I recently purchased a baby senegal bichir. It is currently in my 30g community tank but will be moved once it grows larger. My concern is that it is not getting enough to eat. I've been feeding frozen bloodworms and shrimp pellets, but it doesn't seem to notice them even when they are right under it's nose. Do they only feed off the bottom or will they eat food as it sinks as well?

Mine will only eat food off the bottom. They have too slow reactions to catch the food while its sinking.

Ryan

All of my bichirs feed from the bottom... I have yet to see them actually try to get somethingi floating around.

Anyway, they [bichirs] have a pretty weak sense of sight and rely more on their sense of smell. It might take a while for a bichir to find food, but when they do, they gorge themselves. They will eat anything including, pellets, bloodworms, brine shrimp, beefheart, raw market shrimp, squid, etc etc, as long as it hits the bottom.

I have to put food in an obvious place for my senny to find it, because as invader said they can find it hard to locate food and sometimes my senegal, frantically looking for the food, manages to swim right over it, which can get frustrating. My senny would never find floating food in a million years.

My Senegal will snatch food from my fingers now

Your bichir might not be comfortable yet, eventually they get pretty bold.

mine to about a week to decide to eat,,,,,,,,,,

Mine will eat floating food, but it doesn't find it immediately.

Well I have only had mine for about 3 days now and he is eating shrimp pellets so I guess that's pretty good. What size tank do you guys have your senegals in? I've been reading and have seen anywhere from 30 to 90gals as the minimum size.

I personally think a tank with a footprint of 36"x12" to be a minimum for senegals, but others keep them in less.

a 30g would be just enough to keep a senegal for life. they rarely get to 10" or more in captivity though you do find pretty large ones at your lfs.

I had one in a Rio125 and once mine hit 9" it was obviously too small a tank for it.

My old ones used to eat from the top, right from my fingers......I kept them with fish that ate off the top and I think that's what triggered it.

Tomorrow I;m gonna get a new senny. Hope he does the smae!

Hmm, the Sene in a 30 gallon was discussed over here, in case you are wondering about that.

I feed mine frozen krill that sink to the surface, then she eats it, but I've noticed that when I put live foods in the tank, she'll only eat them if the shrimp wanders directly in front of her face.

Wow. I must have been lucky I had the most active polypterus that I had ever seen! Mine were active hunters of food.

Hope my new one turns out like that; I'm gonna try to get one that's most active/bigger than the rest

My Polypterus Delhezi is almost totally blind at short range and due to having him in a tank with a lot of fast and greedy fish he could often get nothing to eat.

I actually feed him prawns from wooden tongs and wiggle the prawn right in front of his face so he can smell it. He will then bite it, but generally not before i've had a few nips to my arm from cichlids and a snakehead (ow). I have however found a way of keeping them off me. This actually is to feed them and while they are eating, feed the bichir at the other end of the tank.

My ropefish however - very good at finding food, and even though a bit slow, managing to eat isn't too much of a problem.

All 6 of mine eat from the top coming to get the frozen food the minute I open the glass lids to put them in.
I must be lucky as all of mine seem to eat like horses mind you they do compete with a bgk and two severums, so if they aint quick they dont get the nice stuff.

Wow, sound like I'm pretty lucky with mine (sort of). Although he is still only a youngster so maybe he'l get less active. He' goes everywhere in the tank and will eat food anywhere from about the middle of the tank. He was a bit slow to eat to start with but now gobbles down pretty much anything. He LOVES prawns ( just defrost them and chop them up). Only problem is he gorges himself to the point where he makes himself ill (I had an incident a while ago where he inflated like an armband and I thouht he was guna die) so I have to really watch how much I feed him and put him on a diet if he's getting too fat! lol

Mine eats NLS cichlid pellets! I didn't teach him to do that! His staple was Hikari sinking pellets!

I'll look into some other foods.....Bloodworms I 'm going to feed 100%. Also krill, to train him to feed off the surface.....But any other ideas on meaty foods that help growth?

Earthworms or Beefheart used as part of the diet is good-Anne

This post has been edited by beblondie: May 17 2008, 05:35 AM