I bought a lungfish yesterday and I am pretty sure its a west african. I will post pics in a bit to see if you agree. I was curious if he is a WAL how long will a 90gl hold him? He is roughly 8" right now. The tank is 18" wide and 4' long. Also I was thinking of getting a kiddy pool and setting that up for him would that be okay? I plan on feeding him bloodworms, shrimp, and hikari carnivor pellets as his main diet. Then night crawlers and feeders as a treat yes I know the risk of feeders but they would be kept in a seperate tank for at least a month before I feed them to him and this would be only an once and a while thing. I can't remember what fish was suggested to feed them thats store bought I would get some of that and feed it, would octopus be okay to feed as well? I also have muscle cubes I could feed him, maybe some ghost shrimp and crawdads as well. Is there anything else you would suggest to add to his diet? I know the basic care just want to run this by you to make sure it was right and I can't find their growth rate so I was curious of that.
WAL
- Thread starter Silvertears
- Start date
First off, you got lucky (or unlucky, depending on what you wanted) and ended up with a spotted African lungfish (Protopterus dolloi) rather than a WAL.
Your planned diet sounds pretty good, and I think that bloodworms, shrimp, Hikari carnivor pellets, night crawlers, octopus, muscle cubes, ghost shrimp, and crayfish (remove the front pinchers) will work well. You could also add fish fillets, such as tilapia or Pangasius, to its diet, if desired; avoid feeding oily fish such as salmon. I also recommend adding algae wafers to its diet in order to prevent its head from getting eroded; it will develop small pits similar to HITH if it doesn't get enough vegetable matter. Live fish should not be offered as feeders in order to prevent the spread of disease as well as to avoid having it ingest the chemicals that these store-bought feeder fishes are loaded with.
You should be fine with it in the 90 gallon until it hits 18" or so. Just be sure that the water isn't too deep while it's small and that it can easily access the surface in order to breathe; I had one drown in 6" of water, so I would also make sure that there are floating floats or something else for it to rest on near the surface.
He sits on the heater which is a couple of inches from the surface right now I am going to add fake floating plants soon. I just wanted to know what type he was it didn't matter really, just knowing the type will help me plan things out for him. Kay so I won't do feeders for him. I forgot about the algea waffers, I read about that in a few other threads so thank you for reminding me.
Well I think i am going to move my firebelly toads and put him in my 20lg for now so I can make sure he eats, doesn't drowned and will be a lot calmer water then my 90gl. I will also get better pictured when I move him. I will also make a new threat properly labeled and document his growth and progress. I think he will be a start to an addiction to lungfish, he has captured my interest greatly. Which would be better for him, sand or natural round stones? I will fill the 20 25-50% water and clean it daily as it won't have a filter would that be good for him?
Please make the heater inaccessible to him; he might get burned on it if he's using it as a resting place.
A filter is preferable; these ones not terribly sturdy at this size, so good water quality and stability is very important. I would give it sand because they enjoy digging.
Yeah I changed my plans. He is only going to be in the 20 in till we get a stand built for the 55gl and I am setting that up it already has sand in it. Then I will use spong filters for him. He also was only really using th cord to hold himself up he rarely actually laid on the glass part. put him he 20gl and the stand for the 55 should be started soon. So at max he will be in the 20gl 3 days. Would it be safe to put plants with him? They will be potted so uprooting shouldn't be much of a problem, just curious if he would eat them? I don't know if I remember correctly but I believe I saw somewhere they do eat them if so which would be safe for him to nibble on?