I went to the farmers market last week and stopped in the pet store, and I had been drinkin a little bit and they had elephant noses. They said they'd been there about a month and were eatin shrimp pellets. Me and my friend were gettin tons of weird looks from people hearin us talk all about fish, but long story short, I got an elephant nose last week and put him with my polypterus and a kribensis. I think he's doin ok, but I haven't seen him swim around to get food after lights out for the last 2 days. Does anybody else have this combo? Any tricks to make sure the elephant nose gets enough food? I have another tanks I could setup, but I'd really like to keep it simple if I could. right now I'm feeding them freeze dried tubifex and some shrimp pellets that have soaked in water after I turn out the lights. Any good suggestions for other africans I could add after I get this sorted out? They're all in a 75 gallon.
Polypterus with Elephant Nose?
- Thread starter stl2pab
- Start date
ive kept elephant noses before, but never with polys. but ive never had luck with em, mine never ate, etc.
Yeah, african biotopes the plan, but I'll probly sub some south american tetras or asian barbs cuz the african ones are hard to find. I wanna get an african butterfly too. My last one jumped out a tiny hole in the lid, but I got this tank covered way better with a piece of glass I found in the alley.
i had an african biotope a few years back - you should be fine with that combo, i had no probs at all, i even had a buttikofferi cichlid which never bothere the elephant nose's. the elephant nose i feel are best in a small group 3+. with the tetras you will eventually have problems with your poly,s meaning they will end up as food 
if you could upgrade eventually, sexfaciatus....or for aggressive types there are aba aba knives and cornish jacks, also african lungfishes.
peewee;4144865; said:
the aba aba will kill everything in the tank pretty much, so will a lungfish -
i have just purchased some african blockhead cichlids which dont grow too large, are congo tetras hard to get hold of for you? they grow much larger than common sp. tetras and are absolutely stunning!
lungfishlover;4146941; said:the aba aba will kill everything in the tank pretty much, so will a lungfish -
are you sure about that? haha! have you even kept one of those?
peewee you seem to have lost track on what this thread was about. stl2pab wanted to know if elephantnoses and birchirs would mix. you decided he should add an aba aba or lungfish! are you crazy??? lungfish should be species only yes i have kept one for 7 years and it killed everything except plecostomus. no i havent had an aba aba but they use electrial pulses to navigate/locate food etc as do elephant nose. now unless stl2pab has a very large tank you shouldnt mix these types of fish. not to mention the elephant nose would not be able to defend itself against even an overly aggressive guppy! quite frankly i think your suggestions are stupid but then you do take fishkeeping to the EXTREME so who am i to argue! hahahahaha
now as to your original Q, stl2pab - i found the same problem with my elephantnoses not seeming to feed. i found if i fed my birchir and cichlid first making sure they were full, i then used frozen bloodworm (letting them defrost first) and adding them after lights out. your e.n. might be a little stressed new tank etc. have you provided it with plenty of hiding spaces during the day with some bogwood? they are quite delicate fish. hope that helps!
now as to your original Q, stl2pab - i found the same problem with my elephantnoses not seeming to feed. i found if i fed my birchir and cichlid first making sure they were full, i then used frozen bloodworm (letting them defrost first) and adding them after lights out. your e.n. might be a little stressed new tank etc. have you provided it with plenty of hiding spaces during the day with some bogwood? they are quite delicate fish. hope that helps!