Ropefish in a 46 Gallon... Terrible Idea??

Given the other fish mentioned, not a good idea. More info on this species here:
http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/erpetoichthys-calabaricus/

 

Never kept one but read about them and considered one for my 75g oddball setup. Too big for a 46g with other fish. Probably okay alone.


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In my experience if you have only one it will hide constantly, if you have three or fewer they'll fight with eachother, and if you have 5+ they get along well and are frequently active (esp. at feeding time.) I'd not put them in anything smaller than a 120 for life, a 75 will work for a long time though.

 

They're one of my favorite fish. I snagged a 180 to house them and eventually some bichir once I convince the lady I need two tanks and can move my edible fish to it. I'm currently at 5 ropes of varying sizes, all under 10" though. I might go up to 7, but If the 2nd tank never comes i'll be over stocked once they and several plecos reach large sizes.

 

Do not be afraid to do it. I had 3 ropefish in a 37 gal. tank for weeks when I moved. They ate all my guppys, but they were fine. My 2 ropefish died a few weeks ago, and really depressed me. One was over 5 yrs old. They were both trained on catfish pellets, and the younger one even tried to eat algae wafers. They were the best fish I ever had, and may get more eventually. They LOVE bloodworrms, and when I first got mine, I went through a whole lot of ghost shrimp. But they eventually got used to the pellets. They would drape themselves over some decoration, and pretend they were invisible. I say go ahead and get one, you won't be sorry. They can be fine alone, but do better with 2 or more.They do not bother each other at all, they will even share the same cave. I have heard they like to jump, but really, mine never even came to the top except to gulp air now and again.

 

I've had one for 20 years or so, in a 20g tank. No problems, but it might have eaten some of the rosy reds I added for visual interest. Mine shared the same hiding space as a bumblebee catfish, is active day and night, and eats shrimp pellets with no problems. (I have offered other foods, but surprisingly the pellets seem to be preferred.)

Recently relocated my fish into a 46g, and the reedfish seems quite content. Current tank mates are a large tinfoil barb, clown pleco, dragonfish/violet goby, small bichir, 2 small bumblebee cats, 4 Denison barbs, and 2 horsefaced loaches. Eventually everyone will be moving to a larger tank, but I have never had problems with "Wormie", as my sister calls him.

 

Ok am gonna finish the 7 day course of pimafix and see what happens then if I don't see a change I will try the Methylene blue. So far my water parameters with using the pimafix are fine no ammonia spikes the fish are still eating well and active. The fuzzy area looks like the tip of a cotton swab with a reddened center. How does methylene blue affect my biological media I read that the malachite green causes high ammonia spikes.​