Baby Whales----those mormymids

[cheezysquirrelz]

Oh My Gosh!!!!!!! I went to the filthy pet store at the mall and there was a tank with a baby whale, 2 tiny snowflake morays, and a FW lionfish!!!

Im very interested in the whale. It cost $6.50---Is that unusual?

I have done research they get 4" long, eat frozen and live foods, love plants and rocks, are electrically charged(like there elephantnose cousins), and can live with peacefull community fish.

Im still doing research on water requirements and such, do you guys think I should get one?

----Oh still wondering---Do florescent light bulbs wear out?

 

[vega]

Even though they are peaceful, they are no suitable for comm tank as the electrical charge will annoyed other fish.

The long nose/mouth is use to suck food in hard to reach hole.

You can emulate natural environment by drilling several 5mm-10mm hole along a 5" long PVC pipe and capped both end (but not glue). During feeding just add blood worm into the PVC pipe and the fish will happy to use its nose/mouth to suck out the blood worm from the pipe.

HTH

 

[madasafish]

Nono... Baby Whales are quite different (morphologically) from elephantnoses. They do not have the same nose-like mouth. Actually, they have quite the opposite--the face is decidedly flat.

Here's a picture: http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/hopkins/pollimyrussounds/pollimyrus_isidori_portrait.jpg

I think you'll find that the electrical charge is a very minor one, not used to shock other fish at all, but used as the electrical "eyes" of the fish, as stated by this wetwebmedia article:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/electrogenicfishes.htm

And here's a small summary of the species from Mongabay.com: http://www.mongabay.com/fish/mormyridae.htm

FWIW, I think this would be a great fish for you, at a good price, as long as you're willing to feed it live food. I would def. suggest creating a species-only tank for it, as Mormyrids do have a difficult time competing with fish adapted to daylight conditions. Baby Whales are really nocturnal fish...

 

[madasafish]

BTW, to clear it up... Baby Whales are Mormyrids (family Mormyridae). There seems to be a lot of confusion about this on the net.

Here's the fishbase.org summary. I should have posted this right away!

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?ID=5208&genusname=Brienomyrus&speciesname=brachyistius

 

[vega]

Ops..