Streetglow1157

Ive had my bgkf for about a week now and i feel bad for it because it has such bad eyesight that it cant see the other fish when they come to attack it and that the gouramais will sometimes nip its tail and the swordtails will to but the weird thing is its only the females swordtails if the male swordtail is around it will protect the knife fish from the females instead of attacking it.: I was wondering if i got a secound knife fish if maybe the other fish would leave them alone.

TFA101

well, because they have such bad eyesight, you should inquire some large hamster tubes in which they can hide and feel out of sight. If this doesn't work, I suggest removing the attackers.


btw, i was looking at your stock and you have 4 irridescent sharks. These guys will grow up to 18" in captivity and 4' long in the wild, and the only way to provide a home for it would be a public aquarium. The common plcoes, each about 12" each and the bala sharks 14" each. The stock would be meant for a public aquarium than a typical 50 gallon.

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore!! a few things to mention...all the things tfa has said are great, but also, why is your tank 87F? thats a bit too warm for those fish kids...what kind of hiding places or tunnels do you have for the knife fish? they are so helpless that they really need a tunnel totally non agressive fish ...goodluck

Streetglow1157

i have put a tube in the tank but it doesnt go into it, it usualyy hides behind the filter or the heater and it also hides in a little rock cove i have, also what temp do you think it should be set at? and i know that the fish will grow big but ill worry about that when the time comes.

Shawnie

usualy temps for tropicals are 78-80 ish...we reccomend 83 when treating ICH..so 87 is way too high..unless you are keeping some kind of fish I dont know about and the temps are required to be higher.but most of the fish in your info dont require over 80.....hopefully he will find the tube soon...maybe see if you can put some food inside it to entice him...

peacemaker92

I've had a few BGKF before and they live well in a community. Just keep an eye on those nippers! They can injure him. It's happened to mine before! Shawnie has the good advice! The tube is great and putting food to entice him could be a great idea! But try getting a few more BGKF so he can have some friends that are the same species to him...

Rbacchiega

PVC tubing will do well, multiple ones will be better than just one. Also, as already mentioned, the id sharks will get large, well over 18 inches and are more than likely the ones causing the bgk the issues. They are a slower moving, calmer fish, so something like an ID shark that is constantly cruising the tank would be causing some stress