Catfish ID?

[Natural Born Chaos]

So I saw this beautiful catfish at my LFS today, I was pretty sure he was a platystomatichthys sturio, so I put him on hold until next week so I could rearrange my aquarium. We took a few pictures, but upon further inspection, I'm not quite sure if I was correct, the guy told me it would get a foot and a half, but didn't tell me the name of the fish, since I was almost certain it was a sturio catfish. It's about 12" now, Here are a couple pictures, however, they're not the greatest, but they should be good enough to get an idea of what it is. Actually, looking at it now, I think it might be a shovelnose.. Any input?

Thanks. =)

 

[guanl23]

thats a lima shovelnose

 

[Natural Born Chaos]

I believe you're right. Now, just from a quick search, they get about 18"? If so, that would be perfect! I'm glad I didn't buy it yet, I've got a lot of reading to do. One quick question: Do you think a catfish of that size could gobble down a 6" firemouth cichlid? He'll be going to a new home soon anyway, but just in case I'm still holding on to him.

 

[Chicxulub]

Looks like a Lima shovelnose to me as well.

If it will fit in a catfish's mouth, odds are good it'll try to eat it!

 

[Slippery K]

Lima, my lfs has some in right now but about 6"

Sent from my GT-I5510M using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[cl0wn knife]

sorubium lima

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Either Sorubim lima (will max out at 2') or Sorubim elongatus (1' max). They are tough to tell apart, e.g., see page 3 of this thread: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...sh-for-a-225-Gallon/page3&highlight=elongatus

If the cichlid can fit in its mouth, it's risky.

 

[Natural Born Chaos]

Great, thanks guys. I'll be doing lots of reading on them this week, and will hopefully be adding it my one of my aquariums next week. I just have one more question, what about 4 12" rope fish and/or 2 bichirs around 9"? I'm guessing they would fit in its mouth, but whether it would go for something around the same length is beyond me.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

what about 4 12" rope fish and/or 2 bichirs around 9"? I'm guessing they would fit in its mouth, but whether it would go for something around the same length is beyond me.

In turn, I'd guess the risk is 20% smaller for the ropes and 95% smaller for bichirs. Predatory catfish like Sorubim, Pseudoplatystoma, Brachyplatystoma etc. are known to try and prey on any fish that they can fit into their mouth, not lengthwise necessarily but width-wise. Sometimes they are able to start digesting parts of their prey while not fully swallowed. Other times they may choke on it and both die. There exist reports of no problems and reports of horrendous problems. Hence, we can only speak of probabilities.

 

[necrocanis]

Agree with tbtb. I had a rtc swallow a large mouth bass that was 75% of his length and girth. The bass was about 17" long and the rtc about 22". After a week and a very smelly tank he had digested the head enough that he swallowed the tail. I was young and ignorant back then or I would have pulled it out of his mouth. Water params were whack for a few months after that. lol