Frank! I got to add a friend to your aquarium, and it's a dinosaur. I hope you don't mind!?!
That's right a Dinosaur!
You see, dinosaurs
started walking the earth about 200, 230 million years ago, something like that, whereas the Bichir or
Bishir* or Biker*, however you want to pronounce it,
has been around for about three hundred and sixty million years! Older than dinosaurs.
It's an ancient fish.
Absolutely incredible! I used to keep them many years ago.
But let's just back up a minute and talk about why the Bichir is actually going in
Frank's
tank in the first place. You guys will remember that I went to "One Fish Two Fish" my local fish store a few weeks back,
and I was there to pick up some Uaru. While there,
I seen the Bichir and had to have it of course. That happens to me sometimes.
I know you guys do it a lot as well, where we kind of impulse buy fish, not generally a good idea...
but heck we got tons of tanks here and even a 2000 gallon aquarium that I wanted to put him in except
He's too small to go in the 2000 gallon aquarium, but he's done his quarantine phase.
He was in a system by himself.
He's too big to be put in with the Angels and Uaru and other fish that I have and even the Stingray because these
guys have a
mouthful of teeth that can do quite a bit of damage, and they are an opportunistic feeder.
So they're definitely gonna grab at the Angels and Uaru even the Rays and Discus, doing some damage and possibly killing and eating them.
So, that means he had to be on his own, but it also means that he's taking up that whole system,
and I can't use it for new fish that are coming. All my quarantine systems are full right now. I need those systems.
He's got to get out.
He can't go in there, in the 2000,
so he's got to come
into Frank's tank, which is kind of just a holding system for Frank until we figure out what we're going to do with him.
I'm gonna go ahead and add the Bichir into the tank.
He is a little bit antsy and he kind of wants to get out of it.
And I am thinking maybe Frank might go after him, but Frank's not really an aggressive fish to an extent.
I think that he's more curious.
With that said, when he was in with the Rays, the Rays are such a
delicate, and you know, even expensive fish, that I really didn't want Frank doing any damage to them, but the Bichir is a
tough fish!
Clearly, it has to be, being around for hundreds of millions of years, but it's also a pretty interesting fish. You see,
even for beginners you might think that this is an advanced fish, and it is given that it's
opportunistic feeder leading towards being a predator given this type of mouth, but a
a lot of times beginners in the hobby
won't oxygenate their... oxygenate their aquariums properly or sometimes they even have ammonia in their tanks because they're not cycling them properly. Now,
I don't want to promote the Bichi as a fish that could take a lot of abuse,
but they do have a special anatomy about them that allows them to breathe air, meaning that if water conditions in the aquarium are not
favorable, at least
they can go to the top of the tank and take take a gulp of air. Let's go ahead and add him in.
In you go... be nice Frank.
Right now Frank's just being kind of curious with him.
The Bichi are a relatively active fish, believe it or not.
Water conditions will depict how active they are, as well as how hungry they are.
I am going to add in a piece of decoration into
the tank for the Bichir to kind of hide in. It's looking like it's kind of looking for a place to hide right now.
But... and of course, just in case Frank goes after it.
But again, this tank isn't aquascaped yet, of course the ones around it are and hmm..
but we still have a lot to work on here.
Mainly due to I'm not sure what I want to do with Frank here. Frank's just become such a good friend of mine
And he's such a personable fish, and he's you know, just... just became the new...
the new little guy that I enjoy visiting every day. And I kind of want to talk about something here quickly.
I've mentioned a few times that it bothers me how popular Frank is and how many people just love Frank and
And I think some people think that I actually don't like Frank and at the end of the day,
It's me joking!
I believe that, you know, a lot of you guys know that and it's just a little banter going back and forth between you guys.
But clearly, if I didn't like Frank, there's no way he would be in the gallery!! Especially taking up a 120 gallon aquarium.
I think he's a great fish. I think that,
you know, when it comes down to it. I've also said that you know he's a subpar
Flowerhorn, in terms of appearance and whatnot, and that is the truth. I'm always gonna speak the truth here.
I'm not gonna say he's a show-quality
Flowerhorn, or that you know, that he exhibits traits of what you'd be looking for, because that's simply not true.
And I guess you could say that what he lacks in appearance, he makes up in personality!
I guess I have that in common with him!! But I should also mention the reason that I got Frank in the first place.
I seen him. He was so cute. And
I just had to have him!
And I'm still glad that I've got him. He's thrown a wrench into the plans of what we're gonna do with this tank, but ultimately,
he's a cool little fish. He's gonna stick around.
Did you just kiss him!?!
They just kissed on the lips!
I think what we'll add in here is just a couple of these fake logs. Believe it or not, these are not real!
They're made by Aquadecor, we did an unboxing of this stuff.
They make some ultra realistic things, including a lot of the backgrounds that are in this gallery.
But, I'm gonna add these in because they're lightweight,
they're gonna sink immediately,
they're not going to alter the waters chemistry in any way, and
I'll also be able to take them out really easily as well when I'm ready to scape this tank. But...
for now,
I'm just gonna toss these in to give the Bichir,
something to kind of hide in and hide under, and hmm...
should be okay. You can see they sink right away. Another big one. Don't know if this is gonna fit!? This must be a four-foot one.
