Topic: clown knife

[kiloindia]

Does anyone have one of these?  What can you mix with them?  I have a baby in with some firemouths, severums, parrots. 

What are some good links for getting info on fish?  Diet, compatability, sexing, breeding, tank requirements??

Dave

[Dan]

Hey Dave,

Just to be sure, because it`s hard to remember alot of what people`s combos and choice are, were you planning to keep  all 4 Severums, the Clown Knife, Firemouths and Parrots all in the 125 Gallon? If so, you are way overstocked, I`m afraid to say.

     The Clown Knife expert on here is Tracey, so you may want to PM her, because she owns one. But from what I know about them is they get huge and need alot of space. They are predator Fish to so nothing small enough to fit into their mouths.

    You may want to rethink your strategy, first, because if you plan to keep all those, you need a much bigger tank as Severums grow pretty big themselves.

[Maddy mad man]

Hey Dave,

Just to be sure, because it`s hard to remember alot of what people`s combos and choice are, were you planning to keep  all 4 Severums, the Clown Knife, Firemouths and Parrots all in the 125 Gallon? If so, you are way overstocked, I`m afraid to say.

     The Clown Knife expert on here is Tracey, so you may want to PM her, because she owns one. But from what I know about them is they get huge and need alot of space. They are predator Fish to so nothing small enough to fit into their mouths.

    You may want to rethink your strategy, first, because if you plan to keep all those, you need a much bigger tank as Severums grow pretty big themselves.

Ditto to that

[tracey]

Clown Knives....... well, they look very cute as babies, but like Dan said, they do get huge.  Mine is currently around 19" and still growing a little.  Here's some quick info for you on them:

Tank size - 180 gallons minimum and larger if you want to try keeping other fish will them.  They usually reach around 22 to 26" in an aquarium.  They need plenty of open swimming space and a nice large cave to spend daylight hours in as they are nocturnal.

Diet - Clowns are predatory, so small fish of some kind are essential.  Thjey can also be convinced to eat prepared foods, so you can give them a good variety of foods and vitamens.  They're total carnivores, so veggie material is not required.  Some will also eat pieces of shrimp or crab, but go easy on the animal protein as they don't digest it as well as most cichlids can. 

Compatibility - it can be hard finding tankmates for a Clown as they'll eat anything small enough to fit in their mouths and will sometimes try to eat larger fish that don't fit.  3 to 4" Convicts are easy prey for my Clown.  They're also pretty skittish fish and don't like aggressive tankmates.  Oscars are not good and they will bully and stress a Clown.  Severums are ok, I have two in with my Clown and they get along pretty well.  Parrots are another no no, they are too aggressive for a Clown and while they may not be able to do any physical damage, they would stress a Clown far too much.  Clowns are great jumpers and will try to evacuate a tank if put under too much pressure.  They also do not like each other once they reach maturity, or other Knives that look similar.

Sexing - not possible from physical attributes.  They are not ventable like cichlids and the only way to tell if you have a female is to see her lay eggs.

Breeding - has been done, but very, very rare.  Clowns don't like other Clowns, or other Knife Fish of a similar appearance.  You'd need a massive tank, 300 gallons or larger to be able to keep two Clowns together to see if you had a pair.

A Clown Knifefish is a huge commitment in time, money and space.  Unless you are prepared to spend the money needed on good quality food, large tanks and top notch filtration, then I'd suggest you return your baby to the lfs.  My partner and I gave up our second bedroom in order to have a larger enough tank for our Clown.  Think about where you could keep a 6' x 2' x 2' tank (thats MINIMUM size btw) and if you're prepared to look after a fish this large long term.  Clowns can live a long time, 15 to 20 years, maybe even longer.  You'd have to be prepared to house yours for the rest of its life, as I doubt there are many fish stores that would willingly take back a larger Clown.

[kiloindia]

I had a clown knife a long time ago.  1991.  It was my first upgrade tank and fish from a 10 gal tropical.   I got it in a 50 gallon tank from another guy in the service.  The clown was about 12" and I can't remember what was in with him.  I know he had tankmates though.  Might have been convicts??  I only kept the clown and it's mates about 12 months due to a move from Vegas TO WI.
  My plan was to keep just one pair of of the severums, 1 green terror, maybe some kind of catfish and a dinosaur eel all in a 125 gal.  I thought this would suffice.  How quickly will the clown grow?  I knew about him being noctornal.  I've not seen him eat anything yet at all.  I've tried turning lights off around 10 pm and slipping in blood worm or brine shrimp around midnight.  Tried gettting up around 4:30 am feeding the same thing.  Haven't seen him go for anything yet.  Had him 3 weeks now.   He has a small diameter pvc peice to hide in during the day.  How long would the 125 work?  I was thinking of a 220 gallon, However thought I could get a 90 and a 125 for the same $$.  Please keep the advice coming, I want to do this right.

Dave

[Maddy mad man]

This is Traceys territory and it seems she has already given lots of info.

[tracey]

My plan was to keep just one pair of of the severums, 1 green terror, maybe some kind of catfish and a dinosaur eel all in a 125 gal. 

For long term keeping of the Clown, I'd suggest you stick to either the Severums or the GT.  I'm not 100% sure about the "Dinosaur Eel", but given their rather sedintary and placid nature except when they're hunting, it should be OK.  Make sure you pick a catfish thats not going to be considered food by the Clown, otherwise you run the risk of either losing the catfish.

