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Anyone owned these catfish before? How are they for the community tank? Are they a hardy species? Any info would be great, I saw them at the LFS and thought they looked pretty interesting.

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

I have two, and I can say with confidence that they are among the more bulletproof fish you can buy. They are great in their own interesting little way, but by interesting I mean biologically interesting because they do absolutely nothing. Its not unusual for a well fed specimen to wedge itself into some bogwood for days. They have to be one of the least active fish you can own. They hide too, on average I see one of my specimens for about 5 minutes a month .

Having said that, if youre willing to buy a fully grown specimen ( a rather large and chunky 9-10 inches or so,) they often do nothing in plain sight rather than out of sight. Size brings confidence to this species. The are among the easiest fish to feed, they eat anything,any flake, pellet, tablet, live , or even algae wafers and veggie flakes.Their diet includes small fish too. A 2-3 inch youngster could eat a small tetra,and a fully adult specimen could easily eat an adult dwarf gourami, their mouths are surprisingly capacious, and they are an opportunist carnivore. They survive in totally average water values and oxygen levels so keeping one is not a problem even for a beginner,they are forgiving about water quality, the one important thing I would say absolutely has to be included is a dark retreat. This is a strongly nocturnal species, and light can really stress them out, I saw some in a shop this year that were literally fighting to get underneath each other to get away from the light in a bare tank. Not given a hiding place they will probably wane and die when young. Aside from that the only other lookout is not to overfeed, these can be gluttonous fish, secretly piling on the pounds in the dead of night, you may never see how fat your specimen is becoming unless you make the point of checking occassionally.

Aside from that, most of their biological interest is based around their self defence strategies, and despite the temporary amusement holding a fish that vibrates like a mobile phone may cause, ultimately it really scares them, and it shouldnt be done, ultimately anyone foolish enough to do this regularly will

a: probably kill their fish
b: Get stabbed, the pectorals are like retractable razors.
c) get poisoned, the dorsal contains a mild venom, the consequences of being stabbed by a large specimen would be a lot of anticoagulated bleeding, and possibly nausea.
d) drop the fish , which will injure it, and lead to it wedging its fins into the carpet.

Last year I dropped a white spotted raphael cat that I though id try risking a quick manual capture just to transfer it to another tank. It gashed me, I dropped it,and the second it hit floor it wedged into a very flat carpet so hard and immovabluy that I had to cut a hole in the carpet with a scalpel to get it free, with my hand pouring blood over the floor, feeling really quite dizzy. I would also mention that within the hour of rescuing the doradid my bowels had a quite unexpected reaction that was shall we say- coming on forcefully... For this reason, rather like pictus catfish etc you shouldnt move them with a net, use a jug or cup or something. They get utterly wedged into nets.

Note to self- "use a bloody jug to move them fool "

Last thing to say about them is the size. Seen a lot of stuff on the net erroneously describing their sizes at 3-4 inches,other quotes at 7 inches or so, but these are a big fish, 9 inches plus is the real size, and I saw one in a maidenhead aquatics a few years back that was at least 11 inches, and another in a petsmart at least 10. Underfeeding is the primary cause of lack of growth. My own specimens are shooting up now with plenty of livefoods in the diet, no way are they gonna stop, even at 7 inches. I got them from the shop I work at, they were malnourished and hadnt grown for months staying around an inch, after i took them and they had the diet variety they require they shot up two inches in three months and seem to redouble in size every 4 months or so. Look after them well or even to average standards, and they will grow.Dwarfing them with malnourishment isnt at all fair.

Easy fish to keep, just not with smaller fish, and dont pick em up or net them. When not actively trying to eat something they are totally docile.

I have one right now. i got it oh about 5months ago. it was my first fish. i agree with longhairdidget in that these are some really tough fish. they do like really small spaces but idont think that the spaces have to be dark. i have a holow log and a cavish cavern thing and a bridge. mine spends his time wedged between the bridge and the glass in the front corner. its pretty well lit. i like it when hesthere its really easy to see him. but like he said they dont do much at all. i havent yet tried grabbing mine out of the tank yet. id rather not after all the storys ive heard. but i might try it sometime. anyways these are really great fish. i love mine! so if you can get one!

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we dont know what to do.