27 Pictus catfish

[spotfin]

R they Columbian?

Not sure. How do you tell the difference? I picked up tips in this thread about spot pattern? I bought 2 of them a few years ago and they have a well spotted pattern. The other two I bought about a year ago from a fellow that was taking his tank down. These 2 have less/smaller spotting.

Thanks all for feedback. I too always wanted to play with a large... clowder, clutter, or glaring (thanks kno4te ) of them and this is my first time.



Hmm, interesting... There simply may not be enough of them - the hierarchical domination is not diluted sufficiently for them to keep in school or the gender ratio is not conducive.

Colombian or Peruvian, as asked above, is another good question, although I didn't know that the former get along worse than the latter. Deadliestviper7 tell us more please, where does this observation come from and how often / how many times / with how many keepers is it observed? Does it have a predictive power?

Is your tank heavily planted / furnished? I can't imagine so with rays, they need space on the bottom.

My tank is mostly open. There is one large piece of wood in the middle and nothing else on the bottom. There are two overflow towers on the back wall, and suspended pothos roots.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Interesting. Thanks again.

However anecdotal... but people say the definition / contrast and the color depth of the spotting on the Peruvians is substantially crisper and better. The spots are perhaps larger too, going on memory. Yet, I've been noticing this difference too through the years.

I don't recall a high level expert or a taxonomist / ichthyologist saying this. It could be just us laymen talking but I could be wrong.

Another problem is collection point. IME, this info can be quite unreliable. Besides, I am sure pictus are present in more than Peru and Colombia.

So I take it as a working hypothesis and with a big grain of salt.

 

[jeaninel]

Great cats! I've got only one in my 150. He's about 6" and about 7 years old now (Maybe more, I'll hAve to look it up). Do you think he's Columbian?

 

[celebrist]

Nice looking cat and sharks

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Great cats! I've got only one in my 150. He's about 6" and about 7 years old now (Maybe more, I'll hAve to look it up). Do you think he's Columbian?
View attachment 1218744 View attachment 1218745

Doesn't look Colombian ,he's a good looking regular tho .

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Haha, maybe we are after all talking about different things but this guy looks quintessential Colombian to my ignorant eye, that is if there is such a thing as Colombian versus Peruvian...

One big caveat though IMHO is that this is an unusually old and large pictus. Not much info on them around because it's rare. So IDK if Peruvian spotting can evolve / degrade into that over years. IIRC, pictus spotting does degrade with age but I don't know / recall how much.

Great job Jeaniel!

 

[celebrist]

I seem to have two different morphs in my group of eight. The smaller ones have crisper markings and a feistier attitude. I have had them all for almost four years but it is possible that they were different ages when I got them. They were all the same size though. They do not group up

 

[celebrist]

Here is a slightly better picture that shows the two varieties. The bigger one colors like it wants to grow up into a blochi lol
It does hang out next to my big one when it can

 

[catfishtimmy]

Nice group of pictus at the shedd aquarium in Chicago.

 

[Chockful O Phail]

thebiggerthebetter how are these guys doing? Any ich problems, the few I've had always seemed to come down with it.