How big does the walking catfish get ?

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

pie bald

Maybe that has something to do with it. The walking catfish at the market were the wild type, whereas the piebald one is artificially line bred for that piebald color.
Some forms of line bred fish (like fancy goldfish and electric blue acaras) don't get as big as regular/wild-type individuals, so could that be happening here too?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Our 7 reached about 2 feet. I don't believe I have seen any over 2ft by much.

I doubt 3ft to 3.5ft Clarias batrachus. I'd be inclined to think it is a different Claridae species.

We have a TON of them here in southern Florida. In the wild. Everywhere, They are smaller fish than what may be expected, rarely over 1ft and never over 1.5ft.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

If that's the case, what do you think of Seriously Fish listing 100cm? Do you think they may have misidentified the species?

Clarias batrachus (Walking Catfish) — Seriously Fish

seriouslyfish.com

Since they listed it, and I saw what looked like 100cm walking catfish, I had seen no reason to doubt that 100cm walking catfish existed until your comment.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The usual sources contradict each other, so I'd not hurry with conclusions.

PCF and FishBase cite an approx. 20"-22" max and approx. 12" common size (in the wild BTW):

PlanetCatfish.com - Clarias batrachus (Clariidae) Cat-eLog

Images are copyright and may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder.

www.planetcatfish.com

Clarias batrachus summary page

fishbase.net.br

I've not done any deeper digging. I tend to think 3ft and bigger "batrachus" are likely in reality Clarias gariepinnis or other large growing Claridae.

 

[Fishman Dave]

I would agree. I think some sources seem to lump all they know about Clarias in general under the one name they do know/list such as walking catfish, and then list everything under Clarias batrachus.
Are there any other Clarias listings on seriously fish?

 

[Karno]

Not to disagree with anyone, just chiming in; IME (only based on albino/mottled variety, not sure if that's a factor) ~30cm first year to year and a half, ~50cm "full" size. I think that's a reasonable estimate if you're looking for a quick and direct answer. Also worth taking into consideration is that they are relatively active swimmers with surprisingly social and intelligent behaviour.

 

[blackbullhead]

Have looked at a lot of specimens of Clarias from a lot of different species and have not seen a C. batrachus over 20 inches (51 cm). It's probable that they get a bit bigger, but wouldn't guess by much.
That said, Clarias species are very tough to tell apart and the large-growing Clarias gariepinus (native to African and the middle-east) is now widespread in southeast Asia, where it is often mistaken for C. batrachus or other native Clarias. The confusion is compounded by the fact that it can hybridize with Asian species. These hybrids are commonly used in aquaculture as well as hybrids between C. gariepinus and Heterobranchus (vundu), but not sure if they ever make it into the aquarium hobby.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Maybe the fish at the markets are Clarias gariepinus/sharptooth catfish. Looked it up and I can't see the visual difference between it and walking catfish, but Wikipedia says it's a 100-150cm fish, which explains the size of the fish at the markets.

 

[jjohnwm]

I've fished for gariepinus in its native range (at least that's what later research seemed to clinch as the ID), and all specimens showed varying degrees of mottling in their colouration, fairly distinctive from batrachus. Aside from the patterning, they looked pretty identical to batrachus to my eye, and at that time I had two big batrachus in my tanks back home. Biggest gariepinnus I caught was a hair over 40 inches, which the locals said was nice but not exceptional in terms of size.

Tasted...pretty good, not the best fish I've ever had but far from the worst.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

There certainly wasn't any mottling on the catfish at the market, just a consistent shade of grayish brown. I wonder whether that was darkening/washing out like some other catfish species (such as the various types of pictus catfish) have been known to do, for purposes such as matching tones with their environment.