Wels Catfish (Silurus glanis) Grow out and informational thread!!!!

[necrocanis]

I read every word! It's better to put your money into the fish than the camera. Thats the monster fish keeping way!

lol, well hes already eating whole dried white shrimp from china. Now time to research on sexing!!! So what are some good girl names and boy names for wels catfish???? lol

 

[necrocanis]

Seems like the best way to sex is to look at the pectoral fin spines and see if they are serrated it is male and if they are non-serrated they are female. Also males have more slender build. I don't have anything to compare the thickness of my fish to so i will have to go off the serrations. I will see if I can see what it is tomorrow when there is more light.

see here under sexing
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=338

lol if that's true would be one of the easiest large catfish to sex for sure.

 

[necrocanis]

[video=youtube;2NCmzixcZJU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NCmzixcZJU[/video]

Had to take 4 vids and put them together to get close to a one min vid on my cell phone lol, here is the crap production. You can kind of make out the breathing I am talking about. Notice the lower jaw(mandible) barely moves while it is breathing.

 

[wednesday13]

All seemed to do better at 78 degrees and my albino is currently at that temp. I originally thought they were cold water fish but then i thought about how well they do in spain so i threw in a heater and hes been thriving ever since.

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[Jdj211]

A note on this species being housed with doradids, and other aggressive large catfish also. It seems that this fish senses that the doradids are of no threat and simply leave them alone.

Another note. Look at this one and others and you will notice the underbite actually extends to where there is a gap between the upper and lower jaws where the teeth meet. This is interesting because he doesn't open his mouth to breath. Instead he pushes his tongue against the gap while his mouth is close and when he pulls it away from the gap it sucks water in over his gills. Most catfish have to gasp when breathing semi hard. This one does not. It is very interesting. That massive lower jaw looks very bulldog like intimidating. I wonder if anyone has ever measured the bite force of one of these lol. Gives me an idea for the future. I sure wouldn't want to noodle one of these bad boys. Those teeth although viliform look like they would lay some serious damage.

This is exactly how my wallago breathes. I just noticed this behavior today actually. The Wels and Wallago are in the same family if I am not mistaken. I'm subbed!


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[necrocanis]

All seemed to do better at 78 degrees and my albino is currently at that temp. I originally thought they were cold water fish but then i thought about how well they do in spain so i threw in a heater and hes been thriving ever since.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

This is exactly how my wallago breathes. I just noticed this behavior today actually. The Wels and Wallago are in the same family if I am not mistaken. I'm subbed!


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Great info in both of those posts!!! Thanks for sharing!!!

 

[necrocanis]

This is exactly how my wallago breathes. I just noticed this behavior today actually. The Wels and Wallago are in the same family if I am not mistaken. I'm subbed!


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BtW both species are definitely in the same family Siluridae. This is the first recognized family of catfish from when they were first classified. The wels was the first catfish described.

 

[Nabbig2]

It would be nice to see someone who gets a wells and then "never updates" ever again lol....congrats.

 

[necrocanis]

It would be nice to see someone who gets a wells and then "never updates" ever again lol....congrats.

In that case this will be my last update! lol, jk. He's cruising around the tank I'm watching him in the dark.

 

[Chicxulub]

HOLY CRAP!

Amazing!

As for names, there's only two real names, King or Queen. These fish are the absolute sovereigns of the Siluriformes. Some catfish get bigger, some get meaner, some get toothier, but none of them are as much of a total package concept as these things are, and there's no other catfish that consistently gets as big.

I'm really saddened to hear how thoroughly the wels destroyed the flathead. I really thought the flathead would be able to handle the wels, or at least defend himself better. That was amazing! The bite force of that guy even at that size must be incredible!

I actually caught a young one of these while fishing in Florida back in 2005 after Hurricane Jeanne. I knew it was something special and odd, but I didn't know what it was at the time. It was about a foot long so I didn't keep it. I thumbed it in the jaw and was holding it. I had his mouth all the way opened and distended to where it was past the natural range of motion like most people do when holding fish this way. He had enough jaw strength to lift his entire body and bite down on my thumb with enough force that it hurt and I bled. I was shocked!