Clowns can grow at a pretty fast rate, not quite on the scale of Oscars, but I wouldn't be surprised if you see around 1" of growth every couple of months til it gets to around 9 to 10".  They will slow down a little after that.  How long your 125 will work really depends on how big the Clown is now and what the width of the 125 is.  Once the Clowns length gets to around 2" less than the width of your tank, then you'll need to upgrade.  They're very flexible fish, but they really don't like to be cramped up from front to back. 

As for eating, it can be very hard to tell if they're eating when they're young.  As they get older they get a little braver and will come out and ask for food rather than hiding and picking it up once the lights are out.  If yours is not showing any signs of lack of food (sluggishness, skinny belly, faded look to the silver base colour) then he's probably picking up some of what you're putting in there for him to eat.  The biggest problem is that they're not great competitors for food, so you may need to keep up the nighttime feedings when the cichlids are asleep. 

As for your next tank, I'd seriously suggest getting that 220.  Your Clown would be soooo much happier long term in a tank that size, and he won't be able to live long term in a 125, there is just not enough room.  You need something a minimum of 24" wide and something around 30" would be better. 

[kiloindia]

I have two options on my 125.  All glass 72x18x23  Glasscages.com 125 gal wide 72x24x17 or 135 gal 72x18x25.  Glasscages is actually a 240 for the larger tank.  96x24x25.   My clown is only like 3-4 inches.  I actually saw him eat 1 tiny little blood worm last night after work.  There was a bunch of them right by his head, but the cichlids woke up and stormed the area where he was.  He swam away.

Dave

[tracey]

I'd go with the 24" wide one    He'll be much happier long term with that width.  They dont' really need extra height, they come from pretty shallow rivers and lakes in the wild.

At 3 to 4" he sure is a little tiddler, isn't he?    Does he still have stripes rather than spots?  If the 125 you have him in now is 18" wide, then I'd guess you have around 10 months to a year before he really starts to get uncomfortable with the 18" width of the tank.  Thats simply based on tank size, not the extra stress that he's going to face as your cichlids mature.  When my Clown was younger, he was such a twit when it came to other fish.  They just will not fight back or defend themselves.  Leaving the scene of a battle and going into hiding is their prefered method of dealing with aggressive fish, but if the aggressive fish follows and continues harrassment, which cichlids will often do when their opponent runs away, he's going to continuously stressed and chased.  They do get much bolder as they get older, but thats not really till they're around 16 to 18".  At that stage, most cichlids decide that its much safer to stay away from the large fish with the big mouth  and they won't harass quite so much.

Its good that you've seen him eating.  Pretty much all Clowns in stores are wild-caught, so its probably taken him a while to figure out that these funny things that fall from the sky are actually food    You could try a modification of the beefheart recipe, see if you can get him eating it while he's still young and impressionable.  I make it with double the shrimp, no veggies, no beefheart and a few extra pellets and mine loves that mix.

[kiloindia]

Oh yes,  He's tiny.  He only fills about 1/2 of a 6" plastic pipe he hangs in.  He has a couple spots, mostly still stripes.  He's currently in a 55 gal with 4 small severums, 3 parrots,  4 firemouths.  Their all pretty small.  But the clown in definately the smallest.  I live 160 miles from the place I want to get my all glass tank.  If I get one from glasscages.com, I still have to drive 150 miles to meet the truck.  If not the shipping is 4 times the amount.  My local petco and petsmart are very expensive for a 125 gal and that's the biggest they can get.  With the glasscages.com pickup, it's not available till Feb 18th.  Gonna have to wait it out.  My bro in law is giving me his 55 gal sometime this summer.  He lives 1500 miles away.  Grrrr.  Waiting game....  I'll keep ya posted.  I was thrilled he ate something last night.  I'm worried to just drop in the food at night with the filters running if it's not getting eatin.  I like to do it when I can turn the filters off for 5 mins or so.   Anyway.......

Thanks again,
Dave

[kiloindia]

Well, the clown didn't make it.  I'm not sure why.  Could have just been too hard to get food.  Possibly got picked on even with his hiding spot.  Found him dead last night.  He had a couple strange blood spots on him.  Looked like internal bleeding that was transparent.  Very thin.  I'm getting a 20-29 gallon tank today after work.  I'll start him out in their with my senegal bichar.  THat way there's no major competition for food.  I'll keep em in their till they are eating real well and grow a bit.  I'm definately going with the 240 gallon for the big tank.  Should be all setup by March 1st.

Dave

[tracey]

Sorry to hear about your Clown    They can be pretty sensitive at that size, and being wild-caught probably didn't help.  Its possible that he may have had problems from the catching method or the long shipping from Asia that he just couldn't deal with at that size.  If you do decide to get another one, try to get as large a one as possible, over 5" if you can manage it.  They're starting to get a little tougher at that size. 

Good luck with your Birchirs, post some pics when you can.

[Dan]

Sorry to hear about your Clown Dave.

I like the idea of getting a large one, if you can swing it.

Good luck.

[Gerry]

Sorry for your loss, better luck next time.

[Maddy mad man]

Bad luck matey.