Clown knife at Fish Story

[thebiggerthebetter]

Our first post in this section. The story of this rescue clown knifefish is narrated in the first video, which was filmed right after we got it. It had learned to recognize pellets and fish as the new feeds over a week's period and has been feeding with vigor since. Started out with about 15" and currently is around 18"-20".

Jan 1, 2019:

Mar 31 2019:

 

[Gourami Swami]

Awesome! beautiful clown knife, I love the irregular pattern. Looks like he will have a good life with you!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I tried to give the knife a much bigger 4500 gal tank but our temensis pbass and the bigger Nile perch, both around 24" back then, in the summer of 2019, decided to try and prey on it. They could not, nor ever could swallow it but the dummies kept trying, IDK, maybe the knife's thinness fooled them, while badly damaging the knife in the process... so I had to take the knife out and back into a 240 gal.

A video update from Nov 2019:

Recently, the knife has gone into a new 1800 gal tank where it settled quite well. Check it out at 18 minutes:

We recently were donated our second clown knife fish, ~12"-14", which too has gone into the 1800 gal:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The bigger knife (Kathie's) is 24" or more now.

Here is the smaller one (Jordan's). Both in 1800 gal and both have been feeding like there is no tomorrow.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The older knife (Kathie's) is about 5 years old and is still about 2ft, maybe a bit over. The younger one (Jordan's) must be about 3 years old and has been closing in, around 22" now. The younger one dominates the older one. IDK if this is a gender thing. Not much experience with knives. Both have been upgraded to 25K gal from 4500 gal. They took giant NLS pellets and cut herring in the 4500. Been a couple weeks in the 25K but I've not seen them to feed yet. The water in the 25K is harder but I don't think it should be an obstacle. Will continue observation.

For a while in the 4500 gal, the older knife had something underneath its mouth / gills, like a protrusion, bone / cartilage or skin, IDK, and I thought its some injury from trying to swallow too big a piece of herring or too bony a piece. It has been slowly diminishing and almost gone now but I had thought it'd never go away. If someone could explain what this could have been, we'd appreciate it.

 

[eon aquatics]

beautiful fish

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Both knifes have been in the 25K for 8 months now and seem to be doing quite well. The strange thing under the K-knife's mouth / gills has disappeared thank goodness. The bigger K-knife is able to take an 8" herring now while the smaller and younger J-knife prefers to try smaller herring, like 6".

 

[SourAngelfish]

Good looking chitala

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

 

[jjohnwm]

I love Clown Knives...can't believe I have never noticed this thread before.