Thanks everyone for your kindness, much appreciated! A few notes on these fishes as I once had two, a female and the male. When you find and keep rare or unidentified species such as I have, there's little or no references as to their behavior so one persons experience may be anything but typical. In this case the female fish was quite mellow in her demeanor, friendly and a good community fish until she grew to about 18" and then had the tank to herself. Lost her some years back while on vacation and the person in charge of her care, failed miserably. This male, the complete opposite, kind of mean and angry, hated everything in it's tank, heaters, air stones, thermometers and any other fish. Easily startled, you would have to approach the tank in slow motion or he would freak out. I learned the hard way once, spooked him and he came out of the tank vertically, breaking the top glass and ending up on the floor. Trying to gather him up in a net by hand, his needle sharp pectoral spine sliced my finger open. I wasn't mad at him, he just being a catfish. One of his quirks, unlike the female one, was that he would only feed in complete darkness, put pellets and the odd nightcrawler in the tank and no response at all. Turn out the lights and close the door then come back in 5 minutes later and he was stuffed. Haven't found another of the species for sale in the 9 years I've had him but would get another if given the chance. His first encounter with humans was likely in the bottom of a dugout canoe in Congo. Surviving that and transportation, I feel that he probably lived longer in my care than he would have in his home river although if given the choice, would have preferred the latter. Having saved him from various maladies and equipment failures in the past, I wish there more I could do but now can only let nature take its course. A now famous Swahili phrase comes to mind, Hakuna Matata...
