New Extremely Rare Platinum Snakehead. (ID PLS)

There's a new arrival of a rare Platinum Snakehead in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The shopkeeper said this one just arrived. It is not Channa Striata as the face resembled Channa Micropeltes. At 5-6 inches long it already has a wide body and a bigger head.

The platinum colouration is strong. It's not the albino Channa Striata that we have seen Or the one with red eyes.

After googling I came across these pictures. This is what it looked like. Perhaps stronger in colouration. But the head and face are very similar. I think this is what I saw:









I think this is the same Platinum Snakehead:

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Can you tell which Snakehead species this is ? And possible max size?

I just got myself a rare Emperor Snakehead. Not the yellow variant but the one in bronze colour with red eyes. At 5-6 inches he's already starting to develop his white flower pattern. Notice also he already possesses bright ocellatus like the feather of a peacock. And it is amazing to watch him change colour from light brown to dark brown / bronze with black patterns.







So I'm thinking if I should get the Platinum Snakehead and have 2 rare beauties. But if the Platinum is Channa Micropeltes then I can't handle its growth rate and max size at the moment.

fwprawn said:

When they were legal - I've had my share of micropeltes, and that's not it.

The spangling suggests something along the lines of C. asiatica.

Your Emperor looks just like the ones in Florida - regular juvenile coloration. Beautiful.

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Very true and very beautiful you see:







Thank you very much for confirming my suspicion. I was hoping that it would be the ones seen in Florida and Thailand. That is my favourite Emperor Snakehead.

I like it better compared to the yellow variant:

Joao M said:

As regards the platinum SH, it´s most likely from the argus complex (and not that rare).
They haven entered the market with different names, but so far I haven´t seen any info regarding it´s adult size
Check this thread were the issue was discussed:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?566827-Channa-Sp-White-Pearl-Lemon

Regarding the marulioides, I believe you should reconsider keeping it with cichlids. Although marulioides are usually easygoing with other (non channa)species of fish, they really should be kept by themselves and CA cichlids are probably one of the worse choices for tankmates

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Thank you for the link of the thread. And I will reconsider the Cichlids. How do you think a Marulioides will do with other channa species? I've seen videos of them kept with Micropeltes.

-DC- said:

The platinum is a channa argus. Not rare at all as they farmed for food in china, although most shops seem to ignor that to jack up the price. It's that time of year again that they appear on the market because I just answered this same question in another post yesterday.

For details look up the thread on "white lemon pearl" it has all the details on these supposedly "rare"channa.

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Whether something is rare depends on location. An ET species may be in billions of numbers but extremely rare on planet earth.

A China fish may be common to China but not in other parts of the world. Today the Emperor Snakehead is common in Florida where it was totally nonexistent.

I have never seen the Platinum Snakehead in Malaysia before. To me that's extremely rare. I hope the fish is still available I'll try to get some pictures. I notice these platinum (apart from the known albino Channa Striata) seem to have different face / head shapes. I'll check the thread mentioned.