Goonch 2 month update

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Still wondering how one could tell them apart. The only one i can easily identify is suchus. The rest - only fro the pic, as a livin fish they all look the same to me :(.

My friend, I wrote the sticky, and even I have a hard time with these things unless I can actually investigate the fish in person. That sticky took two years of research, had two investigators (myself and E Estarego8 ) and heavy consultation fromDr. Hoek Hee Ng. It was enough to get Julian Dignall of Planet Catfish to change the Cat-E-Log to reflect the changes, and Dr. Ng is now currently researchign the genus in an attempt to more properly refine it, to include naming sp. 'indochina' and sp. 'dwarf'.

The long and short of it is that these fish are particulalryl difficult to identify even under the best of circumstances, and many of us, to include myself, have guessed wrong from time to time. There are no concrete diagnostic traits written to date, even though these fish have been known to science for well over a century. I hope that the good doctor can provide us with answers sometime soon, so that we can finally iron this out. :)
 
Yeah something solid would be really great, but i guess the only possible ways to do this will require the kind of examnination that needs to be done either at a corpse, or at least with the fish outside the water. (like looking into it's opened mouth or somthing like that) so probably not to practical for the average fishkeeper.

But hell, it's also kind of exciting to see the fish grow and develop more and more trait s that make it easier to distingiush. Of cours it would be a bit more convenient if there wheren't at least two species able to enter the zoo-league ...
 
Is there any update o the ID of the last two bagarius? Are they Yarelli + Indochina? The colour aside, the only difference i can see at this stage is the way the eayes are layed in the skull ... is that a sign?
 
Is there any update o the ID of the last two bagarius? Are they Yarelli + Indochina? The colour aside, the only difference i can see at this stage is the way the eayes are layed in the skull ... is that a sign?

If someone held a gun to my head and told me to ID those fish off of that pic, I'd say rutilus for the front and LLG for the back. I can't be sure from what I see though.

I'm beginning to feel compelled to do a new essay on goonches.
 
There's no Indian dwarf goonch

Although I am curious about how you manage feeding it in a tank with substrate.

I have kept them a few times, the first time I kept it for almost an year before I gave it off.

This time I got two, I keep them in their own tanks and bare bottom tanks, as I feed them sinking pellets.
 
There's no Indian dwarf goonch

Although I am curious about how you manage feeding it in a tank with substrate.

I have kept them a few times, the first time I kept it for almost an year before I gave it off.

This time I got two, I keep them in their own tanks and bare bottom tanks, as I feed them sinking pellets.


When I had my rutilus, I had her on a crushed aragonite substrate (for buffer) and fed massivore. She ate the pellets and spit out the substrate just fine. She didn't have any issues eating. :)
 
When I had my rutilus, I had her on a crushed aragonite substrate (for buffer) and fed massivore. She ate the pellets and spit out the substrate just fine. She didn't have any issues eating. :)
I feed mine massivore once in a while, but regular diet is cichlid sinking gold, and sinking carnivore pellet
 
Can you explain why the substrate is such a big deal for Bagarius? Most carnivourus catfish i know just swallow pretty much anthing and can easily filter out the parts which are not eadible, weather it's finde sand, rounded sand, sharp sand, sharp gravel etc. Pretty much anything that's not like cracked glass i guess.

And can you explain how you successfully sexed your bagarius? I read the description on Planet catfish, but i guess without the help a pic with both genitalia to compare, i would be pretty lost.
 
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