55 gallon stocking

[evil wizard]

Hello everyone, I'll be upgrading my 55 to a 75 in a few months and will have an empty tank. I'm wanting to go with some big fish for this tank. I have a rough outline for the tank. Here it is,
1 angel fish
3 bristle nose plecos
1 rainbow shark
1 Senegal bichir
1 synodontis eupterus
Its mainly bottom heavy as I could not find many top dwelling fish that I liked. I'm sure there are at least a few things wrong with this so please tell me what y'all think about it.
-Brian

 

[big54bob]

How bout some rainbows? Most species tend to get up to 5 inches or so.

 

[fishorama]

Your bichir worries me, a potential 20 inch fish in a 55g, that's pretty big. 3 BNs, hmm, a pair will likely form & breed, snacks for syno & bichir...except for those pectoral spines that may cause issues.

 

[evil wizard]

Hmm, wouldn't a school of 6-8 five inch fish make a fair amount of waste?

Senegal bichirs can grow to 20 inches but they rarely if at all do so in the home aquaria. I'm not worried about it growing that big.
I actually already have some of the fish in other tanks. I have the 3 plecos, shark, and angel fish. There is already a pair in between the 3 of them. However, I feel like the syno would eat the eggs long before they had a chance to hatch and the bichir might go after them I think.

 

[Tifftastic]

If the bichir grows faster than the angel he can, and will, eat it. My friend didn't believe this and came home to two angel fish bitten in half. . . they will eat everything.

 

[OrionGirl]

IF the fish isn't growing to a normal size, it's due to limiting factors (ie, tank size), and that means it's stunted. This has serious health consequences and shortens the life of the fish. I don't think it's EVER a good idea to PLAN to stunt a fish.

 

[evil wizard]

T Tiff , I wont be getting the tank for quite a few months and my angel is already a decent size. The angel fish is around 4 inches long, I'll give you an exact measurement once I get home.
O Orion , that is not always the case. There are plenty of animals that often grow smaller then their max size in the wild when they are in captivity. Senegal bichirs tend to get to 12 inches or aorund that in captivity. 20 inches is the wild max. Yes, I am very aware of what stunting is. It's a little hobby of mine of mine to alert people buying goldfish what can/will happen to it if he is kept in a small tank. I fdalso agree that it is unacceptable to stunt a fish under any circumstances.
I appreciate you're concern for the fish being stunted and trying to educate me, we need more people like you in the world helping others learn about the wonders of fish.

 

[Tifftastic]

I actually just read on fish base that the largest P. senegalus on record was 70 cm (27.56 inches). But I've never seen one more than 10 inches in the hobby. Mine was 8 inches when I rehomed him, long story, but I do miss him. He was my favourite fish, even if he did always eat his friends. In 6 months he went from 2 inches to 4 or 5. Then he slowed down a lot. They're very long lived fish (upwards of 30 years) which means they grow kind of slow. Fish grow their entire lives, so what I think happens with some of these species is the stuff that comes along with living in a box shortens their life. No matter how pristine we keep our water or how much variety of food we offer, there is something missing. Of course there are times when it is the opposite and they live much longer in captivity than they do in the wild. But I think the former is the reason why we don't see those 27 inch P. senegalus in the hobby,

 

[evil wizard]

If the record is 27 inches, I highly doubt there would be more then a hand full of cases of them in the home aquaria even if they grew to the 20 Inch they do in the world.

 

[OrionGirl]

I happen to know people who have them that are much larger than 10 inches, closer to 18-20 inches. So...no. Not buying it.