whats the difference between them and will they mate?

These are great fish, my lfs always has them in stock, if it wasn't for their carnivorous nature I'd get one.





The male has a larger anal fin. The male may pursue the female for several hours before spawning occurs in a bushy plant. The female will deposit several weakly-adhesive eggs at a time. The young should be separated into small containers as they grow, to avoid them eating each other.

May show aggression towards others of its own species, especially if the aquarium does not provide refuges for each fish. Like most bichirs, they have a reputation for escaping from tanks, so use a tight-fitting cover. Will eat small fish.
This is the most wide ranging of the Polypterus. Three subspecies are said to occur: P.s. senegalus, P.s. meridionalis and an un-named subspecies which lives in the Nile river system.

Although I may be tempted to covert a tank to species only.

Have you seen these beuties before:

Polypterus delhezi

TAA has said it all

I plan on getting a couple more ploy's soon,a delhezi and a palmas
By the way TAA,polypterus's arent really that predatory,they will eat any small fish that they can catch but they have very poor eyesight and rely on a good sense of smell to locate their food so dead fish and earthworms are the prefered diet.

but at the moment each of my three tanks, has either neons, guppies or small loaches.

Is the difference in the tail quite noticable what about colouring one of mine is darker in colour and a little bit smaller they were the same size when I bought them but the lfs didn't know if they were from the same parents or when they were born. I have been feeding them on earthworms ( put in hot water to kill them first and remove their slime ) and about twice a week I feed them on frozen Lance fish ( defrossted first ). TAA I think that might be the next poly I get top class colouring and they will try and eat anything they see like stones anal fins the whips of my whip tail plec. The smaller one has a round lump in his belly about the same size as my substrate ooopppss!! At the moment I'm trying to get them to eat out of my hand they will do it with lance fish but not with worms. They are a mad fish type lizard type snake looking things. I don't have any small fish in with them the smallest is a red finned shark and next is an adult male green terror. mine swim together most of the time

The males tail is about twice as thick at the base as the females and during mating he uses it as a pocket to hold the females eggs and fertilise them.
It has been known for them to mate in captivity but is not common.

What substrate are you using?They need sand or very fine gravel that they can filter through their gills as their clumsy feeding often causes them to swallow pieces of substrate which can kill them.

5-8mm sub at the moment, I hope to build another tank in the summer which will be the polys new home with lots of others my plans are to build a 5 foot by 2.5 foot by 2 foot deep and that is going to have sand v.fine gravel haven't decided yet, I've got to build a rabbit run for the kids new rabbits first then the missus will let me