Would a Senegal bichir eat my fish?

[aviars]

There is a senegal bichir at one of my local petsmarts that I have become very interested in. I haven't seen how big it is because it lives inside of a tube, but I think it's pretty small. I have a 55 gallon tank with 1 small angelfish, 2 grown swordtails, 4 platies, 1 grown molly, 1 german blue ram, 1 dwarf gourami, 6 cory catfish, and 5 female bettas. Would all of my fish get eaten if I put the bichir into the tank?
I got a new 55 gallon today and I am thinking about possibly having african cichlids in it. Would it be able to live with them?

 

[uszkatatouestela]

You could probably put the Senegal into the in the 55 gallon until he grows out, but it would not be ideal, and you might have some fish go missing. Also, if the cory catfish are too small and get eaten, their spikes could fatally damage your polypterus.

I don't know about African Cichlids, but my gut feeling would be that they would be too aggressive. MFK, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Owens]

I was growing out a couple baby sens with mollies and platys a while ago.

It only took a couple days for the sens to start taking chunks ou of the other fish in the tank

 

[kevinfleming21]

It will eventually start hunting the smaller livebearers.

 

[Dr.B]

Depending on how big it is..... obviously the smaller it is the harder it will be for it to gulp down the fish, but i would say its a what do love more situation the mollies etc..., or the poly.....? For the cory cats I've had a 9" palmas palmas in with some and nothing ever happened, but if something does happen there is a huge risk factor with it having all sorts of sharp edges and bones. Also you can have him with cichlids, but you'd have to make sure that when you put some food in that he gets some and the cichlids don't eat it all. Also you need to make sure that the cichlids aren't too small to eat and aren't too large to be very aggressive so depending on his size i would wait until he is about 5-6" to introduce some cichlids.

 

[lix.ma14]

those platies and mollies are definitely future feeders.