Lace Catfish/ Synodontis eupterus/ Featherfin Squeaker

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
R

rabbithearted

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 14, 2012
155
0
0
Michigan
Does anyone else have one? I have had mine for about 4 months now. All the information on them I can find is never consistent.

This is him when I first got him, this was at the store, the tank he was in was so murky.
0803121423.jpeg
He's grown about an inch since then. I moved him from my larger tank because he was being aggressive with my pleco because they both wanted to hide in one spot. He is in with my cichlids because that seems to be the general idea of where they do well. He has gorgeous lepord spots but I read that they will disappear once it matures. He swims upside most of the time and gets very excited when I give him dried brine shirmp. He will also eat things off the bottom like fallen flakes and small pellets but it seems the shrimp is the favorite. I saw a full grown female at the LFS and her top fin was not as large as mine is. It was less than half the size of mine. That could have been because it was in with a variety of large cichlids with no place to hide.

But any information and past experience would be awesome!!

0803121423.jpeg
 
Thank you so much and he honestly was only aggressive when my pleco was being pushy in their cave. Other than that he seems to be very calm and far from aggressive. The female I seen at the LFS was all a dark brown, only having spots on her fins. I hope they don't disappear but even if they do he is still an interesting fish to have and see grow. That website is very right though, they are pigs!
 
As you said and I repeated: I had no big problems with my 7 or 8 euptera but others report dire things and there is no reason not to trust what they say. So, yes... conflicting.

That female syno is probably a different species, not euptera. Can be nigrita, as I mentioned.

Yes, your fish has a remarkable dorsal. Very impressive. A better, much better photo(s) is needed to confirm your ID. It is most likely a euptera but...

What do you mean by "don't disappear"? Hide?
 
DSC_0774.JPG
He was mad at me because i made him get out of his log. Normally he would come right up to the glass and swim around upside down wanting me to feed him.

Don't disappear talking about his spots.

DSC_0774.JPG
 
I think they tend to like high PH (at least I frequently see them with Africans and keep mine with my Frontosa) and mine is very aggressive.

They're great for cleaning up leftover food from other fish.

I've been told (by a LFS, so take with a grain of salt) that them swimming upside-down can be a sign of them being overfed. Mine does it a bit, but I've noticed she seemed to do it more when she was a bigger girl than now.
 
Well he was very, very skinny when I first got him and he still swam upside then. I mean when he is feeding at the bottom and just swimming around he will swim normal but when it comes to me messing with the tank or feeding time he will be on his back at the top of the water swimming around, and he hides that way by the filter and in his log. He is in when my cichlids and they all seem to be terrified of him when he swims around, they all do whatever they can to avoid him even though some of them are larger than he is. But I think he is just as scared of them. haha.

I will admit when I first got him I know I was overfeeding him, just trying to get him to eat and to not look so skinny but I had cut way back since he seems to be at a normal weight and is now active and not just hiding all he time.
 
Don't worry, yours definitely doesn't look overweight. Mine was waaaaay fatter. And good ol' Princess Sparklefins is still kicking it.
 
Yeah looks like a typical syno euptera (the pic is still too dark) except that tall dorsal appears somewhat off. I think we can call it a euptera.

The spots will never disappear. It is the background that can get lighter or darker with age, water differences, substrate, temp, sex, stress, mood, temperament, etc.

High pH and hard water is for the synos from Lake Tanganyika. Euptera is a riverine syno inhabiting a wide range of waters with wide pH ranges. Normally near neutral pH of ~7 is fine. Anything between 6 and 8 is fine too.

I've never known the up-side-down swimming to be a bad sign. I always thought and read it was their natural quirk. In the wild, they rasp greenery and driftwood from underneath swimming up-side-down. Perfectly normal. A developed adaptation, they say.
 
All I have read is said that they are cousins of the upside down catfish, so I never had thought of it being bad. All the pictures at the ones I have seen at the LFS (which is not very often, it seems they aren't very common, at least around here. mine was an accidental shipment I guess to my LFS) they tend to look pretty fat, they have that big belly on them. The female I had seen, her dorsal fin was a lot shorter than Captains (his name), and her belly was huge, she was a pyramid shape almost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom