Dwarf snakehead tank journal

[Pigeonduck]

Just over a year ago I was scrolling through fish for sale on ebay and came across something called a 'rainbow snakehead'. I had never seen a fish like it so I immediately fell down an internet research hole and discovered another even smaller species Channa andrao. They looked and sounded great so I decided that I had to have one.

A quick bit of background. Channa andrao is a small snakehead species  maxing out at 11cm. They come from swamps in the basin of the Brahmaputra river and so require a yearly seasonal drop in tank water temperature. It also means they are tolerant of poor water conditions and they breath air at the surface.

They're predators but mostly feed on invertebrates and exhibit quite social behaviour as juveniles. Once mature they pair off and in the wild each pair will weather the cold season in a burrow together before breeding once temperatures rise. 

Unfortunately as soon as I was ready to get my new tiny snecks, a national shortage and Covid hit the UK and I pretty much gave up hope of getting any.

Then  last October I randomly did a search for them and found an online shop selling them. I ordered 4 youngsters of 6-8cm and quickly got a new tank set up.

They all arrived happy and healthy. It looked like I had 2 males and 2 females. They were great fun to watch. Very social with each other, gently touching all the time and hanging out together. 

They were wild caught and so I fed live and frozen foods at first. Now they eat practically anything including Tetra crisps but I still feed mostly frozen foods.

I think that's enough for one post so I will continue another day.

 

[OceanTruth]

Wow, that’s a great looking fish!!! I’m not sure snakeheads are legal to keep in the U.S. Kind of a bummer.

[Paul_Obermiller]

32 minutes ago, OceanTruth said:

Wow, that’s a great looking fish!!! I’m not sure snakeheads are legal to keep in the U.S. Kind of a bummer.

I agree, if they were allowed in the U.S. I would keep the dwarf species but none of the big ones as they would need a massive tank or a whole pond. They're like cooler bichirs to me.

[RohitK29]

I have a male Andrao as well, named Drogon, have had him for about 5 months now. They are native but we had only been seeing these and Bleheri's in pictures and videos for atleast the past half decade, but the pandemic stopped the export and finally my lfs (that my friend owns) was able to get in touch with the exporter and now the lfs has those pretty regularly. 

Drogon is hand fed, sits on my hand while I am doing water changes and rushes to the front glass whenever I'm around. He has marked a new era in my fish keeping journey. He also shares the aquarium with 6 Denison Barbs (another native).

 

[Pigeonduck]

15 hours ago, Paul_Obermiller said:

I agree, if they were allowed in the U.S. I would keep the dwarf species but none of the big ones as they would need a massive tank or a whole pond. They're like cooler bichirs to me.

The bigger species do get ridiculously large! When I move house I would like to get a bigger tank for one of the 20-30cm sized species.

[Pigeonduck]

53 minutes ago, RohitK29 said:

I have a male Andrao as well, named Drogon, have had him for about 5 months now. They are native but we had only been seeing these and Bleheri's in pictures and videos for atleast the past half decade, but the pandemic stopped the export and finally my lfs (that my friend owns) was able to get in touch with the exporter and now the lfs has those pretty regularly. 

Drogon is hand fed, sits on my hand while I am doing water changes and rushes to the front glass whenever I'm around. He has marked a new era in my fish keeping journey. He also shares the aquarium with 6 Denison Barbs (another native).

 

They're great characters aren't they. I feel a bit guilty now that I hear so many are being exported. I wonder where they go and why more aren't captive bred because andrao are definitely not difficult to breed in captivity.

Have you seen any snakehead species in the wild? I've watch some YouTube videos on them in their natural environment. It would be cool to see in reality 😊

 

[RohitK29]

7 minutes ago, Pigeonduck said:

They're great characters aren't they. I feel a bit guilty now that I hear so many are being exported. I wonder where they go and why more aren't captive bred because andrao are definitely not difficult to breed in captivity.

Have you seen any snakehead species in the wild? I've watch some YouTube videos on them in their natural environment. It would be cool to see in reality 😊

 

Don't feel guilty at all, its just business.

2 primary reasons are :-

1. People from other countries pay better then the local markets, or rather exporters can charge a lot when shipping to other countries.

2. It happens in the US as well, where native species are overlooked and imported species are fancied. Its the same here as well. Hobbyists are getting more and more interested in natives, but native barbs and Danios, Badis varieties, catfish varieties,etc. are an easier purchase from the hobbyists' perspective, than snakeheads.

 

I am in the central region of the country, most of the snakeheads that are found in the country are from the north eastern regions. 

[Pigeonduck]

As they grew they started to display to each other more. They exhibit dramatic colour changes as part of intra-species communication. This video shows 2 females and then the male dropped in. Turn off the sound if you don't want to hear parrots beeping. 😆

They grew like mad and once the two biggest ones reached full size they formed a pair and started to beat up the others so I took out the spares.

