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Hey everyone, first post on this site. I have a 3" lima shovelnose and I was wondering what kinds of fish I can put in the same tank. Right now I have a 40 gallon but will be upgrading to a 100+ gallon soon. I like somewhat aggressive and exotic fish, like a gar, redtail, birchir... etc. Just wondering if anyone has had past experience with these fish in the same tank. Thanks..

As far as their closer relatives go they are the most adaptable to the community tank so long as other fish are not small enough to easily fit in their mouth they can be kept with many other species. A good fish to have if your staying with 100 gallons, some of the others you mentioned require a great deal more. Best of luck!

Redtails are NOT to be combined with a Lima.....

not only are Redtails competely UNsuitable for the hobby (unless you're a zoo-keeper with a 1000G tank to spare), they're voracious feeders and even small well capable of ripping up and devouring a similar sized Lima.

Lima's are piscivores, but very docile and peaceful.
Often people make the mistake that a fish that feeds on other fish has character to boost.
Actually most piscivores are very gentle fish; it's the algae-scrapers that are truly nasty.

So Lima-tankmates should be peaceful, and not overly voracious either; Lima's are easily outcompeted at feeding time.

I once had 2 6" Lima's that reached 11" in time, but then I added 8 Schilbe mystus. Although these fish were downright nice to each other, the piggy Schilbe's ate much faster than the Lima's, causing those to get really thin, and I had to trade them while still in good health.
they would have starved to death else.....

Thanks for the replies. What types of fish have you seen with the lima, and what would you suggest?

You like Bichirs; the smaller species of Polypterus do fine with a Lima.

An even better choice, because of it's more peaceful nature is Erpetoichthys (Calamoichthys) calabaricus, the Bichir Eel.
This is a social fish, so it can be kept as a pair, group, or single.

same for your Lima btw, it's one of the very few larger "Pims" that really does fine in a small group, say 2-4 fish.

most often they stick together; they like "rooty" bogwood; if you put such a piece vertical or diagonal, the Lima's will hover near or between the roots, almost standing on their noses.

Other good matches are Knifefishes of both old and new world (Xenomystus, Apteronotus etc), Pim pictus, piscivore characins like Ctenolucius or Boulengerella*, the less boisterous Synodontis species (S brichardi, S pleurops, S decorus, S flavitaeniatus etc), big Bushfish (Ctenopoma acutirostre), larger Characins (Poptella, Methynnis etc), semi-large bottomdwelling Loricariids (Pseudohemiodon, Rhineloricaria etc), Sturisoma's etc etc etc


*look almost like your Garpike, but "only" reach 1 foot in length, and thus fit in a hometank. true Garpikes (Lepidosteus) always surpass more than 2 feet, some get substancially larger even.....

Thanks for your answer, it was very detailed and thorough. Now I have to go look and research these fish. I have time though my s. lima is only about 2-3 inches, it hasn't even eaten my small barbs yet.

I was looking up the Ctenolucius and Boulengerella. From my readings it appeared that they get too large for a 100 gallon tank. Do they really get as big as some of the articles say? Also I was reading they they are very aggressive, would they endanger my s. lima? Other than that they look like great fish that I would love to put in my tank.

Both are downright shy, not agressive at all.

but often descriptions label any fish that eats other fish as agressive.
Ctenolucius varies in size; the desrcibed species get big, but rarely hit the trade.
there's however a smaller 'species' (or local variety?) imported from Peru or Colombia (I'm not sure wich) that hits about 8" or so, wich isn't too big for a 100G tank. This one shows up quite frequently lately.
It's called "fresh water barracuda" or "rocketfish"

Boulengerella's are much more rare and fragile, and can get spooked easily and damage themselves. if you have no experience with fish like these, best try Ctenolucius first.

keep them in a small group, despite their looks they're still characins and 5 or so will stick together like glue.
acoording to some reports they hunt in packs wich doesn't surprise me at all

I was looking into the "freshwater barracuda" and they look like the right fish for me. Now I have to figure out how many to put in a 100 gallong and how many lima's to put in with them. I was thinking around 2-3 "freshwater barracuda's" and 2-3 lima's with a pl*co. Could I put more?

