Black ghost knifefish and tetras...

[xerxeswasachump]

I'm currently rearranging my 55 gallon. I'm trading in my rainbows and my SAE for a black ghost knifefish (he is still a juvenile, 3") and a school of lemon tetras. Is this a huge mistake?

I've read that if a knifefish is raised with smaller fish, like my rams and tetras, they won't think to eat them. Is this true or should i give back my knifefish and get some more rams or something?

[harif87]

Im pretty sure that under any circumstance knife fish will eat anything that fits in their mouth....they sneak behind them and suck em in.

I always wanted to get one but never had the guts .....

[flamingo]

Xerxes, it's kind of chancy. It may not or it may.

I've kept three types of knifefish,; clown knife, black ghost knife, and african knifes. All were pretty peaceful, heck when I was first starting out my black ghost used to get attacked by my bumblebee gobies.


At certain times with certain fish they will get aggressive and stalk them at night. Personally, i'd leave the knife out of the picture. It wouldn't be the greatest thing in the world to put a possible highlypredatory night stalker in with a community of small fish. And no, i'm not even going to talk about how big it'll get..it'll be years before it gets about a foot.

If you REALLY want to though ALWAYS monitor your tank and make sure all fins are in check, etc. If you see any signs of stress in your fish or see fins being torn then immediately remove the knifefish. On top of everything being chancy with knifefish, the smaller ones are extremely unpredictable. A lot are peaceful when about 3 inches like you mentioned.

Ok, instead of going on for 20 pages i'll leave it at that

[|V|][{|-|/\[-|_]

It seems to me that a general rule is that if a fish will fit in the mouth of another fish, the smaller fish will eventually be a meal. It's kind of like putting a person and a cheeseburger together. It has nothing to do with the size of the room, the aggression of the person, or how well-fed that person is...sooner or later, that cheeseburger is going to get eaten.

[xerxeswasachump]

Thanks for the help fishpeeps. I think i'll leave him in for now. It would take me forever to get him out of the cave he is chilling in (it is the bottom support of a much larger, barely stable structure). Besides the tetras are sort of expendable since they were free and i could easily replace them (or switch out the knifefish if i put my mind to it). I'm also gonna give away my checkerboard cichlids to a friend for a while (i might take them back someday).
Right now the knifefish just hides in a cave and moves forward and backward over and over again. It is kind of funny.
I haven't gotten him to eat yet. I think he may have nibbled on a piece of krill but then he just knocked it out of his cave.
On the bright side, i saw my eel eat for the first time today. He did it right out in the open with the bright lights on too. He is finally getting used to the tank. Will the knifefish take a similar adjustment period (5 weeks)?
Also, now that i work at a fish store i could easily replace my smaller fish with bigger fish as the knifefish and eel grow.