Elephant Nose

[MrGT500]

i have been wanting an elephant nose for a while now to go in my theme tank. i had ordered one a number of months ago but it never showed up. while walking through a LFS today i was surprised to see that they had 2 of them, one was a double nose (who i was told wasnt eating too well yet) and the other was a younger regular elephant nose (about 3.5 inches) that i was told was eating well and even eating flakes. this surprised me cause i have read that they can be very difficult to feed. for 24 bucks i just couldnt pass him up.

i went home and put him in the tank and he immedietly hid in a log, i cought a few glimpses of him for the next few hours and then turned the lights out.

any advice on feeding? especially how best to feed him given his tank mates. /9i was told he would be ok with them, and he is the biggest fish in the tank at the moment)


setup

30 gallon cube
emporor 400 filter

5 tiger barbs
3 green tiger barbs (babies)
7 zebra danios
7 panda corys
2 peppered corys
1 L114 (very young)
1 angel (i put him in this tank cause my other angels had niped his tail off but its growing back very nice)

 

[nmonks]

Your aquarium is too small for an Elephantnose, and even if it wasn't, the choice of tankmates is poor.

Here's the thing: Elephantnoses are nocturnal and can be very difficult to feed. To be fair, some take to frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp very quickly, but they compete poorly with catfish and loaches, and if you want them to feed during the day (which they will, once settled) you don't want too many midwater fish either. In a 55-gallon tank it's possible an Elephantnose might do okay with a few Corydoras and a few midwater tetras or barbs. But in an aquarium as small as 30 gallons, the odds will not be in your favour. The best approach is to get the Elephantnose settled in first, or at least with fish that don't compete (such as small loricariids or small day-active tetras). Only when the Elephantnose is clearly feeding and putting on weight dare you risk adding competitors. Elephantnoses aren't shy at all, and can be quite aggressive, but you do want them settled and feeding before forcing them to compete with active catfish and loaches that eat the same sorts of foods as they do.

They rarely go for flake, but I suppose some might do. I wouldn't bank on it though. My specimens ate frozen foods and small live foods, and most of the specimens I've seen that have lived for many years in captivity are on similar foods. Oddly enough, they even go for newly hatched brine shrimp!

You do need a soft substrate too. Another issue is that many fish medicines will kill them quickly, especially copper and formalin.

Cheers, Neale

 

[MrGT500]

i have never used any medication with copper or anything due to keeping other scalless fish. i do keep frozen baby brine shrimp in stock. if i feed at night i think i will be ok, the corys eat mostly during the day and the night is owned by my 114 and hopefully this e nose. i dont mind if he becomes sompletely noctuernal as i have night lights for the tank. (the only way i get to see the L114 or my eclips cat in my other tank.) i just really hope he lives, they are such a cool fish and veryy smart, i hope to be able to hand feed him freeze dried brine shimp cubes like i do for my angels.

 

[nmonks]

I'm not optimistic. Frozen baby brine shrimp would be very small; when I've seen this food, they're live, and that makes it much easier for these electric fish to detect and catch in midwater. Keeping alongside an L114 catfish is madness and very unlikely to work. Competition for food and space will far too intense. Pseudacanthicus are carnivores (so eating the same foods as the Elephantnose) and obviously much, MUCH too big for a 29-gallon system. Honestly, I don't see this aquarium working in the long term, and I'd be staggered if the Elephantnose lasted more than a few months before it starved to death.

Cheers, Neale

i have never used any medication with copper or anything due to keeping other scalless fish. i do keep frozen baby brine shrimp in stock. if i feed at night i think i will be ok, the corys eat mostly during the day and the night is owned by my 114 and hopefully this e nose. i dont mind if he becomes sompletely noctuernal as i have night lights for the tank. (the only way i get to see the L114 or my eclips cat in my other tank.) i just really hope he lives, they are such a cool fish and veryy smart, i hope to be able to hand feed him freeze dried brine shimp cubes like i do for my angels.

 

[MrGT500]

mind you everything in the tank right now is a baby. and when are people going to learn that you can get awya with much more than you think, im really getting sick of people telling my my tanks are too small. both of my tanks work just fine. the elephant was even out tonight, i poured a cup of tawed baby brine shrimp in and he wen nuts.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Neale Monks ("nmonks") is not in the habit of flippant comments as regards fish suitability in tanks, he is a well recognised figure in the hobby, who writes fishkeeping articles as a paid job.

If he has raised issues or concerns, they will be for good reason.

 

[onidrase]

mind you everything in the tank right now is a baby. and when are people going to learn that you can get awya with much more than you think, im really getting sick of people telling my my tanks are too small. both of my tanks work just fine. the elephant was even out tonight, i poured a cup of tawed baby brine shrimp in and he wen nuts.

You can "get away" with a lot of things. I could probably put a baby oscar in a 10 gallon tank for a good half a year or more before it dies of hole in the head or gets deformed due to space issues or spikes the ammonia with the mass loads of waste it produces. That doesn't mean I'm going to do it, for obvious reasons.

