about feeding correlating to growth so I'm assuming this answer won't be an exact science.
Excuse the tank cloudiness, I'm currently at war with my substrate.
My goal was to get into aquascaping and just have life that helped maintain the tank... & then I saw my first bichir. Bought her, and immediately bought a 40 gallon set up in order to accommodate my new pretty. Then went back, and bought a 2nd one. So now I'm a proud mom of 2 and have a lot of questions about not what is good for my senegal bichirs... but what is best for'em.
1. My 40 gallon is in the process of being made a home, I'm going to be adding live plants soon and any recommendations would be appreciated. I've been spending a lot of my time viewing other keepers tanks on this forum and trying to get an idea. I have a pretty well established community of fish (10 tetra, 1 assasin snail, 3 corydoras and a recently deceased ghost shrimp) that I'm more then happy to sacrifice to my bichirs, but are there any small fish/snails/shrimp that would be a good recommendation to keep stocked and in the tank consistently for snacks? I had a ghost shrimp in my tank that died, and neither bichir was interested. I removed it after a couple hours and just assumed my bichir's knew something I didn't.
2. My biggest question comes down to feeding. I enjoy and would like to continue to feed them both fish. So far I've been taking baby guppies from a family members tank, killing'm and feeding with tongs. But I've noticed while perusing through this forum that a lot of people use pellets. I've even seen mentions about how its important to feed pellets early because its a little difficult to get them to eat pellets as they get older. I'm assuming I should do both? I've read on here about vitamin stuff that should be added to the fish in order to make the diet more balanced, live fish are only half as good as what they are fed and wondered if anyone had success/recommendations with that?
My corydora's, tho practically blind, tend to swarm any pellets put into the tank so I'm assuming floating pellets would be the only way to go. I'm assuming New Life Spectrum floating pellets would be the best? I've seen a lot of keepers use that brand specifically.
3. I was told at the time of purchase that it'll take my bichir's about 5 years to hit 14 inches & that a 50 gallon tank would be needed. I'm not so sure about that guesstimate... I figured the 38 gallon would keep'm easily for the next 2 years, at least. I've seen a lot of mentions about feeding correlating to growth so I'm assuming this answer won't be an exact science.
Excuse the tank cloudiness, I'm currently at war with my substrate.
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