A pair of spotted or snail bullheads - Ameiurus brunneus

[thebiggerthebetter]

Got a pair of Ameiurus brunneus - spotted bullheads or snail bullheads from Rapps earlier this year, in the spring 2017. $25 each. ~2". One was bigger, the other smaller, tiny. They appear to be rarely kept, I've never come across a report on MFK or PCF that I can recall.

Also, their native distribution area is small - PCF: "North America: Atlantic Slope from Dan River system in southern Virginia south to Altamaha River drainage in Georgia, and middle St. Johns River drainage in Florida, USA; Gulf Slope in Apalachicola River drainage in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, USA. Recently reported from upper Coosa River system in Georgia, USA."

https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=1050

They are about 6"-7" now. Easy keeping as all bullheads are. Enthusiastic feeders and hardy. The bigger one I think was bullying the smaller one after they reached about 5"-6" so now they stay apart. Just fin damage. Anal and caudal.

I don't have the time to cut out all of the non-bullhead containing material from this overall video of their tank. Forgive me. So there is much filler:

 

[Chub_by]

Very interesting. Bullheads as a whole are such an underrated fish, when it comes to catfish they tick pretty much all of the boxes IMO. In case you are looking for other keepers' reports, maybe give NANFA and their forums a try - an excellent resource on any north American fish!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Update. Here is finally a bullhead-specific video:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Two years with us. Update. They have grown to about 1' or over. The feeding behavior in the video is poor because the fish are not used to having the tank lights on, not to mention that bullheads hate light; also placing a camera in the tank makes them uneasy and skittish.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Nov 2019.

Have been doing well but the smaller one was getting bullied too much by the bigger one from one end of the tank and by a jaguar cichlid from the other, so was rehomed into a neighboring 240 gal, where it recovered well and started feeding again.

But soon, about a week ago, both bullheads have been upgraded to an 1800 gal, 27:50 minutes:

They have already accustomed to the new tank and feed.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Update. A little criminal bedside story for boys and girls with stable psyche...

Once upon a time, there lived not three but two, not piglets, but snail bullheads not in the forest but in a dark scary fish tank full of critters of unfathomable kinds...

The snail bullheads had done well in the 1800 gal for some months and then I started noticing some damage on one of them, on the top, by the dorsal, first a little, no red, then with each week worse and worse until it became a sizeable, red, skinless crater. I spent some time by the tank hoping to catch the culprit but largely failed. I caught the Prochilodus lineatus tank mate (a relative of red-fin and yellow-fin Prochilodus) try to suck some slime off the target bullhead and hence took the lineatus out of the tank first, blaming the damage tentatively on it... but the future showed lineatus was but a sneaky fox, a vile profiteer, not the big bad wolf... the damage on the snail bullhead didn't heal and perhaps got a bit worse even after the lineatus was gone.

So it wasn't it. I took the bullhead out and placed it in a 240 gal where it healed up well and has been doing well since, even today. Then, of course, I started seeing the exact same damage develop on the second snail bullhead left in 1800 gal! Well. Mind you, this is but typical hair-pulling-out experience when housing a menagerie of fish together. Nothing surprising, at least in my career of "caring" for fish.

I watched closer as time permitted and finally caught the evil-doer - it was our oldest, about 15 years old, 12" hybrid synodontis! Swimming up to the bullhead and always looking for the same spot and rasping on it. The lubber bullhead behaved strangely to human logic not trying hard enough to swim away or to shake off the uninvited vampire. I feed the tank very well, so I cannot imagine the syno was doing it out of hunger, but rather just because it could. It wasn't about territory whatsoever either. Just a leisurely supplementation of diet, not out of need but probably out of "it gives me something to do, so why not?".

As I reported before, Ictaluridae, such as channels and bullheads, are terrible IME at warding off such attacks of certain fish, such as pacu, synodontis, Distichichodus, Labeo. Same goes for iridescent shark catfish, sporadically some Doradids, all rather timid fish.

So I had to take out the second bullhead out of the 1800 gal and transfer it to join the old buddy in the same 240 gal.

And in such a way the two Pigheads lost some skin but escaped the big bad Wolfodontis...

Obligatory after-story non-Vogue photoshoot. Parental discretion advised. (Remember the healthy stable psyche alluded to above.)


The first bullhead after transfer to 240 gal:




Second bullhead after transfer to 240 gal:





The rasper - hybrid synodontis named Krol through the years - first set of photos is from 2009-2010, 120 gal, Rochester, NY, then 2015-2017, 4500 gal, Naples, FL. Spots come and go. Same fish.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The first bullhead healed well and quick and now lives well in the 240 gal. However the second one became stiff and perished soon after the transfer for no obvious reason. I attribute this to the warm water of 85-90 F. IME it seems to me bullheads don't do well in such warm water and just a little stress from rehoming can send the fish over the top and it dies.

The 90F water I too blame for the losses of both pairs of our northern and southern bullheads after 4 years or so. Some pathogen (could be columnaris) + 90F water and our bullheads couldn't cope.

Currently, we have one snail bullhead and one yellow bullhead still living with us.

The second snail, 14", 4 years old. The whiteness is from the resident pleco taking last advantage overnight when the fish died.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

1.5 years later. The surviving snail bullhead had been doing well removed from the 1800 gal but in the last 3 months has been on a hunger strike out of blue. I hope it comes around. My guess is our water changes got inadequate at 100% in 30 days over the last several years. A month or two ago, we bought new RO membranes and increased the WC to 100% in 3-4 days. Hopefully it'll help the bullhead to rebound.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The surviving snail bullhead still won't feed:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The snail bullhead dominates the yellow despite some pushback from the yellow.