Giraffe VS O.niger

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Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jan 5, 2012
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considering one of these two cats as a possibility for my next fish now that my achara is gone. I could do either one of these cats or neither. i'm not sure yet. I'm also looking at the potential of doing a ray or more polypterus. I know a little about each fish as far as care goes but in this thread i'm looking to get tips and experiences from people who have kept or know a lot about them. looking to know about what i wrote below

1) Special needs for either cat?
2) aggression?
3) potential vs realistic max size?
4) growth rate?
5) Activity? How often are they active? are they active when young?
6) How friendly can they be to people? I.e. hand feeding, coming to top of tank, not being skittish, etc

The tank it will be going in is a 180 gallon 6'x2'x2' tank w/ one fx5. I cannot upgrade for the next 2-3 years. Permanent tank mates are 1x 16" Florida Gar, 1x 10" clown knife(who can be aggressive), 1x 10" ornate bichir. Potential tank mates are 4x silver dollars, 1x female jaguar cichlid, 1x male jack dempsey. It'll depend on how well these cichlids get along with others.

So do you think either cat is do-able? I will add, like the achara, if things don't work out it will be rehoused to someone who knows what they are doing.
 
This is actually simple because of the tank size. Niger is the cat you want. Though they both can grow to about 36" in the wild, the giraffe will grow much too fast for that tank. My giraffe grew to 18" in about 10 months. Both are peaceful but the giraffe is far more active and can be territorial. The niger just chills out and is not very active.


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Couldn't have said it better myself.I once had both of them in a tank together.They were around six inches each when I got them and the giraffe out hustled,out ate,and in no time,outgrew the niger....it was constantly looking for food.
 
The giraffe will move anything out of it's way to get food. They couldn't bite anything but they are bulldozers. Mine can go threw a 5 lb pile of 2' polys like they aren't there.

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Although these are two of my favorite cats I honestly wouldn't recommend either for a 180. They will both quickly outgrow it. The giraffe and nigers I've kept both grew very rapidly to well over 2' in less than 2 yrs. The girth on the nigers were very impressive at that point. Nigers are certainly less active of the two but my largest loved to swim open water face first into the current.

There are other cats out there that would be a better fit for your 180. Good luck.
 
LOL,that's partly why I got rid of mine,I got tired of it always hogging up the food and pushing everything around....I actually traded it with another member for my first armatus.
 
Good points K...What do you think of a Megaladoras for that tank size?
 
If anyone has any suggestions i'd love to hear them. the other catfish i have been thinking about are jurenese and vulture catfish.

if anyone has pics of their gcats over 2' i'd love to see them. i can't recall seeing pics of any over 2' but i have scene a lot between 20-24 inches so it doesn't surprise me.


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Megaladoras Uranoscopus (irwini) would be good for that tank. They only grow to about 27" so realistically 20-24 in captivity. They are very slow growers, active at night and hide during the day. Kind of like a pet rock with a night life. Vulture won't work in that tank since they are so active and you will have the same problem you were having with the Achara because the whiskers grow so long. Juruensis are beautiful but high maintenence imo. They really don't hunt food and they are not a clean up cat


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