I'd try it out with 3 of each and a pleco, and leave it at that.
there must be both room to move and some plants and/or bogwood.

you can always add a bichir eel later on.

I suggest you keep tanks with fish like these "underpopulated", because they're all messy feeders and also, these aren't the "strongest" fish in the hobby. esp those weird characins need very clean and well-oxygenated water wich is more easily in a tank with few fish.

Sounds good. So my tank is going to look like this: 3 limas, 3 freshwater barracudas and 1 pl*co in a 100 gallon. Would you suggest floating plants to block some of the overhead light from my light fixture? If so what types would you suggest?

Good plan!

Duckweed (Lemna minor), Floating Oakleaf Fern (Ceratopterys cornuta), Floating Waterlettuce (Pistia stratoides) and Limnobium spongaea are all good, the first three are very common in the hobby, the last is actually American and shows up on occasion.


A huge Tigerlily (Nymphea lotus) rooted in the sand, but with floating leaves, will work too.

Not just for light and shade; but floaters often soak up nitrates by the gallon, and you WILL need that, believe me
if they overgrow and you have to cull or prune; remember every handful you scoop out is recycled nitrates and fishpoop going to the compostheap

You might need a single fish that cleans IN the sand; any adult big fat Hoplo (Hoplosternum littorale or one of the Megalechis or Callichthys callichthys) will do fine, and their peaceful nature fits in perfect.
then you have a total of 8 fish in a 100G wich isn't too many I think.

I might have overlooked it, but how about the fact that your (future) fish are piscivorous? Do you have enough supply of live feederfish?

Good point. Right now my lima is doing well on red bloodworms. I'm thinking of mixing that up with earthworms, beefheart and some feeders. In the future though I can see a possible problem with having enough feeders. I think what I may want to do is make the 40 gallon I have now a breeder tank for feeders. I don't want to waste such a big tank on feeders though. Maybe a 10 gallon?

The problem with a 10 gallon is that the fish may actually breed, but their offspring grows too slowly to supply your fishes needs.
Occasionally you can buy feeders, but there's always some danger, because you don't know where they have been; a risk that you don't have when breeding yourself.
I myself hated to feed healthy fish, so I bought little less healthy fish, because that is what predators feed on in nature. This miscalculation has cost me some fish over the years.
And you do need supplies with 6 predators, because you don't want them to compete against eachother. Where you can fool the shovels with tablets and bloodworms for quite a long time, the adolescent barracudas will only take live fish.
So you may want to reconsider the 40 gallon.
BTW: have you any species in mind as feederfish?

All your planned fish can be fairly easily weened onto frozen meaty foods such as white bait, cockles, shrimp and mussels. The baracudas may be a bit stuborn but once they get hugry should start to strike at anything silvery that drops though the water, limas once settled will eat practically anything.

You can breed baby cichlids;

they are pleentyful, the young number in the hundreds, and you can choose various sizes to feed.

best species for this are Hemichromis lifalili (often sold as 'bimaculatus') aka Jewel.

another good choice is the Convict; Archocentrus nigrofasciatus (or Cichlasoma nigrofasciata, Cryptoheros nigrofasciatus etc, all the same fish).

You need a bigger tank than a 10G, but they're easy to breed, very easy to maintain, eat everything etc.

if you treat the parents with a good anti-worm medication before breeding, and keep them healthy and clean, you should have NO problems with transmitting parasites.

and you only have to buy 2 fish for feeders; you're up to the eyebrows in fry, and you can keep the piscivores alive and well.

Sorry to butt in, but I feel the need to say that one should be cautious when using convicts (and probably other cichlids) as feeders.

