New catfish, Suriname Piraiba
- Thread starter fishtankphil
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Wow that's amazing! 5' wallago. That's a monster! Is that the guy in cali with that massive tank where his garage was oe something like that. There was an interview on him. He had a pr of pimas too! Big boys!
If you don't mind sharing where did you get it?
How big is it currently?
I've kept them to 13" in the past and fished for them in Suriname in 2016 which was epic. They do grow slow from what I've seen (about 1" per month), much slower than most of the big SA catfish species. That said I've noticed them still feeding fairly aggressively and had some of mine take out smaller tank mates.
I personally don't know of anyone in North America that's kept them much over 2ft and don't recall A arapaimag having kept them. No he was not the guy in CA he was up north if I recall. He did have a beast Planiceps though and several other monster catfish as mentioned. I've never seen a large one in public aquariums either for that matter. Biggest I've seen overseas was still under the 3ft mark and only one person with one that size that I recall from SGP or Japan.
These fish need lots of room to swim and want strong current. Can't say I'd recommend keeping it in a divided 300 for long unless it's small like under 12" still with the majority of the tank for it and you're planning on or already have a larger tank to transfer it to in the next year.
How big is it currently?
I've kept them to 13" in the past and fished for them in Suriname in 2016 which was epic. They do grow slow from what I've seen (about 1" per month), much slower than most of the big SA catfish species. That said I've noticed them still feeding fairly aggressively and had some of mine take out smaller tank mates.
I personally don't know of anyone in North America that's kept them much over 2ft and don't recall A arapaimag having kept them. No he was not the guy in CA he was up north if I recall. He did have a beast Planiceps though and several other monster catfish as mentioned. I've never seen a large one in public aquariums either for that matter. Biggest I've seen overseas was still under the 3ft mark and only one person with one that size that I recall from SGP or Japan.
These fish need lots of room to swim and want strong current. Can't say I'd recommend keeping it in a divided 300 for long unless it's small like under 12" still with the majority of the tank for it and you're planning on or already have a larger tank to transfer it to in the next year.
Last edited:
amazonfishman
actually, they do grow quite fast, 1.5-2" a month. Mine grew from 5" to 15" in 5 months. But I don't know the Suriname variation growth rate, it may vary or simply the same.
Thank you for ur input on the fish. I got it from a guy named derek abel van meter. U can find him on fb under dereks fish. I got him at 13" precisely. I moved him to my 500 gal since he wasnt responding well in the other tank. Most likely due to the beast on the other side of the divider. Plat gar around 18". Omce in the 500 gal it settled down and had been eating its belly full each feeding. Any tears or bruises have healed up and is looking nice now. The big tig seems to tolerate him so no worries there atm! The tank has plenty of flow anf filtration. Alot of o2 as well.
So far he has settled in and eating well. In the nxt few weeks let's see how much growth it puts on.
