tankmates lost to bichirs?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
hello to all you fish lovers out there... i need a little input please... I just bought what i thought was a very interesting fish, petsmart calls a dinosaur bichir. i put this fish in a new tank set up (40gals) with a silver tailed shark. two days later the shark became dinner... this shark was the same size... what did i get myself into?
Let me please tell you alittle bit about my experience, I have a 125gal with oscars witch are full grown and a 75gal with clown loaches and bella sharks so i desided to set up a smaller tank in my living room and total fell in love with this bichir fish. i absolutely craved the uniqueness of this fish i am now going to call big ben:nilly:
 
None yet except maybe some baby swordtails. My senegalus did snap down straight on my TT eel's nose though. I wish they were smarter sometimes...
 
I lost a kuhli loach and an irridescent shark to mine.

tairrisieg;3664102; said:
hello to all you fish lovers out there... i need a little input please... I just bought what i thought was a very interesting fish, petsmart calls a dinosaur bichir. i put this fish in a new tank set up (40gals) with a silver tailed shark. two days later the shark became dinner... this shark was the same size... what did i get myself into?
Let me please tell you alittle bit about my experience, I have a 125gal with oscars witch are full grown and a 75gal with clown loaches and bella sharks so i desided to set up a smaller tank in my living room and total fell in love with this bichir fish. i absolutely craved the uniqueness of this fish i am now going to call big ben:nilly:
Click to expand...

...always research fish before you go out and buy them. Even if you don't know much, just, please don't go into the store and buy anything you've never heard of before.

How big were these fish, exactly? You'd really need at least some kind of size different for a bichir to devour another fish. Sometimes they just show aggression towards other fish, and happen to kill them, but still, there's always a corpse. If there was no corpse, then I can imagine the bichir had nothing to do with the death.

Anyway, as for general care information...if you aren't feeding meat-based food, I recommend you start. Bichirs, like several other fish, cannot survive on vegetable-based foods alone. Also, you just need to mind what other fish you put in there. Make sure they're tough enough and large enough to coexist with the bichir, without overstocking. A 40 is a bit small for a bichir.
 
I did my research beforehand.

I've never lost any fish to them that was not a feeder. I made enough mistakes with big vs small in other species when I was younger.
 
I lost a 4" arowana to a 4" ornate in a 24" high tank.
 
my ornate ate a 4" clown loach and a juvenile managuense we thought might be too big/able to elude it.
 
Nothing really.... my ornate just ate 2 1''sae's.
I keep with fish to large to eat.
-Alex
Happy Holidays Merry Christmas 2009
 
Just recently, my 5" del somehow swallowed my 3" bristlenose. the bristles were really just starting to stand out too. i didn't think he could swallow that fish. guess i just underestimated the size of the del's mouth :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom