Do anyone own one or have any experience with them? How big do they get, and how active are they? Can they live in the tank with large cichlids? Do anyone feel that they are good looking catfish?
Bumble Bee catfish
- Thread starter Cichlidfever
- Start date
Which BB Cat are you talking about? There are 3 (that I know of) with that common name. There's one from Asia which is pretty secretive. There's 2 from SA. One grows only to 3" which wouldn't do too well with large Cichlids. And the other which can grow 10"-12" I don't have any experience with the last one, but the other 2 are pretty peaceful and secretive. So lots of hiding space and you might not see them all the time. They aren't very active, but you can keep a group together.
I have a Microglanis iheringi, one of the South American species and he is quite full of energy when he wants to be. sometimes he just hides, but other times like when i put a sinking algae wafer in, he acts like a puppy waiting to get a treat. i will stick my hand in and drop it near where he is, and he will dart over to it and try to fully consume the entire wafer (he is barely 2.5 inches). its pretty amusing to watch. this species doesn't grow much more than what he is now. I was sad to find him in the tank i got since he was housed with a bunch of Africans (wrong water parameters plus too aggro for the cat) that the guy that owned him was housing him with. i wouldn't recommend placing him in a tank with cichlids since he is rather small. maybe some of the smaller more laid back SA/CA would do but i am unfamiliar with SA/CA cichlids, so don't take that as solid advice. I would be wary of putting him in a tank in which you plan on breeding anything as well
Yeah, the name of the one that I am talking about is Microglanis iheringi. I thought they got at least 6". I thought somewhere at a LFS I seen a 6" one. I think they look very nice... Although everthing that I read on them do say they are peaceful, so I guess I will have to forget about the Bumblee Catfish.
Yeah...those little guys definitely won't do well in a Cichlid community unless they're one of the more peaceful Cichlids like Acaras, Rams, Angels, Discus, etc.
i wouldn't give up yet...... there are similar SA cats that you may find interesting that would go with your cichlids
in that case, forget about the bumblebee! go for something big! like i said, i'm no cat expert at all, but i think you could go for RTC or TSN