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Showing posts with the label Polypterus Lapradei

Lapradei Experiment

I've always been fascinated with the PBB var Turkana when I first laid my eyes on them in youtube. The thing about them is they swim, yes they swim like a regular fish unlike any lower jaw bichir you see. What intrigue me is why do they possessed this ability when the rest of the clan do not? Could it be because of the depth at lake Turkana or is there something else?  I've been studying the water and the lake with all possible information that I can find online. Polypterus Lapradei enjoys swimming. When the batch of Lapradei had successfully learned to controlled their buoyancy with their lung, they swim a lot, and swimming no longer becomes a struggle.  I was patiently waiting for a batch of wild caught PBB fry for more than a year but with no luck. Finally I bought a batch of captive breed Lapradei Fry at 3" for my experiment seeing them being the closest thing I can find. What I found about the water of lake Turkana surprises me, it is a salt lake,

Teaching Polypterus Lapradei swimming lesson.

I'm back again to Bichirs but this time more on the experiment that I didn't do last time. When I was once active in bichirs I noticed that some but very very minority of them swim with control buoyancy meaning they can control the depth level like those of ordinary fish using the swim bladder. But in reality; bichirs do not have a swim bladder that is why most time they swim like a drowning fish.  I noticed this behaviour on some Endlicheris, the control buoyancy and of coz the great Turkana Polypterus Bichir Bichir. So my question is, can bichir learn to control buoyancy with their lungs replacing them as the swim bladder?  I got 7 cb Polypterus Lapradei and kept them in a species only tank. Food will be available only as floating pellet. The reason is to encourage them to swim and learn to adapt using their lungs as swim bladder. Will they able to do so? Day 1 of coz they dont eat, I've to start coaxing them to take sinking pellet. Day 2 they are all