Catfish for my 220
- Thread starter Fish Tank Travis
- Start date
I'm not disagreeing with you here. Being that I have two of these guys, I'm hoping that at least one of them stays small enough to live out life in my 220. If either or if both of them get up above the 30" mark then I will be looking into rehoming them. Otherwise, if they stay somewhere between 24-30", I think they will be ok in this tank, since they like to hide a lot and are much more flexible than most fish.
I am rethinking the discus at this time. Mainly because I work full time, go to school in the evenings, have a lawn and house to maintain, and have a wife and three year old, I am not sure I will have the time I really need to take care of them as I should. Oh, and water is really expensive here too, so waterchanges for the discus and eventually this large tank when they move in could easily be $2-300 a month.
This is a realization I've had since I've started looking into catfish.
At this point, ornate pims are my number one choice, probably four of them. I have emailed Jeff Rapps to see if he can get any of them.
IDK anything more beyond what's in this thread https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...-dorado-catfish-duopalatinus-sp.671229/page-2Ok, I was looking to see if anybody has the ornate in stock and I came across the white dorado catfish at Bluegrass Aquatics. I really like the looks of that guy but I can't find any info on them. I saw a thread that
Anyone have any info on these guys or are they a mystery?
You'd not know what you are getting but if you did, you'd be my hero - selfish of me, I agree
As for P. ornatus, they school or so we are told. They are usually ~$50 but I managed to get them from Rapps last Fall at $25, just got two, $$ was tight. WetSpot has them too.
Mama mia! That's the biggest I've seen!
Here is a small write-up I made on lima/elongatus.
Most important first: Lima maxes out at 2', elongatus at 1'.
Check out this thread which includes a relevant piece from the most recent genus revision: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...elongatus-ID-thread&highlight=trigonocephalus
These are ambush predators that float with minimal motion ~ vertically head down among vegetation or debris pretending to be a twig or a plant and wait for a suitable prey to come by close enough.
Young Sorubim species like the company of each other and usually, with enough of them, would do the head standing together, which is an unusual and cute sight. Adults are said to largely lose the gregarious trait. My eight are ~7" and float like that together parallel to each other in a tight formation half the time at about 45-60 degrees to horizontal.
IME and IMO, the vast majority of people thinking they are buying a Sorubim lima are actually buying a Sorubim elongatus in the US, so chances are great that yours is S. elongatus, which tops out at 1', not 2' as S. lima does. Not once have I seen any Sorubim labeled elongatus. They are all labeled either common snovelnose or lima shovelnose.
They appear quite hard to tell apart from the exterior features for laymen like us: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30938&hilit=+elongatus (that's one of mine I was trying hard to ID years ago). As you could see, our colleague Back (high level hobbyist) from Finland thinks the position of the mandibular barbels with respect to the gular and other skull features may be telling. I do not remember this approach having been validated by a known respected ichthyologist but I think the latest genus revision justifies this ID approach.
I've never seen a 2' one in person, not even one that'd be longer than 11"-12" TL, while I have owned and seen scores of them. Mine never grew beyond ~11", which makes me assume they were all elongatus but I have not had them long enough to be dead sure. For now, this leads me to believe that most/almost all we have in the US are elongatus. I have seen only 1 or 2 approximately two-footers on the photos originating from the USA here on MFK (here are some pics of an almost fully grown lima: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...e-lima-shovelnose-catfish&highlight=elongatus ) and a few in between 1' and 2'. Our colleagues in Europe say they see 2'-ers sometimes, not as rarely as we do in the US.
The Cat-eLog entry for elongatus http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=697offers kind of soft ID: "...Very generally, Sorubim with spots are usually S. elongatus. (TBTB edit: as opposed to the other 4 species in this genus; this appears mostly true IME with ~20 of these fish.) They are more of a black water species and, as with most such species, tend towards more variable, spotted patterning."
They need not live feedings, unless we are talking earth worms or ghost shrimp, lizards, land frogs, etc. They are small predators that snatch small fish (anything that can fit in their mouth which is relatively and surprisingly big for their slender body structure but not that big compared to other medium and large Pimelodidae catfish), crustaceans, and insects in the wild. I always feed mine frozen/thawed foods - small whole fishes, fish pieces, shrimp/prawn/etc. or shrimp pieces if too large (do not peel; raw is better than cooked), and other sea/aquatic animal foods.
They can be trained to take pellets but the cases where they thrive on pellets are few it appears to me, even on Hikari Massivore pellets. I have never seen them fat and happy on pellets, rather always thin and slow-growing. Anyone, correct me, please, if your experience differs. EDIT Dec 2016: my latest batch of 8 has started on cut fish but with time taken to pellets (offered to tank mates) all by themselves and now are taking 50% or more pellets. Doing and growing very well so far. If I recall correctly Necrocanis reported his specimen doing exceptionally well on pellets too.
When very small, mine like freeze-dried and fresh bloodworms, plankton (mini-shrimp-like creatures), etc.
The growth on elongatus is not fast, perhaps 6"-7" in one year starting from ~3". As you see, I think my experience with lima is most likely zero, so IDK how fast they grow. The fact that they reach 2x larger adult size may or may not matter.
Check this excellent link: http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/sorubim-lima/ - the info is well written and arranged. In the notes it says: " (TBTB: S. lima is) Distinguished from S. elongatus by having modally 9 pectoral rays; 21 anal-fin rays; 16 gill rakers..." The page does not state the counts for elongatus anywhere. Neither have I found a species page for S. elongatus. Unless I am missing something, I find this odd and not as helpful as it could have been otherwise. All other pointers refer to things that are subjective. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the page and learned a lot.
HTH.
Viktor
Spiny eels are escape artists - something you should keep in mind.
W/c discus need very soft water, KH and GH of 1-3 degree. Fire eels come from very hard waters of rift lakes etc. I don't think they'd thrive together but then again I'm not a discus guy, besides, captive-bred discus are said to be ok in medium or even harder water.
W/c discus need very soft water, KH and GH of 1-3 degree. Fire eels come from very hard waters of rift lakes etc. I don't think they'd thrive together but then again I'm not a discus guy, besides, captive-bred discus are said to be ok in medium or even harder water.
Thanks for all the info; a lot of things I didn't know. This makes me wish I knew more about the large specimen that I saw at my university. I only saw it once, during my orientation in 2013. I'm not sure where it was, but it would be interesting to find out if it's still around somewhere.
Platysilurus Malarmo is the species that Bluegrass Aquatics has labeled as a White Dorado Catfish. I called and spoke with someone there about it today. Nice looking catfish but gets to be too big for my tank.
I think I've settled on the Pimelodus Ornatus. It has a lot of the same personality traits as a pictus cat but gets to be around 11 inches long. I'm considering going for four of these guys to add to my aquarium. What do you guys think about this choice and quantity?
If you can it'd be nice and beneficial if you can find out all you can such as purchase sized, growth rate, feeding habit, temperament etc. and pictures to prove it of course
lol