Predatoral Fish

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bshockstubb

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Well, Ive been doing research because im looking for a new pred. for my 55.
(its a temp tank right now)

It currently has Three 4" bichirs in there and some lace synos.
very small and cute at the moment.

i also have a BGK and a ABF

the other two arent doing thier jobs...which I wanted them to pick out the larger fish in there.
I have sailfin mollies and convicts(guppies are munchies for the bichirs)
I cull my runts and deformaties by feeding them to my larger fish.
all of them are perfectly healthy....and in fact thier breeding!
i dont want this.

i need a fish that can is aggresive enough to go after these fish(And eat them) but not eat my bichirs or synos(i can trade the BGK and ABF)

some thoughts:

Osteoglossum bicirrhosum (i have grow out tanks)
Exodon paradoxus
ctenolucius hujeta
 
Well, Ive been doing research because im looking for a new pred. for my 55.
(its a temp tank right now)

It currently has Three 4" bichirs in there and some lace synos.
very small and cute at the moment.

i also have a BGK and a ABF

the other two arent doing thier jobs...which I wanted them to pick out the larger fish in there.
I have sailfin mollies and convicts(guppies are munchies for the bichirs)
I cull my runts and deformaties by feeding them to my larger fish.
all of them are perfectly healthy....and in fact thier breeding!
i dont want this.

i need a fish that can is aggresive enough to go after these fish(And eat them) but not eat my bichirs or synos(i can trade the BGK and ABF)

some thoughts:

Osteoglossum bicirrhosum (i have grow out tanks)
Exodon paradoxus
ctenolucius hujeta
a 55gal is way to small for most preds so i will give the same advice i always do get the big tank 1st then stock it
 
i would but i need those bichirs to grow out more.
They are barely 4", I was too afraid and get more agressive fish off the bat because they were like 3" when I got them.

Im using this as a grow out tank, so any predator I buy would be in that same range.
 
Bichirs are non agesssive predators and really should not be kept with agressive species-Anne
 
Just a reminder, but "aggresive" and "predatory" are not synonyms. In fact, 9 times out of 10, specialist predators are not in the least aggressive -- they rely on being unnoticed so that they can snap up their prey. There are far more herbivorous fish that are territorial and/or aggressive (damselfish, cichlids, and plecs for example).

Anyway, I kept a "dwarf" marbled bichir, Polypterus palmas polli, with a pair of Ctenompoma acutirostre and a Synodontis sp. indet. along with a bunch of Congo tetras. Worked really well. I don't know which bichirs you have, but provided they are the smaller, less aggressive ones Ctenopoma are just about ideal. They're African of course, so you have the habitat link, and they are basically non-aggressive. My Ctenopoma ate frozen bloodworms, but they'll eat tiny fish as well. Not sure about cichlids (too spiny) but certainly livebearer fry. Ctenopoma are shy though, so you cannot keep them with anything in the least aggressive. They may be predators, but they are far less bold than even dwarf gouramis!

I've also kept the catfish Chrysichthys ornatus with bichirs; again, these are completely peaceful if predatory. They're also African, and so long as you make sure the bichirs are at least as big as the catfish, they will get along fine. To my cost, I've seen these cats eat tankmates as large as blue gouramis, so be careful!

Cheers,

Neale
 
They are Polypterus senegalus.

My LFS had some Ctenopoma acutirostre a few months ago for like 10 bucks or something.
really good price for around here (others are 30+)

I was wanting to get them, but for some odd reason i didnt :/

They seem to have really small mouths (and bodies) to eat some of my larger livebearers.

My ghost would be perfect if he was just more active.
I need something fairly active(so aggresive i geuss?) with a fairly large mouth that will go for the middle/top dwelling fish but not my catfish/bichirs.

(this is why i went and got the abf but he has taken a liking to the krill i feed him...not my feeders :/)
 
Hah! Then you've never seen one eat. They have GIGANTIC mouths when the open them up. An adult would be able to eat a fully grown guppy, let alone fry, without any problems at all. Having said that, they prefer frozen bloodworms, so live fish are more of a treat than a regular diet.

Why not just get rid of the fish that are breeding too much, and start breeding something more challenging, so you can sell the fry? Shops get offered too many convicts and guppies for their to be any mileage in them, but there are lots of cichlids that they will happily take.

I assume you're not keeping the breeding fishes just for producing baby fish to feed to some other kind of fish. Other than being a very expensive way to keep predatory fish (almost all will take frozen) it is kind of cruel, too.

Cheers,

Neale

They seem to have really small mouths (and bodies) to eat some of my larger livebearers.
 
Just wait till the bichirs get bigger they'll take care of the livebearers-Anne
 
I'll second that, beblondie. At 4" it will be no time at all before they are 6" or more. My senegal goes to show that not all bichirs can be successfully kept with congo tetras :/
 
As I said in my message, I was keeping a SMALL species that only reaches 30 cm. Completely safe with Congo tetras, and in fact also did well with Nanaethiops unitaeniatus. Obviously the bigger the bichir, the larger its tankmates need to be.

Cheers,

Neale
 
okay, well i geuss ill have to wait it out or get some Ctenopoma acutirostre.

I cant just get rid of those fish. They are runts and need to be culled, and I find it wasteful, if you must, to just kill them. I am getting into breeding more complex ones and I hope that these bichirs, may breed fro me.

All the others go straight back to the LFS or into more breeding programs.
 
somebody's got "rainbow wolfish" up for sale on Aquabid.

CFC says:
Yep thats a Erythrinus erythrinus, lovely little predators for the smaller species tank or predator community with larger fish. They usually dont grow much larger than 6" in captivity so tanks as small as 24x12x12" can be used for a single specimin.

but i don't know if that means that it would be compatible with your current fishies.
 
I got a Rainbow Wolf fish, probably one of the coolest fish i have. I have him with Blackskirt tetras and a female convict. He is around 6 inches or more, pretty big guy. They are Ambush predators, but they are also aggressive. Once my wolf fish settles in the tank, im sure he will start picking off the blackskirt tetras. Most of the time he hides under a rock. I have him in a 30 gal, 3ft by 1ft by whatever inches left to be height :p . Over 1ft in height though. I'm gonna try and post some pictures of him soon, such a cool fish.
 

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