I've seen some of these for sale and am curious as to whether 4 could be kept with a cobra pike cichlid in a tank with plenty of hidey places caves etc or would I just be asking for trouble. My pike is in with 7 silver dollars at the moment and is about 5 inches long

they are lovely the snakeheads. I do have a bigger tank they could go in but the clown knife would munch them

IIRC then unfortunately pike cichlid + snakehead is a bad combination. Their similar body shape and aggressive nature means they would probably fight constantly.

That's what I remember being told anyway.

I've read that a few times about the body shape. I suppose I should knock that idea on the head then!! Gutted I need a new tank for some snakeheads

Regardless of social behaviour, you'd also need to research environmental requirements. Quite a few of the "new" snakeheads come from quite cool, flowing water habitats; by contrast many pike cichlids need warmer than average water conditions.

I've kept snakeheads in community tanks without much bother, and the smaller species aren't particularly aggressive when maintained with dissimilar fish too large to be considered prey (e.g., loricariid catfish, big barbs).

Cheers, Neale

the person selling them is selling fish from an adult pair. He's keeping them in 7.2ph water from Derbyshire which he describbes as far from perfect fish keeping water.from what I can tell from net its strictly tropical from pools next to streams

my garage which houses my tanks and the pike is pretty warm which is probably why the pike seems to be doing so well

I'm going to leave it me thinks

Ceylon Snakheads, im assuming you mean Channa Orientalis..if thats the case i thought that was one of the subtropical species.

I was rather assuming channa gachua, as it is also called "Ceylonese Green snakehead", as shown in the tff index (labyrinth section).

gotta love common names

Its the Orientalis. I had a search on google and it said tropical species on the pages I read but I prefer the answers on here from people who know more!! lol#

The guy who has parents has kept them in tropical I've asked him couple more questionsand will have a think of how I can juggle myu tanks to get them

Orientallis are a very rare species and every snakehead ive seen marked up as orientallis has been a gachua, the only difference between the two species apart from geography is that gachua have pelvic fins and orientallis don't.

The safest place for fish data (though admittedly not 100% reliable from an aquarist's perspective) is Fishbase. Of C. orientalis, the description implies that it is a still-water species as well as fast-water species; enjoys middling tropical temperatures; is found in fresh and brackish water; and eats mostly insects and crustaceans (so should be easy to feed!). Apparently very hardy and adaptable.

Although said to get to as much as 30 cm, this species has been described as the "smallest snakehead" because most specimens (in the wild) are no more than 10 cm long.

Cheers, Neale

brackish and fresh, still and fast flowing water....lol see the trouble I had researching them!!!

All this means is that the fish is *adaptable*. As a rule, the lowland species like still, warm water, whereas the upland species like cooler, flowing water. But this species is apparently happy in either. It's quite uncommon for any of the snakeheads to be found in brackish water, though some species do have some salt tolerance.

Anyway, I suspect this fish will be very rewarding to keep. I kept Channa asiatica while I was at university, and it was a lovely, peaceful (if predatory) creature. Snakeheads are woefully misunderstood fish in so many ways. I penned something on them over at TFF you may care to peruse. Ralf Britz helped me out on some of the new Burmese species.

Cheers, Neale

cheers Neale I enjoyed that piece

I've asked the seller a good few questions and I'm getting 4 babies off him. they are only 4cm's long and he said he'll pick me the biggest

I got these yesterday. Cute little things. They are in my sons tank for now with some corys, platys and silver tips which are quite large. The snakeheads are tiny only about 4cm and in need of some feeding up it would seem

I shall check for pelvic fins tonight although the seller is adamant orientalis. Just checked for pelvic fins and there are none. Just thee big fin round top bottom and tail and the two side fins which is uses to propel itself. so they must be orientalis then?

how do we sex these fish?

If they settle ok I'm going to get a second hand tank just for them as it would be intersting to try and breed them as this is my first snakehead experience and i LOVE THEM ALREADY. What size tank would people recommend for four. if they grow 10cm like websites say then 30-36 inch tankshould do heh? If they are Gaucha am I to assume they will grow larger than this. If so what size tank would people recommend for them?

This post has been edited by simonas: May 22 2008, 06:47 AM