Should I keep two Peters Elephant Nose fish in one tank

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hartz

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Hi,
Should I keep two of these in a single tank? Today while at the pet shop I talked to another customer there who said that if you have two, they will play!

I've read somewhere that they prefer to be solitary. I've never considered keeping two, so now I'm curious. I have not yet replaced the one I lost two weeks ago, still just doing 10% water changes twice a week as I thing the water in my tank is really bad (it reeks)

Thanx!
_hartz
 
I recall that if you keep two of the same species that they could be aggressive and that they emit small electrical charges as their mood changes. Although I have seen them together.

They are also very sensitive to water quality from what I remember
 
My Tank

HenkHugo and Tanga, thank you - that is what I suspected.

My Tank is about 80 litres, I got it as a present so I'm not 100% sure but basically it seems to be of the stock "3-footer" variety.

In my tank I presently have 4 guppies, 4 angels, a Pleco, and 2 Dwarf Gouramies. I got rid of two of the dwarf gouramies because they were terrorizing the other fish. Oh yes, and a butterfly fish.

Currently my tank is a bit under-planted. The gouramies ate most of them, so now there is only about 5 small plants left.

I'm working on getting some pictures up, will let you know when its done.
 
Sounds Good there hartz:D We would love to see pics

OK a few questions if I may;)

What lighting and what filtration ? Sorry but we are inquisitive :D
 
Good morning Hartz,

I would avoid keeping elephant noses in a tank without plants and other hiding spaces. I would also get rid of 2 of the 4 angels as they will get extremely agro when they paid off and a 3ft tank is just to small. Unless you have VERY good filtration i would avoid normal/common plecos as they get upto 1.2M long and shit all over the tank. these fish ARE NOT clean up fish and needs to be fed bottom feeding tabs and veg like cucumber and baby marrow. If you want fish that will clean up algea and stay small get some Ottos. they are fantastic algea eaters but also needs to be target fed.

I would also be extremely careful of the butterfly fish and the guppies... you might just find the guppies missing.
 
Hi HenkHugo,

Thank you for your sugestions. My Guppies (and some Neon Tetras) have been disappearing, but this started the day I got the pleco. It is a tiger-spotted sail-fin pleco. The pleco is much bigger than the butterfly fish - the butterfly is only about 9cm, the pleco about 15 cm.

I I noticed that the substrate is disgustingly dirty since I got the pleco. I now have an almost permanent layer of slimy brown gunk that I need to vacuum up weekly to keep the tank looking decent.

My filtration is by a submersible spunge filter/pump. It unfortunately causes a fair amount of surface stir and a strong flow around the tank which I believe is also not ideal for elephant nose fish, but my previous nose fish did not seem to mind the stream much.

I have a large Ship-wreck in which the nose fish used to hide during the day. Currently I only have a small number of plants, including a few plastic ones which I keep more because they provide some resistance to the flow than for any other reason.

Another thing which I need to address is my substrate, which is made up of gravel with a diameter of around 7mm - I've been told that nose-fish wants really fine sand.

So I'm looking for good sand which I can vacuum and a more efficient filter. The type with the external air pumps tend to be quite noisy, so I'm looking for a good solution there too.

Lighting comes from two tube, one white and one "pink", but I'm generally using only the pink light. I don't want to over-expose the fish!!!

Thanx for all the advice
 
good morning,

Thanks for the detailed info now i can really help you :thumbup:

Judging by your discreption of the pleco it sounds like a Glyptoperichthys Gibbiceps. A stunning fish indeed but a shit machine of note! They grow to about 50cm and will get there within a year. 99% of plecos are herbivores and will not catch fish at all, the only meat some pleco eat will be things like shrimps, blood worms, larva etc in the wild. I strongly suggest you take him back to the shop or het a 5ft tank to keep it :whistling:

By the sounds of it your biggest problem with the tank is the lack of filtration. the sponge filters are great for fry setups but shouldnt be used where you have shit machines like large plecos. you will HAVE to get a power filter of some sort. for your size tank i can really suggest the Fluval 205 or a small eheim canister filters. these are silent and byfar the most effective filters in FW tanks.

Builders Warehouse is currently selling 40kgs bags of pool filter sands which works great fishtanks. i think its like R40 a bad or something.

HTH

Henk
 
Hi, Hartz try the Cascade 300 hang-on Filter. I have two of these in my 4ft freswater setup and they do quite a decent job providing you replace the cartridges every month or so. With a 80L setup you could even consider the Cascade 200/ 250 as they also pack some bang for buck! I agree with Henk, go buy the finest pool filtersand you can get, not just great for the fish but your plants will flourish. I also tried keeping two Elephantnose in my tank but eventually gave one back to the dealer due to constant fighting, I have some rockworck, logs and lots of plants but that didn't even help. As far as the plant-eating go, if you can go buy some Sera Algea chips, fish love it!!
 
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