# Dragon Fish?



## aqua art (Feb 19, 2003)

:help: I was at the local chain pet store the other day when I saw a fish labeled Dragon Fish. It was about 6" long and 1" high. Very active and moved lika loach. It is very heavly scailed. Looks like a dragon from a chineese mural. I passed on it since no one knew anythig about it. But it was cool, and I am trying to get several chineese resturants to let me design tanks for them. Can anyone help me? It was only $6.00, but he could do alot of damage to plants or fish with his size. :hehe: 
Thanks


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## doooog (Mar 17, 2003)

I was gonna try to get one of those, but it jumped outtat my LFS's tank 2 times, and the 2nd ime did it in. This guy was about 8", they are a goby. Also galled the violet goby. Some say that they are filter feeders, other say they will eat gold incan snails, and others say they go for the sinking shrimp pellets. They do have teeth, arranged similar to that of a piranha, but I have also been told they do not feed on fish. Go to predatoryfish.net/forums and search the previous posts on the subject. you'll find a bit more info there. 

I have heard that they are hard to get to take any kind of food, but the guy (as i said above) didn't live long enough for me to find out.

Good Luck

~Doug


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## jus1moretank (Jul 31, 2002)

They are hard to feed and if I'm not mistaken they are a brackish fish. (Gobioides broussonetti)


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## doooog (Mar 17, 2003)

i have heard they can swing to extremes (totally saltwater to totally freshwater) not to say this is healthy or anything. It probably significantly cuts the lifespan of them.


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## shadowcat_7 (Nov 23, 2002)

here is a good picture of one at the Ft. Worth Zoo, along with some info on it.http://www.whozoo.org/Anlife2001/johangus/jg_dragonfish.htm


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## aqua art (Feb 19, 2003)

Great info, and neat pix, but that's not the fish I saw. Isn't it terrable when common names get crossed. my fish was very scaled. Oh well, I haven't seen another one. If I do I will get Pix and post them. Then we will get to the bottem of this. I really appreciate all the attempts to help. I have sent several people to this site becouse folks do want to help.


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## Work In Progress (Mar 4, 2003)

Here are some more pics to check out.
When I saw these in Petsmart, I thought they were one of the ugliest fish ever, I almost bought one!

http://www.aquariumfish.net/images_01/dragon_fish.jpg
http://www.tropicalivefish.com/dragonfish.jpg

Now if the dragon fish you saw, didn't look like the ones above, then it is also possible that you may have been looking at an asian arrowana that are also refered to as dragon fish.
Here are some pics of those:

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tskan/FrameSet_gallery.html
http://www.arofanatics.com/index.phpcontent=gallery&right=movies/movies

Good luck on your search  

Kelly


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## RXTrev (Mar 28, 2003)

I work at Petsmart on the weekends...these fish are cool looking, but hard to feed when they are under 6". They will eat feeder guppies but really never ate much while we had them, sold them fairly fast. My store does not carry them anymore, since most of the people that bought them did not care for them correctly. I think they wouldn't mess with a planted tank too much they don't move a lot and hide more than anything else, but feeding would be a problem. Maybe when they get bigger they might cause problems...just my 2cents


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## chris (Mar 30, 2003)

i had one that lived in pure fw and he ate brine shrimp ubifix and blood worm i moved and gave him to my friend that put him in his salt tank,Chris


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## STAT 007 (Feb 26, 2003)

This has to be the ugliest fish I know of, hands down. :roll:


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## aqua art (Feb 19, 2003)

those gobies are a lot closser to what I remember. I think the scales were more pronounced, but that could be memories and wishful thinking. Thanks again. The pet store said they get them about once every 6mo. If I get lucky, I may try one out.


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## smallworldsalive (Apr 6, 2004)

dear aqua art;

I believe the fish you are talking about the"dragon fish" is the given name from pet co for the BICHIR. i have 2 of these, one i got from pet co, the other i got from a specialty fish store,and this one is the ornate bichir, they are great so far but they are still small , i believe these can get up too 2 feet big, and they are carnivores!!! all my other fish are bigger than them ( or too prickly to eat ) but i have found that they attack frozen beefheart like it was their last meal... there is one other of these that i have seen and it is the albino.


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/images/BICHIR


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## AW0L (Jan 15, 2004)

I was thinking that it was a bicher. it matches his dscription well and petco sells them pretty cheap.

on the side note i have a dragon goby. they are shy and peaceful fishes. there way to slow to catch any small fish but i dont htink they would i keep them with khulis thatc ould easily fit it there mouths but the khulis just swam all over it even in front and on top of its head with the goby not doing anything. i feed them blackworms whcih they eat greedly and somtimes shift through the substrate to get at the worms. they somtimes eat grubs also. and they hunt for shrimp at night


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## Kris (Feb 27, 2004)

cool looking fish
huge


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## dahamaker (May 18, 2004)

I've kept violet gobies before. Technically, they are brakish, but as the person said earlier, they can go fresh or salt as well. As for eating, they can be difficult to feed. Violet Gobies are sand sifters. If you watch, they will pick up a large clump of sand/substrate and filter through it. They LOVE live black worms. You can occasionally get them to eat high quality shrimp pellets, but fresh food is obviously more attractive.
I wouldn't sweat any fish on fish violence. They're eyes are so small they have a hard time trying to catch anything. Overall, they are really cool fish and if you have the tank type for it - I highly recommend them!

I also keep a Polypterus Senegalus. These guys are the most popular in the trade and have a max size of 16" (12" in captivity). Mine is a female and is great. She's got quite a personality. They are from rather stagnant waters in Africa so they breath oxygen. It is really cool to see them go up and hit the top of the water to get a breath of "fresh air" and swoop back down. Lots of rocks and plants really help the Polypterus feel comfortable. She mainly eats frozen beef hearts and live black worms. I used to feed her a lot of rosy reds because I kept her with a larger Silver Arrowana and Clown Knife. Right now, she's in the tank I am turning into a planted 75. I'm hoping to be able to ween her off live feeders as I hope to have large schools of both cardinal and rummynose tetras. I figure as long as I keep many plants and lots of rock and driftwood work and keep her fed, I _SHOULD_ be ok.

Hope this helps with your quest for knowledge.

Derek[/i]


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## Rikko (Jan 24, 2004)

Dragon fish aka Violet Goby aka Dragon Eel (aka god knows how many others)

I keep mine in a pseudo-brackish tank. I've shifted the salt levels based on who is in there (atm I have some stupid apple snails that ate all my anubias so they're being punished. The higher salt wasn't doing them any favours so I dropped it down a bit). They're hardy and amusing.

They will absolutely not tolerate others of their species in a small tank once established, but they are totally nonaggressive. I've got mine with bumble bee gobies and a couple of tiny mystery gobies and he's never once even checked them out. He gets awfully mad when they try to swim into his mouth, though.

Definitely a bloodworm fiend. He's showed some interest in shrimp pellets but mine doesn't seem to have to patience to wait for them to soften. He sifts them (much like Derek described) and gets frustrated and gives up. Easily the most amusing fish I've ever had! 
I chatted with a girl at another store who also kept them and she said they're big on frozen brine shrimp as well. Personally that stuff terrifies me (long story) but I'm sure they could do just as well on that.

If you can provide him a hiding place (some shaded area, nothing too elaborate) and don't mind your substrate getting kicked around a lot, give one a shot. They're incredibly amusing and quite hardy. All they need is frozen food (or sinking food if yours will take it).

Oh - I've had mine for about a year now, and I'd say he's full grown. I'd say he's about 10 inches long, maybe 11. Decent size, but a lot of fun.

Here's a pic of my Hoover


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