Yeah, it's quite large. All right.
In it goes. Let me know what you think.. did we turn it into a Frank tank where it's just a mix mash of
random fish, or
do we figure out how we're gonna do Central American. If we do Central American, Frank just can't stay. He's too big.
We're probably gonna have to start off with a lot of small fish, and then as they grow and mature...
perhaps he can come back, but you know if he doesn't go in here,
I think what I might do is, like I've said before, I'll build him a tank and
put it in the house. There's no more room out here and
he can become the pet fish in the house. But you guys wouldn't see him as much anymore because we don't film videos in there.
Let me know what you guys think though! So this guy is the Ornate Bichir, or Bashir or Biker. It's spelled B-I-C-H-I-R
from the family Polypteridae.
These guys are a fish from Africa.
Now the ornate, in my opinion, is one of the nicer of the Bichir. As you can see, it's got some sharp coloration
and high contrast. He's only been added to the tank moments ago, but they also have a nice white belly
or you know a cream-colored belly, which looks really cool when they're swimming up.
Perfect timing, I'm gonna like this guy! These guys get quite large usually getting to about 16-18 inches, some have gotten larger.
But you know it's more common to see them at the, you know, foot and a half size.
But like I mentioned, these guys are an opportunistic feeder. A lot of them were, a lot of people refer to them as
predators though.
Just simply because of
their jaw! As you can see he just went up and gulped of a
breath of air. These guys are actually an air breather as well. They have the ability to go to the surface,
they have paired lungs,
they have the ability to go to the surface and take a gulp of air,
if need be. Which at times can prove to be extremely useful especially in low oxygen zones.
Where there's not a ton of oxygen to dissolve in the aquarium,
so they're able to jump up to the surface grab a gulp of air and go back down. Now, one of the interesting
things about these guys though,
is
that a lot say these are the missing leak link between
fish and amphibians.
As you can see how he uses his front pectorial fins to almost walk along the bottom of the tank.
I've often thought the same about
Axolotl,s how it appears as though
they are in the the middle of evolution, sort of speak, where
They still have some gills on the outside of their bodies. Look at Frank, just kind of exploring him,
you know and this is OK. Frank's just mouthing him. Let's not put anything past Frank though. Frank
also has a nice jaw on him even though he's got, you know, a double chin.
He's got a nice set of teeth on him, but it's nothing like the Ornate.
These guys have a massive amount of teeth in their mouth. Nice, sharp, and if they want to, they'll take a bite.
If you look at the front of his face,
he's got these two horns. Those are his nostrils,
used for sensing, sensing whatever's in the water and tasting, but..
If you could imagine
this family of fish existing hundreds of millions of years ago.
It's just absolutely mind-blowing! Literally looking at something that was around, before the dinosaurs.
And you guys have access to one.
You know, they're they're relatively common,
inexpensive, you know some of the some of the species of the Bichir can get quite expensive.
But you know, there's Senechal, those would typically be the cheapest. They're not as colorful. They don't really have many patterns.
You can't get some pretty ones and in fact the Senechal was my first Bichir and I enjoyed it.
It was extremely active. A lot of people will say Bichir are not active.
They're certainly a bottom dweller, but they also swim throughout the rest of the
the column of the tank, but again you guys know by this time, you know
it really comes down to the fish and its personality and what its going to be like.
And you know you'll kind of get different reports from everybody, but you can see this is a curious fish. He's exploring his surroundings. He's
tasting, he's seeing what he can and can't do.
He was running his chin against the floor of the tank.
Probably looking to see what there is to eat. I wouldn't eat what's floating on the floor right now though. That's uh?
That's Frank's doings!
I gotta clean that up or you know increase the circulation in the tank. Still getting this down with this tank though, but
Ultimately, the Bichir is a super cool fish, and I'm happy to get it again. I haven't had one in about 13 years
so this is my first Bichir since then.
I'm looking forward to doing a lot of things with it. Feeding it, watching it grow and develop, and
seeing its personality over time. Is it going to be aggressive?
Is it going to attack other fish? Am I gonna be able to put it in the 2000?
But I don't know. Let me know what you guys think of this tank.
What we're gonna be doing with it of course. I know you guys love Franks
so show him some love in the comments section. Let him know that
you guys are still here for him. I know he appreciates it.
Maybe we can get him to do a barrel roll before you go. All right Frank, do a barrel roll!
There you go. Do another one, that wasn't that great. Come on up...
..and go.
Oh Frank!
All right guys
I just planned on kind of putting the Bichir in this tank. I figured, you know, a lot of you been asking about it.
I thought, you know, I'll grab the camera and we'll film it.
I'll talk about a few little things. Didn't really have anything on mind that kind of popped out what I want to talk about
But I know there's a ton of Bichir keepers out there, so if you have anything to add, your experiences,
maybe some care tips and so forth. Everybody reads the comment section. Leave your comments in the comment section below
And please contribute to the community!
I certainly would appreciate it. If you're new to this channel, and you haven't subscribed yet,
and this is something you guys enjoy seeing make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any of it!