You already said all the fish in your tank are babies right now. As babies, they aren't going to show the same behavior as they would full grown. That change in behavior could mean the life or death of your elephant nose.

I'm not expert on these things, (I think they're hideous in honesty ) but from what I know, they're kinda picky and not great for beginners. I believe they like densely planted setups to keep the light low and get pretty large, at that. The size issues alone most likely show that a tank your size isn't suitable. Though I'm pretty sure nmonks has covered that pretty well himself. I'd honestly take it back, and hopefully let somebody with a more suitable tank (and has done his research on the species) take it over.

 

[nmonks]

I honestly hope it all works out well for you. If he's eating the frozen brine shrimp nauplii, that's great, and they're quite a good food (though he'll obviously need thousands of them at a time if he's going to get to full size!). I'm really not trying to talk you out of keeping this fish. But I do want you to be aware of the problems presented by this species, and to act accordingly. As others have said, just because it's working now doesn't mean it'll work in the long term. Adult Elephantnoses really do need tanks around the 55 gallon mark if only because of their size, let alone their sensitivity to poor water quality. Plus, they're legendarily difficult to keep well fed, and like a lot of electric fish, they're quite "greedy" and need quite a bit of food to stay in good health.

When experienced aquarists tell you that fish X needs a tank bigger than Y gallons, it's not to be difficult. Please learn to take advice constructively. We're trying to save you (and your fish) a lot of trouble. If you want to ignore such advice, then go ahead. But if you don't want to learn, why come to a tropical fish forum? I learn stuff from the people here at TFF all the time, and I think I'm a pretty good fishkeeper already!

Cheers, Neale

mind you everything in the tank right now is a baby. and when are people going to learn that you can get awya with much more than you think, im really getting sick of people telling my my tanks are too small. both of my tanks work just fine. the elephant was even out tonight, i poured a cup of tawed baby brine shrimp in and he wen nuts.

 

[MrGT500]

all advice is taken to heart, dont think that it isnt, as far as how big they get i think its should be about 5 inches or so, maybe a little more. but at any rate, when i come to that point i can deal with getting a larger tank, at the moment i can not set up any tanks larger than what i have. i appologize if i sounded brash, i had a bad experience with the planet catfish forum with people who where just down right rude. i would agree myslef that my tanks are a little over stocked, but all of my fish are healthy and happy. (even though im having a strange amonia problem in my 36 right now, going to post another topic about that, hope to get some answers.)

 

[MrGT500]

e was out crusing around last night, so i dropped a cube of frozen daphnia in the tank, be burried his face in it for about 15 minutes.

 

[mattlee]

these fish can reach up to and over 10 inches or so. so who ever said 5 obviously dont know what they are on about..........

 

[Liam50]

i can understand why the planetcatfish got annoyed with you. you ask about fish advice after you've bought the fish in question. secondly people who have massive knowledge such as a nmonks who has given me very good advice in the past, you seem to ignore. i would sort your tank out before they get too big.

 

[MrGT500]

i can understand why the planetcatfish got annoyed with you. you ask about fish advice after you've bought the fish in question. secondly people who have massive knowledge such as a nmonks who has given me very good advice in the past, you seem to ignore. i would sort your tank out before they get too big.

well the tank is fine minus an amonia problem that i cant seem to get ahead of, but other than that all of my fish are happy and healthy.

 

[Shovelman]

i can understand why the planetcatfish got annoyed with you. you ask about fish advice after you've bought the fish in question. secondly people who have massive knowledge such as a nmonks who has given me very good advice in the past, you seem to ignore. i would sort your tank out before they get too big.

well the tank is fine minus an amonia problem that i cant seem to get ahead of, but other than that all of my fish are happy and healthy.

Probably aren't so happy and healthy if there's an ammonia problem....

As everyone else has commented before me, sort out whats going on, as your not in the position to purchase more fish.

 

[nmonks]

This is easy enough to fix.

First, fill a glass with tap water. Test for ammonia. If the ammonia level isn't zero, then your tap water has ammonia in it. Note that some water has chloramine added to it instead of chlorine. Chloramine can produce false positive readings with ammonia test kits. Either way, use a water conditioner that neutralises ammonia AND chloramine. Once you've done this, you can be sure the water you're adding is safe. Make sure water changes are relatively small (no more than 20% at a time) and the biological filter should be able to remove this ammonia without causing your fish any stress.

Second, if your tap water has no ammonia in it, but your tank does, then the problem comes from the livestock. Essentially, the filter isn't up to the job. If a filter can process 10 units of ammonia per second, but your fish are making 10.1 units per second, then you'll always have some ammonia floating about in the water. Increase the amount of biological filtration by adding a second filter. Even if the ammonia comes from the tap water, your biological filter should be able to "make it go away" within a few hours. So persistent ammonia readings imply poor biological filtration. Review, and act accordingly.

Cheers, Neale

well the tank is fine minus an amonia problem that i cant seem to get ahead of, but other than that all of my fish are happy and healthy.