Im thinking of buyin a reed fish and just wondering wether they aggressive towards other fish. I have a few largeish fish. Im under the understanding that theyll b fine. But its my smaller fish im worried about. I have some cherry barbs. A blue tetra (which are as big as the cherry barbs) and some dwarf rainbow fish. I have a 120L tank.
Any info much appreciate.
Cheers

Ive been looking at getting these too. I can't nail it down as the care sheets are all rather vague and contradictory but they seem to require a tank between 250 and 600 litres depending on who you believe. Either way I don't think 120l is going to cut it, these fish can easily grow to 30cm long.

PS yes I think they would consider a cherry barb a delicious snack. Reed fish can be tricky to feed so a lot of keepers actually give them danios, wcmm, neon tetras, guppys etc as a food source.

Ok ill steer clear of these. Its a shame because they would look smart in my tank. Cheers for your information.

They're quite sociable compared to the related Bichirs, so do best in groups of 3+. Allegedly they get to £' long, but no-one's verified anything longer than 15". You'll still need a tank 4'-6' long though, and it should be well covered to prevent them escaping. Cherry barbs are going to get eaten I'm afraid, live inverts (shrimp, bloodworm, etc) and strips of tilapia fillet would be best. Filtration is going to have to be pretty good because they're big carnivorous fish. They (or the smaller bichir species) are definitely on my list of species I'd like to keep. (I have a bit of a thing for fish evolution, and these are pretty interesting from that perspective).

Think a small group might be suited to my tank Dave?

Obviously would mod the decor etc to suit.

200L would be my preference with them, had a 16" one in my old 120L rekord and it was much happier when i upgraded to my 200L roma

They are social so 3 or more is best

I've found them easy to feed as long as you get them over 8" long and they can get to the bloodworm

the dwarf rainbows will be fine as i kept them with mine in the 120L and congo's in the 200L, cherry barbs will be eaten though

Possibly Onyxia. I don't know too much about them, but I'd expect they'd prefer something wider and shallower than the APS tanks. Lots of bits of pipe and hollow branches for them to hide under. It could look really good.

You'll need a new tank for the Paradise fish though. (Give them a biotope perhaps?)