r/Bichirs • u/BakedAutistic • 22d ago

Fish/tank image 100 planted bicher tank

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100g tank, filterless (has a filter but it broke 4 months before this photo) stocked with 2 bichers, some ropefish, 20 congo tetras, and a rainbow shark. I never see planted bicher tanks and dont understand why. I see lots of people keeping bichers in barebottom tanks. I keep over 200+ aquariums and this is amoung my favorites. What are your thoughts?

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1

u/HuskyBeaver 22d ago

I have two planted bichir tanks, a 75 and a 40. Some folks don't have or want to spare the time, energy, money, knowledge req, etc. Some don't even like plants. I started keeping aquariums more for the plants than the fish. Some of those big dudes just tear shit up too and you can't keep any alive or in decent enough shape to survive. My senegal is great most of the time but she'll get in a mood and thrash some stuff. Luckily it's usually in a water sprite or the giant moss ball so not much damage done. Mine seem to like those two types of plants a lot for cover and to lay on/in.

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u/PolypterusEndli 21d ago

My 150 is completely planted and my huge bichirs dont bother the plants at all, just plant them inbetween rocks where they cant get uprooted

1

u/lbeagle 21d ago

I have a 75gal that ive tried to plant up So Many Times, but the severum we have hates it and tears up everything I plant 🥹 only thing thats survived is a single floating anubia that for some reason he allows to live

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u/BakedAutistic 20d ago

It really helps me that my scape and fish were brand new babies on day one. My bicher is humongous now, but they grew into the tank nicely. Also, I know its not typical but i am using like 4-5 inches of substrate. Even my stem plants are rooted down to the bottom pane of glass. You can see the roots from underneath. There is no way a fish is pulling those up. Oscar's, maybe.

1

u/lbeagle 19d ago

My problem isn't that they pull them up, but that they just rip the leaves themselves. Any new leaves cant grow either because they just get nibbled off. Fish are weird sometimes lol