A bit longer, my three lovely 10"-ers survived the move from NY to FL in 2011 but perished soon thereafter (the move was a disaster, fish-wise). My 5"-er was eaten a year ago by a 2' silver aro.
Not all giraffe cats are giants. Some of the races/species do appear to stay smaller. I have two "Volta" giraffe cats that have never exceeded 12" after two years in a 240 gallon tank. A previous giraffe cat, I had owned as a teen, went from 4" to 22" in a 55 gallon over the course of a year.
Well he is coming out more and more and he has almost doubled in size lol. Just saw him tonight and his belly is huge from eating. See he doesn't come out when I feed yet but I will feed the frotosa and Dat then when the are full I through extra food and it sits on the bottom and obviously he has been eating well to double the size in a month lol. Love the pattern on him wish it stayed !
He will be going in my 500g with some Cichla, Dat, Asian aro. Do you guys think he will do OK in there or will the other fish be OK with him?
They are a great fit with other large tankmates, as long as they are big enough not to be seen by the other fish as a food or prey item. I had one from 1993 till 1996, only to come home and see it hidden behind a rock gasping really hard for some reason. I made the giraffe nose catfish move out of hiding, only to see the reason it was gasping so hard...my Red Snakehead had bitten him in half. The rear of the Giraffe Nose was gone from its pelvic fins back. It really hurt my feelings. I put the Giraffe Nose out of it's misery and soon after that, I found out what one species of Channa tastes like . Bony, but the flesh was white, and nice and firm . Overall it's a very good eating fish.
Mine are Auchenoglanis. Going by Planetcatfish, I believe they may be Auchenoglanis tchadiensis. I haven't seen a report of anyone who received one of the Auchenoglanis "Volta' cats ending up with a giant. Even the one on PC marked .cf occidentalis seems to max out at a foot according to reports here. I am starting to wonder if more of the smaller sized giraffes are replacing occidentalis and wittei on the market as collectors have to gone farther away from the traditional areas to get a hold of them.
I too found a 2" giraffe cat at my LFS a couple of months ago. It's normal for them to be shy and hide for the first couple of months, mine recently has come out of the driftwood and becoming more active during the day. It has also grown an inch longer since I got it, mine is an auchenoglanis wittei. Having kept a. occidentals, a. occidentals cf. 'bouche' and a. wittei in the past, these all grow very large, like to 18" or so in a couple of years, forcing me to sell 'em due to limited tank space. It's very interesting to see accounts of the Volta River variety being a species/strain that don't grow so large as I'd like to have one's that I could house for life or at least a lot longer. Even the some of my dwarf giraffe cat (parauchenoglanis) species have grown into 18" after 2 years or so but at least growth has slowed or stopped with them..
I'm not familiar with all the diff variants but this guy is definitely one of the larger!!
He is coming out much more and swimming around.
I can't believe Hus growth in not even 2 months he has gone from a string bean 2 inch to a fat 4.5 inch !!!!