I had a few weeks old convict fry killing a moray eel. Later I tried feeding the now 1" long convicts to a 15" Hemibagrus wyckii. The wyckii attempted to kill the convicts at first (they are very hardy), the ones it did not kill was later ignored and now became a threat as they were picking on it's fins and barbels. For the record, the catfish did not actually eat a single one of them.

Also, removing small cichlids from a large tank can be very frustrating. Especially, if you for some reason, are unable to remove decorations and lowering the water level.

Personally, I am not found of live foods at all, but at least I will never use cichlids again.

Odd.

but then, they're not called convict for naught

I've fed baby convicts to Lima's, Schilbe and Ctenopoma's with great succes, and every single one was eaten, always.

So it can differ, greatly.

I feed 1" convicts to my six inch limas on a regular basis and they don't last longer than a minute. Kribensis may also be a good choice.

No I didn't really have any fish in mind for feeders. I'm open to suggestions though! So you would consider the 40 gallon for breeding as opposed to the 10?

definitely.

a 40G would be a meter/3feet tank or so?
perfect size for breeding Jewels or Convicts.

If Convicts may look a bit too tricky as Featherback indicated, go for Jewels.
breed just as hard, much nicer to look at, but the young aren't as smart.

Whats wrong with just feeding frozen foods to your fish? My 3 limas and 4 baracudas (Acestrorhynchus falcirostris and Acestrorhynchus falcatus) all readily take whitebait, mussel, cockle and shrimp and are all in good health, plus no feeder fish have to suffer to keep them that way.

you got Acestrorhynchus????


that is ONE COOL fish!
pix plz!

Great to hear they can be kept healthy on a diet without feeders, this will definitely simplefy things if Ctenolucius can be kept the same way

catfishcrazy wrote:Whats wrong with just feeding frozen foods to your fish? My 3 limas and 4 baracudas (Acestrorhynchus falcirostris and Acestrorhynchus falcatus) all readily take whitebait, mussel, cockle and shrimp and are all in good health, plus no feeder fish have to suffer to keep them that way.

There's of course nothing wrong with that; as a matter of fact I'm really glad to hear that from you.
But I have only experience with Boulengerella (a close relative of Ctenolucius, the species we are talking about) and they just refused to eat anything but live food.
So if someone asks for information I can do no more than tell from my own experience.
Perhaps Nitestocker can try to start with frozen food and if it works out it's even better.
BTW: I love Acestrorhynchus as well and it's good to read that someone in the hobby keeps these great fish.

Whats this, someone on a catfish forum wants to see pictures of a Characin!! Surely you'd rather see pics of some of my nice cats like Ageneiosus magoi and brevifilis or prehaps Malapterus microstoma ?

Oh ok then

these are the A.falcirostris


i dont seem to have any pics of the A.falcatus on the PC but i'll try to get some over the weekend and post them up.

Hey Catfishcrazy could you tell me what type of setup you have for your A.falcirostris'? Like tank size, tank mates, filter etc... Thanks!

catfishcrazy wrote:Whats this, someone on a catfish forum wants to see pictures of a Characin!! Surely you'd rather see pics of some of my nice cats like Ageneiosus magoi and brevifilis

Oh yes, I'd like to see them too!! Have you got other brilliant species as well?

The A.falcirostris are still very small and so are in a 3x18x18" aquarium with a eheim classic 2213 external filter and and fluval 3+ internal filter, tankmates are various other juvie fish which will be moved into larger tanks as they grow.


The Ageneiosus and M.microstoma are the only fish i would say were brilliant out of my collection simply because of their scarcity in the trade but i have a few other uncommon fish in my tanks, Hemisorubim platyrynchos, Platystomachthys sturio and Pimelodus ornatus for examples of catfish and i have some nice oddballs and Characins too.

I'll start a new thread with some pics and put a link to it here to save taking the thread to far off topic.

edit: link to pics here http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 6988#66988