# Combining fish with a snakehead?? doable?



## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

alright i have 4 red snakeheads. growing really quickly. about 8" in less than 4 months. biggest one is a foot. smallest one is about 7".

anyway ive noticed that they do not eat anything that basically doesnt fit in their mouth. ive had a 5" pleco in the tank since they got in it and they never bother it. even if i put in a frozen smelt thats like 7" they dont touch it.

so my question is, if i put in a decent sized fish. would it make my snakeheads less aggressive being more of a community? as it is right now, as soon as food hits the water its gone. i can put in seven 4-5" smelts and they are gone in less than 3 seconds. so i dont wanna make them less aggressive. but i would like to see a bit of colour in the tank until they get to the 15" mark. but at this rate its probabaly only 2 months away.

yes i know anyday the fish i put in could and probabaly will be food. thats why i wouldnt spend lots on it. let me know what you guys think.

im looking for a fish that will be mostly a bottom dweller, the snakeheads pretty much dominate the top 60% of the tank most of the time

p.s. for pics of my snakeheads and tank click this http://www.piranha-fury.com/pfury/index.php?showtopic=122886


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## Timmy44221 (Oct 11, 2005)

At a lfs by me they have larger fish for sale for usialy 20$ and 50or less for the less common ones. I would say a large pleco or other type of catfish may work, but a catfish may be agressive also. I suppose if they each cant redily fit the other in its mough you may be alright. The real question isnt if they can live to gether, but more so will they stress eachother out severly?


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## lewis (Sep 13, 2005)

Prob wont work but a wicked combo woud be devil catfish or fowleri.


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

I have noticed that sh will not kill anyfish that is already in the tank I keep mine with a pleco (red sh around 4" pleco arond 2") I have gave my sh a couple of feeders same size as plec and he will tear them up in no time. The reason why your SHs are not very agro is because they were never given feeders I think by what you say it would work try large very passive fish such as big irradesent (sp) shark it might work but do not be angry if your SHs seee them as a meal one day lol, GL.


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## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

my snakeheads are crazy aggressive. i also have a 5" pleco in my tank. they just never bother him. but as far as putting anything in the tank. its history.

how would a barracuda do? would it attack the snakeheads? i would like to try to get one around the same size. have say 2 snakeheads and 2 baracudas. im going to be getting rid of 2 more of my smallest snakeheads soon. the bigger two are growing so much faster, so they will turn into food soon enough.

but yea, would a barracuda be any good?


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

shocker45 said:


> my snakeheads are crazy aggressive. i also have a 5" pleco in my tank. they just never bother him. but as far as putting anything in the tank. its history.
> 
> how would a barracuda do? would it attack the snakeheads? i would like to try to get one around the same size. have say 2 snakeheads and 2 baracudas. im going to be getting rid of 2 more of my smallest snakeheads soon. the bigger two are growing so much faster, so they will turn into food soon enough.
> 
> but yea, would a barracuda be any good?


I would not risk it







it might work for a while but your snakheads will for sure see it as a meal and barracudes are sort of expensive so u dont want money going to wast add that to the fact that fw brracudes have sharp teeth and if it trys to fight back it might hurt a snakehead, on top of that barracudas have a SLOW growth rate and in less than a months time it is time to take the barra out or the sh will have a nice filling meal. Like I said go with big (bigger than your snakheads I am taking over 1.5 foot) passive fish like large sharks (if find big ones) and if u have the cash a good size silver aro, but as I said SH are killers through and thourgh and if they dont like what they see they kill it.


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## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

maybe a large irridecent shark or something might be a better bet? i dont even know if i wanna get somethin. if i cant get something cool ill just put a little more decor in.

would they eat a moon crab?


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

shocker45 said:


> maybe a large irridecent shark or something might be a better bet? i dont even know if i wanna get somethin. if i cant get something cool ill just put a little more decor in.
> 
> would they eat a moon crab?


If the crab is able to get to the bottum it might have a chance, I would say a crab is worth it to try because hey make a good clean up crew and if it does ge eaten one of your SH will be happy, if u got alot of cover at the bottum and the crab is able to get to the bottum their is a chance it might work.