 

This is the big female. She will jump right up out of the water for snacks. She will also boop a finger, or try to eat it!

Now the pair spend a lot of time displaying. Big Boy's fins have really filled out so when he displays he looks quite impressive. I recently started to turn the temperature back up in the tank. He now is more scatty and likes to hang out in the driftwood cave.

They have also started to practice mating by the look of things. They basically form a spinning ball off fish then stop and sink.

Fingers crossed for baby fish in the future.

Bonus pic of one of their tank mates. Corydoras multiradiatus 

I think that the snakeheads think that they're rocks that occasionally move 😆

[Pigeonduck]

About a week ago I upped the temperature in the tank back to 24C. Big Boy started to spend a lot of time in the driftwood cave and stopped eating. I could see him moving his gills more than normal so I wondered if he had eggs.

Last night i was looking at him as he came to the cave mouth and a couple of tiny fry popped out. They look like plump little stubby sperm 😆

He and the female kept chasing off corydoras that wandered underneath and he lost fry as he did it so I don't have high hopes for this batch. 

[starsman20]

Please be very careful with the snakeheads. They are invasive and if they get into the wild its bad. Probably why they are not legal to keep in the US. They have over run much of Florida taking out many of he native fish. They spread like wildfire.

[Pigeonduck]

1 hour ago, starsman20 said:

Please be very careful with the snakeheads. They are invasive and if they get into the wild its bad. Probably why they are not legal to keep in the US. They have over run much of Florida taking out many of he native fish. They spread like wildfire.

Channa andrao are sub tropical and the whole of the UK is temperate with cold winters so there's not any risk of them being invasive. The cold water species is banned here.

[Randy]

Oh great!  One more species of fish I now want to keep but can't! HAHA.

Absolutely beautiful fish, @Pigeonduck.  Thank you for sharing and looking forward to more updates and photos.

[Pigeonduck]

13 hours ago, Randy said:

Oh great!  One more species of fish I now want to keep but can't! HAHA.

Absolutely beautiful fish, @Pigeonduck.  Thank you for sharing and looking forward to more updates and photos.

I mostly seem to have invertebrates that I want to keep but can't. I remember discovering the fresh water pom pom crab. Decided that it sounded perfect and then discovered that they had been banned ☹

The same happened with the Mexican dwarf crayfish!

I'm glad that you find my silly fish interesting. I need to try to get a good video of Fat Cow jumping for food. She's like a sausage-shaped salmon 😆

 

 

[Pigeonduck]

Big boy managed to lose all of the fry. He was too busy menacing the completely oblivious corydoras 😆

I might eventually put them in their own tank to breed them. I'm not too worried for now.

 

[Pigeonduck]

Finally I have something to update. Earlier in the year we got a bigger custom aquarium made and moved out all of the fish into that, apart from the snakehead pair. We took out the tree log and some of the plants and then left it to go swampy with no water changes to mimic summer in their natural habitat. Earlier in winter they had temperatures down to 18C and big water changes in spring.

We saw them courting but no eggs or fry showed up. They're not supposed to need a cave but we thought that they liked the tree stump cave before so put in some black sponge leaning against the side to make a basic cave. It's the same sponge used to baffle the filter intake. They seemed to have been waiting for a cave.

Just over 2 weeks ago, Big Boy, the male had disappeared into the sponge cave and after a day or so we spotted a couple of tiny fry when he popped his head out. They were at the 2mm long, translucent white blob with a tiny tail stage. The female has been staying near. She lays eggs for them to eat and guards them.

By 6 days old, the fry were about 4mm long and darker in colour. We could occasionally see a few bouncing about on the sand/gravel.

By 8 days they were about 5-6mm and their dad had moved them out to a patch of floor near the outside edge of the sponge "wall". They were better at bouncing around with some small stretches of actual swimming. If they got too far then he would pick them up in his mouth and bring them back. They pop out of his gills.

By 12 days they were about 6-7mm. Able to swim properly. Dad had taken them to a spot near the surface. They can be seen picking at plants and sponge, eating tiny inverts I assume. We have been adding a bit of hikari fry dust and a smidge of baby brine shrimp too. They have fat tummies at all times.

Interestingly the female also picks them up and takes them back to Dad. I have never noticed this mentioned in other breeding accounts. The fry surf over and sit on both parents. They also peck at them, maybe eating slime coat?

By 13 days the biggest is about 7mm. You can see their little pectoral fins frantically flapping. 

Here is a fry facing forward. Sorry about the poor quality.

They are about 14 days old today. Hopefully they will keep on growing with no problems. I can't tell how many there are. We've only seen 5 at once so maybe they lost a lot of them while they were tiny.

 

 

 

[Hank]

This may be the most comprehensive breeding journal ever made about this species! How are the fry doing now?