black knife ghost fish question

[ch0g]

hey all,

i have had my tank for around a month now, and everything seems to be going well. i have only 2 black ghost knife fish in the tank at the moment. before getting my fish i read on the web and it recommended only have one and not two. when i went to the fish shop, the guy there side it was perfectly fine to have two of them as long as there was sufficient hiding places in the tank. i have driftwood in there so thats no issue. my tank is 190 litres.

obviously out of the two knives there is a bully, he seems to dominate the main hiding area and gets to all the food before the other feller can. he appears to be growing at a much faster rate than the other one, i would imagine this is related to the amount of food he is getting. i tried hand feeding the underprivledged one tonight and he took a few bites, and after a minute or so the other knife snaffled up the remaining food (most of it). should i be getting rid of one of my knives? i'm worried the little one will die soon. please help

ch0g

 

[wayne]

Sounds like one has to go. Most predators exist singly in the wild. I've seen groups of five plus do well though

 

[dss2004]

Here is a good site with some ideas of Black Ghost
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile66.html

 

[knifefishfreack]

THey dont like to be together i would have to agree with wayne one must go.

 

[lordroad]

Black ghost knives cannot be together, unless you have a ridiculous sized aquarium (500 gallons) or a 1000+ liters. In fish stores when they are kept together, you can see them sometimes just tearing each other apart like male bettas.

Also, do you have an actual cave in your tank? They need to be completely out of the light. I have broken pieces of terracotta that are facing the front of the tank so I can see the BGK, but it is safely out of the tank light.

Here are the best two sites I found on the black ghost knife:

http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Knife, Black Ghost.htm

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/knifefishfaqs.htm

That should answer any other questions you may have about them... unfortunately, that's about it for them as far as info goes... though I plan to write out a good in-depth profile on them as it seems there is some misinformation out there.

 

[ch0g]

hmm thanks guys, ill check out those sites later on today. i don't know what to do with the other knife fish if i take it out of the tank. no-one i know has a tank suitable for it

i suppose the fish to leave would be the more aggressive one which is larger? or not?

 

[J'sRamAir]

It doesn't really matter which one goes back. Just take it back to the store where you got it from. They will either give you a refund or a credit for the fish.

 

[ch0g]

thanks. i'll do it this weekend

 

[victimizati0n]

if their in groups of 6 or more, they do fine with each other, either 1 or 6+