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## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

if he did get eaten it wouldnt hurt the snakehead from eating the shell or anything would it? my lfs has some large moon crabs the size of a fist for like $15 so thatd be cool. i always wanted one, they look funny









before i put it in ill make sure my snakeheads are nice and full. then ill drop in the crab.
p.s. they cant climb out from the filter intake or anything can they? or the cord from my powerhead maybe??


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

shocker45 said:


> if he did get eaten it wouldnt hurt the snakehead from eating the shell or anything would it? my lfs has some large moon crabs the size of a fist for like $15 so thatd be cool. i always wanted one, they look funny
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I dont think the shell would hurt the SH alot of other fish eat crabs np, u could try it ans yea they are good at escaping that is if it does not get eaten frist lol. .


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## shocker45 (Jun 23, 2005)

ill hunt a larger one down tommorow and try it out. ill give you some updates when i get it. hopefully my sh doesnt eat a more expensive meal that i give myself


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

shocker45 said:


> ill hunt a larger one down tommorow and try it out. ill give you some updates when i get it. hopefully my sh doesnt eat a more expensive meal that i give myself


LOL, have a camara handy incase they get hungy.


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## jan (Apr 24, 2004)

I have kept quite a few different species of fish with succes with my snakeheads, like: redtail catfish, pacu's, arowana's and a huge panaque (pleco). My thoughts about the reason why it did work out is that I have never gave my snakeheads live fish. 
But like you have said already: There are no guarantees with snakeheads









A Barracuda wouldn't be a good choice, imo. These fish do look agressive, but they are pretty timid. Besides that they have a much slower growthrate than snakeheads so they will end up as food in no time. About the Crab, it will most likely get eaten by the snakeheads or will escape out of your tank if it isn't covered well enough. 
But it never hurts to try. If it doesn't work out, than at least the snakeheads have had a good meal









_ * Since this topic is going about snakehead cohabitation I will move it to the snakehead forums







_


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

jan said:


> I have kept quite a few different species of fish with succes with my snakeheads, like: redtail catfish, pacu's, arowana's and a huge panaque (pleco). My thoughts about the reason why it did work out is that I have never gave my snakeheads live fish.
> But like you have said already: There are no guarantees with snakeheads
> 
> 
> ...


u kept a SH with a red tail cat and pacu, wow thats must have left a huge hole in your pocket book after feeding, lol and yea its like I said they can be kept with lage passive fish, and a geuss a red tail and tsn cat would work okay to.


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## furious piranha (Mar 22, 2005)

get an oscar..that would work perfectly i would think


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## JuN_SpeK (Oct 6, 2005)

in the past i have had a good experience in my old tank. it housed a cobra snakehead around 12 inches with a 8 inch red tail giant gourami and a 24 inch silver arowana the tank was a 240 gallon tank. i also had luck with my redline snakehead. he was housed with a 22 inch green arowana, common pleco and some large oscars. no problem. but he did pick on the arowana here and there.


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

JUN_SPEK said:


> in the past i have had a good experience in my old tank. it housed a cobra snakehead around 12 inches with a 8 inch red tail giant gourami and a 24 inch silver arowana the tank was a 240 gallon tank. i also had luck with my redline snakehead. he was housed with a 22 inch green arowana, common pleco and some large oscars. no problem. but he did pick on the arowana here and there.


All my experinse with cobra SH tell me that dispite their sharp teeth a red SH is far more agessive than them. How every i hav only come in contact with ones about 6" like 3 times so i do not have alot of experinse with them, just my 2 cent. Do u have any feeding vids of the cobra I have neer seen any feeding vids, and the cobras I have seen never touched a feeder.


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## TurdBurglar (Aug 30, 2005)

in the past i had housed a red snakehead with a dorado, butta, RTCxTSN, RTC, jardini, pacu and a large red snook... mainly just larger, thicker fish


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## snakehead rock (Mar 26, 2006)

Big Business said:


> in the past i had housed a red snakehead with a dorado, butta, RTCxTSN, RTC, jardini, pacu and a large red snook... mainly just larger, thicker fish


WTF? How big a tank do u have????!!!! lol I hope u dont mean all at once. U kept them with a dorado from what i have herd they are insane fish killing anything the come in contact with??? How big were all these fish?


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