Black Ghost Knife/Apisto compatibility?

[isu_guy]

From everything that I understand this setup should work out fine when the apistos are full grown, but....

I am looking at ordering from Apistodave on aquabid.com, about whom I've heard good things. All of his auctions are for 3/4 inch or larger sized fish. He sells lots of these fish and I am thinking about getting either 2 or 3 pairs. My bgk hasn't taken out any fish besides platy fry, but at the same time hasn't been around anything as small as 3/4 inch (eaten fry excluded).

I have a 75 and a 20. If I were to order from him, and get some fish that are 3/4in should I:

put them all in the 75 (with the bgk) and provide enough caves etc to hide in and chance the bgk using them as very expensive food?

put 2-3 pairs in the 20 and wait til they grow to move them to the 75 (with the bgk) and risk the males fighting over the territory?

or some other arrangement?

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

i have ben told on here, although have no perosnal exp. of them that apisto's should be kept one male to 2-3 females?

not definat on that tho

OTP

 

[Paul_MTS]

how big is the BGK at the moment?

they have deceptively huge mouths and once fully grown the appistos will be expensive snacks for him.

 

[leongreenway]

BGKYour Apistos would be mincemeat mate.

They only get to be about 3 1/2 inches...

check out BGK profile

http/www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/...rican_black.htm

 

[Paul_MTS]

thats the african BGK.

i didn't watch the videos but the true BGK comes from the amazon.

either way your appistos will be snacks once the BGK is 12"+ my 10" one will quite easily eat a full lance fish which is 2", haven't tried him on anything bigger yet.

 

[leongreenway]

what the difference ??? apart from region.

We had some at LFS, well cool

 

[isu_guy]

Pretty big difference actually,

Body shapes are different
Black Ghost uses electric signals to navigate and is almost completely blind.

They have some similarities, but they are two different species.

 

[leongreenway]

Yeah your right mate,

Just checked it out on google. Hmm I prefer the Amazonian one

 

[isu_guy]

leongreenway- I agree, I like the Black Ghost Knife over the African Black Knife as well.

Paul - Mine is 6-7 inches.

I had some fry in the tank when I introduced him and they started disappearing, so I believe the only live food he's had since I've had him are a few fry, although those could have been eaten by the other fish, but they didn't show much interest in them before the bgk.

He eats frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. I've seen him eat other stuff sparingly - once he nibbled on cucumber. I think he might be eating some brine shrimp sinking pellets. My smallest fish is 1.5 inch and hasn't yet had any problems with the bgk. Is there any truth to the if they grow up with a fish since the point when they can't eat them that they don't view them as food.?

 

[Paul_MTS]

there's some truth but when you have predactory species it goes out the window.

it's like trying to keep guppies with an oscar, as soon as the oscar is big enough and is confident those guppies will next see daylight as a poo!