African knifefish eating q's

[ReefRaft]

ok i recently purchased ginzu my african knife fish and bought him some feeder guppies 9 of them this morning a did a water change and sucked up 2 guppies. im just wondering if hes eating them at night? if anyone has one of these awesome creatures how many guppies do they eat everynight? he's about 4-5 inches right now

 

[gatotsu77]

I have one, and he's probably one of my favorite fish. (though I haven't named him yet) The first few days were the worst... he wouldn't eat anything, or at least to what I could tell. On about day 5 I noticed that he was picking at little bits of shrimp pellets at night, so I started trying to feed when there was a little bit more light in the room. (but not enough that it'd scare him away... like daytime but close the blinds) After I'd say about the 2nd week, he was really getting the pattern down, and catching some of the sinking pellets as they were headed his way. I was also putting feeder guppies and ghost shrimp in my tank for my catfish, and after approx. the end of the 3rd week, I finally saw him go for and grab a guppy. I was really happy. Nowadays, (I've had him for close to 2 months) he fights everyone for flakes, happily gobbles up feeder guppies, chases around and occasionally eats ghost shrimp, eats sinking shrimp and krill pellets, and every now and again when I give it to them, goes absolutely nuts for frozen plankton and blood worms. Magnificent fish. Awe inspiring to watch.

 

[Toirtis]

My x. nigri feed primarily on frozen and pelleted foods, but also eat small fish and live earthworms....I would imagine that they ear about the equivalent of 2-3 fedder guppies daily each.