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Home      Reply		Viewed: 401 -- Replies: 13
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Posted	Elephant nose
01-02-2008 15:38 by Dominic	hello all. i am after some help in keeping elephant nose. i had 2 in the past and they died from starvation and another one has died on me more recently. i put him in the breeding trap with a cube of bloodworm's and fed him at night with worms but he was always skinny. they are my favourite fish and i want more, but dont want to kill any, so if anyone has experience with them it would be greatly appreciated! thanks, dom
01-02-2008 16:34 by -Rob C-	The stress of the breeding trap is more than likely the cause of the second's death. These fish are well known to be difficult to feed at first. Try providing a hiding place such as a cave, and then offer frozen bloodworm right at the entrance, hopefully the elephant nose will be the first to the food.
01-02-2008 16:52 by Elmo	they are very difficult to keep, feed on a night time and have them in a tank on their own because they cant compete for food, use a sand substrate because gravel will hurt them, have the tank dimly lit at all times, and these fish should be ok. never put them in a breeding trap even if they look sick as it will kill them every time.try not to disturb them at all, and have the tank well planted.
01-02-2008 16:55 by Dominic	yeah i tried all them options, i have a heavily planted tank with sand and wood but no luck! what suprised me is that there are no other bottom competers for the food, just a shoal of rasbora and a few corys. maybe its just not for my tank! thanks a lot dudes
01-02-2008 17:44 by telboy	ive been through the same as you,in my opinion these fish should be kept in a species only tank as even with limited competion for food they will lose out every time, follow all suggestions above, but once these fish start to go downhill its very hard/impossible to bring them back
02-02-2008 10:30 by big cats	i dont think elephant noses are captive bred? if not then they may come to us with worms? add a little stress and a team of angry rasboras and,a recipe for disaster, elephant noses are among the most intelligent of fish and as such require an environment that is perfectly suitable,and live food would be advised (whiteworm would be good as it burrows) you may consider a species only tank, has anyone kept them with great success?
02-02-2008 14:42 by Dominic	Yeah good idea, i might try to set up a species tank with them and maybe one of them leaf fish which sit on the top, i think maybe their is some other species of elephant nose too, not sure though, thanks for the info all!
02-02-2008 20:23 by Phill Austen	echoing big cats, has anybody kept these curious looking fish successfully? for how long? or is this another incidence of a beautiful wildcaught fish imported to be squandered by our collective ignorance?
04-02-2008 15:13 by Alan	As a kid I kept one of these succesfully for 2 years until an outbreak of white spot I used protozin forgetting it is not safe with mormyrids. Gutted. As has been said they are best in a species tank in a small group of at least 5 you will need at least a 40 gallon tank for 5. Feeding wise you would need to establish what they have been fed in the shop reserve them in the shop if you can and wait a week use the excuse that you are modifying a set up to accomodate them and want to get it right. I have found them to be pretty unfussy with water parameters but clean water is a must as well as excellent filtration. Diet wise they will need bloodworm almost exclusively hence the need for excellent filtration I never had a problem with getting mine to take frozen but you may need to use live unitl they get a taste for it and then gradually introduce defrosted frozen bloodworm into the mix eventually you will be able to get them on to exclusively frozen bloodworm once they are on frozen blood worm you may find they are more willing to accept other frozen foods mine even use to take sinking granules like tetra prima. Have you ever used any treatments on this tank? If you have don't bother with this set up as treatments remain present at a trace level for a very long time and even trace levels can kill mormyrids. I also suspect the corys are out competing the elephant noses for food. What rasboras do you have if you manage the elephant noses succesfully they are likely to end up on the lunch menu. As the elephant noses get larger you will be able to introduce small earth worms into their diet I suspect these will send them wild. You would only want to use 2-3cm long earth worms or smaller depending on the size of the fish. You will also need subdued lighting and if possible floating plants as well as plenty of places to hide. If you get it right you will see these fish during the day otherwise expect to only see them at night. When you feed them you can't at least initially feed them as you would most fish they will only at first take food from the substrate and they graze on it so the only enough to keep them going for 2 minutes is not sufficient with elephant noses you need to adopt a similar approach as you would for feeding freshwater stingrays which like to graze on bloodworm.
04-02-2008 15:15 by Alan	The only feasible fish I would suggest in an elephant nose tank would be the butterfly fish as these can only surface feed so chances are they would not compete for food.
04-02-2008 15:17 by Alan	Phill further to your comments about this being a poorly understood fish I would strongly agree it is very poorly understood and as a result suffers greatly. Given the time I would dearly love to set up a tank for these stunning fish again but funds and space do not allow it. Never say never though.
04-02-2008 15:18 by Alan	Treatment wise I believe wormer plus would be safe to use with this fish.
04-02-2008 20:44 by Phill Austen	Thanks for that Alan, we really need to hear practical accounts of how to cope successfully with specialised fish. The Flubendazole wormers appears to have a splendidly low toxicity to fish, I recently used it successfully (I hope) on Camallanus in some angels,
05-02-2008 11:35 by Dominic	Yeah i had mine for about 7 months, he seemed fine for a long time. it was out all day swimming, it was active and used to swim through my hand when i was maintaining the tank. i never used treatments and don't need to on my tanks. the rasbora are green eye. i usually go for the smaller ones at the shop. maybe that had something to do with it! thanks for the info. i will try a elephant only set up soon and get properly equiped!

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