Anyone keeping Mekong and Wels Catfish

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mkman

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MFK Member
Nov 20, 2005
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Hi all, brand new here, fantastic site!

I notice quite a few members here have arapaima gigas and at least one member has a nile perch.

Anyone here keeping mekong catfish or a wels? They are one of my favorite fish and if I make a pond one day, I would put those in there! If someone here does keep a wels or mekong catfish, I would like to see a pic!

Thanks.
 
Welcome to MFK mkman. I never had room for cats like those beauties.
 
I think Mekong cats are endangered so i doubt hobbyists would be able to obtain it. But no doubt they are very beautiful fishes. Besides space constraint dont forget the food bills... :eek:
 
Paroon sharks is the closest you could get ... they still need a big tank. Welcome to MFK!
 
they claim to sell the mekongs here by the doznes,,, i think the endangered part is for them to be in the wild and to reproduce in the wild, and to survive to gigantic size is rare.

but i'm not 100% sure. but all the pet shops have them, or 'claim' they have the giant mekong cat. looks like them though...
 
I think maybe what they sell as mekongs are actually just pangasius pangasius. Just my two cents. Seeing as how they are endangered I don't see how they could be imported unless they have a captive breeding program, and those fish are not regulated under the same international laws on endangered species. Someone with enough money and room should get one of these so called mekongs and grow it out to see what it looks like as an adult. It is probably the only way to tell for sure. Most things I have read say that mekongs are impossible to identify as young. Too similar to P. pangasius.
 
Ok, so Mekong is ruled out because it is highly endangered and very doubtful that someone could bring it in the United States unless they caught it alive and then had it sent here.

I wish some of the public aquariums like the new aquarium in Atlanta would have Mekong catfish and Wels along with the arapaimas. That would be awesome :-)

Now what about the Wels Catfish? Does anyone here have one or knows of someone who has one?

Thanks
 
maybe i'll get one of these 'mekongs' this weekend... i've been brainstorming a Thailand native tank ....

but there would no way to really know if it was a real mekong??!!!?? they have a lot of other species that look just like it...
 
if you check the catfish species on ths site, several of the common cats look like the mekong.

http://anglingthailand.com/fish_species/index.htm

3_4.jpg

Pangasius sanitwongsei

2_4.jpg

Pangasius hypophthalmus

1_6.jpg

and the mekong giant, Pangasianodon gigas

beeyooties though !!!
 
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