Talk:Black ghost knifefish

Black ghost knifes are a very entertaining lot! Flexibility of body and mind and an aura of mystery define these fish. They can move fowards and backwards with equal ease and agility (like the humming bird among birds) often forming a circle with their head touching their tails (yoga instructors would be pleased)!! They can grow upto a foot long. We have had 5 black ghost knives in our tank for nearly a year now. I have tried to provide a scientific and unbiased description of black ghost knife behavior based on my observations.

They rely on electric impulses to monitor their surroundings as they cannot see. They are nocturnal, and prefer dark shady covered regions in the aquarium. Their diet consists primarily of fresh frozen blood worms and they are quite fasitidious in that even after a period of starvation they reject other kinds of food such as brine shrimp, and flakes.

They are solitary fish and do not exhibit group behaviour; therefore they do not have a defined system of social hierarchy. The biggest knife defines its territory and others carve their own little niches. They appear more space sensitive than territorial about any particular area as they keep changing their niches frequently (wanderbug behaviour) and drive away other knifes from the vicinity to contemplate in isolation. Occasionally similar-sized knife fish spar verbally :) (mouth-mouth battle) for territory but this is resolved quickly as each finds its own space. Even fighting they appear graceful like a pair of gymnasts wrestling. It is important to have a reasonably big (50 gallon or more) aquarium to house 6-7 knives comfortably.

They are very adaptable, gentle and peace loving fish and can live in harmony with other kinds of fish of similar size. We have had them together with the very aggressive jelly bean parrot fish, gentle angel fish and loaches. However big ghost knives can swallow much smaller fish such as guppies, neon tetras and fish fry as they scan the water mouth open for food. We lost a school of tetras and guppies under mysterious circumstances.

They can be trained to eat out of human hands and this is most endearing as they familiarize themselves with our fingers by appearing to sniff them. They could be generating patterns based on electric impulses and probably use a pattern matching method to recognize familiar objects?

They sleep against a prop or horizontally on a peice of slate and also upside down and mouth open appearing almost dead at times.

Very interesting fish and when I learn more about peculiarities of their behavior I will share them with you.