Tropical Fish Keeping banner

New bichir

4K views 16 replies 8 participants last post by  Gump 
#1 ·
Well my BGK died for no reason i supose. i checked the water and everything was ok.
Well i went to the local fish store i got him from and almost got another (not the stores fault i had him for 2-3months) but instead i decided to go with a dinosaur bichir as i had heard that most people enjoy them more. He is about 3-4 inches and i am worried that my BGK might have been starved to death by my 4 pictis catfish and my silver dollar school. I was wondering if this sized bichir would eat ghost shrimp or do i need to feed it in special places as the silver dollars eat all the frozen foods they can get.
 
#2 ·
your dinasaur birchir the correct name usually is a senagal birchir, or (polypterus seneagallus or maybe polypterus palmas if your pet shop got it wrong) may have trouble getting the freeze dried food, i know the ones i feed will get it off the bottom if they can find it, but most of the time i have to physically place it near them or else the other fish will eat it all. You can also try faster sinking protien pellet foods as senagallis will eat this awswell, if worst comes to worst, grab a pair of goupies from your lfs and start your own birchir food farm.
 
#4 ·
well no i dont remeber the scientific name but im pretty sure it had dino thats y i guessed dinosaur bichir. i aslo have ghost shrimp in the tank for the knife fish i have kept in it and the catfish i have at present. i no longer have shrimp pellets as i fed them toa tinfoil barb i no longer have do to finding it another hime. would it possibly eat cichlid pellets or is this to much vegitation in them??
my first bichir. sry for all the questions its just bottom preditors (besides catfish) just either get to big or dont last. :(
 
#5 ·
bf2king said:
well no i dont remeber the scientific name but im pretty sure it had dino thats y i guessed dinosaur bichir.
Polypterus senegalus?
would it possibly eat cichlid pellets or is this to much vegitation in them??
It'll be fine but it needs foods containing lots of proteins as it's carnivorous.
 
#6 ·
Lupin said:
bf2king said:
well no i dont remeber the scientific name but im pretty sure it had dino thats y i guessed dinosaur bichir.
Polypterus senegalus?
would it possibly eat cichlid pellets or is this to much vegitation in them??
It'll be fine but it needs foods containing lots of proteins as it's carnivorous.
I would agree with lupin here, polypterus senegalus, or as i said possibly palmas. and i would get the sinking carnivore pellets, this will benifit all the preditors in your tank.
 
#8 ·
If it came from Petsmart, it's a senagalus. Incidentally, insofar as there is a correct common name for this beastie, it's Cuvier's Bichir. However, Senegal or Gray Bichir is also correct, and, as has been pointed out, dinosaur eel is correct but more ambiguous than any of the others.

Best of luck. I'm getting a pair of these when my 110 is up and running.
 
#14 ·
Our experiences vary, Greg.;) Gump keeps several species altogether in the same tank as far as I know and I did as well with my own until I had decided to move out the bigger one as he is getting too big for the likes of the other tankmates.:)
 
#16 ·
Lupin said:
bf2king said:
well no i dont remeber the scientific name but im pretty sure it had dino thats y i guessed dinosaur bichir.
Polypterus senegalus?
P.senegalus senegalus is the current 'valid as' taxa
so as not to confuse it with P.senegalus meridionalis
which grows to almost double the length of P.S
,senegalus
but looks very similar.

not all bichir live fine with each other, some can downright hate other conspecifics or even other similar shaped fish.
on the whole P.S senegalus are fine with other bichirs provided the other birchirs are fine with them.
avoid keeping any of the lower jaw bichirs (P.weeksii, P.teuglesi, P.laperadi etc) and you should be ok.
 
#17 ·
As long as you keep the sizes bichirs around the same size you shouldn't have problems if they are kept in the proper tank size. I have lower and upper jaw species mixed with my largests lower being 12-13" and my smallest upper being about 5-6" with out problem.

Also there is a group of 4 local guys who have the same taste in oddball fish who keep many many more bichirs than I do in smaller tanks with out problem. One has a 180 gallon with around 20 bichirs ranging from 8-17" with 12 or so being lower jaw species. Another has a 300 with 15-18" P. lapradei, P. endlicheri endlicheri, P. endlicheri congicus mixed with 8" P. senegalus.

I know personal experiences will differ but i would like to know the specifics where bichir mixing didn't work. Instead of jacking this thread i'm going to create another for bad experiences.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top