Anyone ever kept these species before? I want to import some to keep in my 135 with polypterus mokelemembe and polypterus senegalus(albino).
Batrochoglanis villosus
- Thread starter Lazybum34
- Start date
I have 3 of them, one adult @ 10" for years and 2 more recent smaller one's @ around 5", all in separate tanks. Firstly, they do not get along with conspecifics, that is, their own species or with related other pseudopimelodid species. They will fight to the death, so just get one only! They usually will be fine with other unrelated catfishes and probably be fine with bichirs or many other kinds of fish. They are a predator species and cannot be trusted with any fish of edible size. They are very nocturnal and shy, needing a shady hiding spot and will rarely be seen, if at all, even at dark evening feeding times. They can be fed with pellets eventually but prefer foods such as frozen bloodworms, red worms or small nigthtcrawlers. Some have gotten them to eat shrimp and cut up tilapia. Their growth rate is very slow... My large one shares a tank with a giraffe catfish and is unique in her behavior as she will snatch live nightcrawlers from my hand, day or night but it took years to overcome original shyness...
iinteresting, I have seen a few posts with multiple villosus in 1 tank. My importer on has 1 left either way so I'm probably going to order some silver dollars to fill the 135. Is there a estimated max size?
Not sayin it's not possible to have multiple one's in one tank, maybe with small juveniles. When I got my big one, the vendor had 2 large one's at the time and told me he had to place a divider in their tank to keep them apart due to fighting. In spite of knowing their usual traits, I too was hoping I could keep a group, when I found 3 for sale, I bought 'em all as they were relatively cheap @ $50 each, (paid triple that for one a decade ago as they can be rare in the hobby) Anyway when the 3 arrived, packed in separate bags, I then put all three in the acclimation bucket and they started biting each other and fighting immediately so I had to put 'em in separate tanks. One was skinny and weak, dying a couple of days later, the others are fine. Max size is 10-11"