Will a rainbow wolf fish eat my bichirs and ropefish?

[Mighty Wizard]

First post, hello I guess

I ordered a Wolf that should arrive in a day or two, and I'm excited as hell.

The thing that bugs me however, is that the Wolf, I was told, is about 15cm. I have two Bichirs, one Del just over 12cm, and a Polli at just over 14cm. Not really concerned about the Polli, he (I think it's a male, still early to tell) will outgrow the Wolf quite quickly. Same goes for the Del who will eventually become the boss in the tank I guess. However I also have 3 Ropefish. The largest is just over 30cm and fat as hell, the next one is about 25cm and quite slender. The last one however, is only about 15cm, and no doubt the Wolf would make short work of him should he be in the mood for it.

This last Ropefish is, I suppose, my favourite, as he was the first fish I got, and what sparked my sudden love (and discovery) of Polypterids.

The Wolf, I was told, is pellet trained and in a tank full of other fish, Cichlids mostly, but I don't have the slightest idea how big these other fish are, and Cichlids are much faster than Ropefish, not to speak of the eyesight issue.

The tank is also stocked with 3 SAE, and 2 (formerly 4) Emperor Tetras. I'm also picking up a regular and albino Senegals in two days, which are supposed to be around 10cm.

Obviously I'll shuffle around the decorations and add more hiding places. The tank is heavily planted, mostly with bushy Cabomba. Still need to add some floating plants. The tank measures 100x40x50cm and holds about 200 liters. Yes this is a growout tank and a bigger one will arrive within a month or two

So do you lovely people have some advice/remarks?

Cheers

 

[kno4te]

Had a similar combination and left my bichirs and ropes alone. Just make she there is plenty of hiding spaces.

Think the sae and tetras may end up missing. Would keep the senegalus separated till maybe a bit bigger.

 

[J. H.]

Think the sae and tetras may end up missing.

I am not a bichir guy, but i agree with this. Trade them in for a CAE or pleco and some spanner or t barbs while you still can. This applies even without the wolf .

 

[Mighty Wizard]

Yes I'm well aware that the Tetras will be eaten before long. Only one of them actually got eaten, my buddy was supposed to have them instead, but after quite a lot of hassle, we only managed to catch one. So I figured **** it, the last two can just stay. And probably be eaten.

On a sidenote, me and my buddy just got back from the lfs. I was looking for some fully grown SAE, but they only had some small ones. In the tank though, i spotted another fish, identical to SAE in shape, but no black stripe, instead a black dot on its tail. And slightly bigger than the other SAEs I've seen. Two barbels like SAE, not four. Does anyone know what species this is? Also seems to eat algae, in just the same way as SAE.

They also had a couple of african butterfly fish in there. I really wanted one, but they were somewhat expensive, and with the impending wolf, I figured, nah, not worth it. But the lfs guy had a really hard time catching the algae eater, so by the time he managed to catch it, I couldn't help myself. So I now have a 3 inch butterfly fish..

 

[Mighty Wizard]

So I figured out what species the fish was, after some furious googling. It appears that it's a silver flying fox. However it's more closely related to the SAE. Strangely a rather obscure species, as it's just as good at eating algae, even black brush algae. And it grows to 17cm (!)

Exactly what I was looking for, as the standard SAE don't get that big. Even the people at the lfs had no idea what species it was. I'll give them an update on my discovery and kindly ask them to order some more

 

[J. H.]

I have a regular flying fox. it is supposed to eat algae, but it doesn't do very much algae eating. it also grows very slowly.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

I have a regular flying fox. it is supposed to eat algae, but it doesn't do very much algae eating. it also grows very slowly.

Yeah, the siamese flying fox is often labeled as an algae eater as I understand it, despite being more of a carnivore it seems. Also frequently misidentified and sold as SAE.

The silver flying fox however, despite its name, appears to be much more closely related to proper siamese algae eaters. Also called the reticulated flying fox, latin name Crossocheilus Reticulatus. If you look closely at your flying fox, you'll see that it has four barbels at its mouth, rather than two, like the SAE. This, I've read several places, is the easiest way to identify the SAE, by ensuring that it only has one pair of barbels, as all of the "pretenders" closely resembling SAE have two pairs, or four barbels.

So when I saw this guy at the lfs, I knew something was up. And now that he's settled into my tank, he truly is an algae eating machine. Also not at all aggressive towards any of my other fish as of yet. Anyone who keeps smaller predator fish should seriously consider these guys as a cleanup crew.

So strange that they're not more commonly known..