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Can anyone tell?
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Thanks!
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Having had SAEs for many years I would say a definite yes. One of the main reason is the dark line that goes into the tail.
I dont know if you have been told they are fantastic algae eaters while they are younger but as soon as they get old and bigger they seem to get lazy and prefer to eat given food. That does not mean that is all they eat but they prefer given foods.

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Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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That's awsome, thanks keith! I have heard they get lazy when they're older but hopefully by then my plants will be out competing the algae... Anyway I'll still love them, they're very cute. By the way you guys on this forum are very helpful and fast to respond, It's great to have questions answered by people who aren't selling stuff to you. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute a bit but I'm pretty new to fish so we'll see.
Cheers

Your photos depict fishes that look almost exactly the way my SAEs looked when they were first purchased about 2 years ago. Mind you, they look a bit different now, because they're now 5 inches long and have piled on some body mass in that time, which means they're a bit chunkier looking than yours!

Oh, they are excellent algae eaters, but they have a habit of concentrating their attention on algal growths in the lower regions of the aquarium, so if you need an algal control for the top layer to deal with a blanket weed outbreak, it's best to team them with something like Limias (algae eating livebearers that were very popular here in the UK before the ubiquitous Bristlenose Catfishes turned up!) or Flag Fish.

Oddly enough, mine don't seem to be particularly lazy as adults, though they're a little less energetic than they were as juveniles. Mine haven't yet gone into comfy chair and slippers mode like Keith's!

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

What is the red mark above the black line?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Funny you should mention that Callatya, only I re-checked my photos of my past specimens from 1999, and one of those had a dull brick-coloured mark above the red line too. Here's the photo:



Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

That is very interesting indeed. Do you have any pictures of older fish? I don't think mine were that young when I bought them and I don't remember noticing that colour, so I'm curious if it is an age thing or perhaps regional variation or something.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Just took a quick squint at my 5 inch monsters in their swamp tank with the Flag Fish - the brick red mark isn't visible on any of them at adult size, at least not on my three. Trouble is, the photos I have of them are problematic with respect to quality, thanks to the tendency of my digital camera to add noise speckles to images if I don't carpet bomb the scene with flashlight, and the position of the SAEs' aquarium makes photography a job for a gynmast of Mary Lou Retton's prowess! Plus, the images I do have are huge - 2048 1536 or thereabouts - and I'd have to do a LOT of work in PhotoShop to reduce them to a manageable size for embedding here whilst preserving image quality.

However, here's a shot of my current three taken back in 2007, when they were juveniles, and at that time, they too lacked the brick red mark, so I think it's probably a matter of either individual or geographical variation:


Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002