First is sad news, lost my rare Batrochoglanis cat, 'Big Boy'. Had him for almost 6 years, an unidentified Peruvian species. Got him @ 5" and he grew to 11" over time. Very shy and reclusive, for years feeding exclusively on feeder goldfish until last year when he would come up out of his chunk of driftwood to eat 2 or 3 nightcrawlers from my hand and preferring them to the feeder fish. Here's a pic of him in his prime:
As of last year his colors changed to almost white, perhaps a sign of illness?
He finally quit eating and rapid breathing ensued as he left the driftwood for open space and became very lethargic. I treated the tank with everything I knew that could help but alas couldn't save him, sorry to say..
Update on the new giraffe cats, a. biscutatus. The 3 are doing well, feeding well and with the exception of one that comes out from the driftwood during the day at times, stay hidden. Observing them in the dark with the infrared monocular during feeding they seem to get along nicely, no observable aggression, nice! here's a pic of the less shy one:
Random Observations, got a Synodontis Batensoda a few months ago, hoping it would be less shy than my other fish in the tank but have never see it during the day since. Here's a pic from a random night shot. Apparently these grow fast as this one has grown by 3/4" in a few months.
In the same tank is a pair of dwarf giraffe cats, parauchenoglanis monkei, (very rare), got them in late 2017 @ 2" & 2 1/2", now the smaller one is maybe 2 1/2" but the big one is over 5"+! Here's a crappy pic when I surprised 'em the other night:
After losing Big Boy there was an empty 60G tank so it was time to consider something new so I decided to try something different from my usual fascination with pseudopimelodids, auchenoglanis and parauchenoglanis critters. Maybe time for some 'purty" fish instead of 'camo' varieties, hence some new and rare Synodontis species, in this case Synodontis Pardalis:
Stunners they are, since 4 were available I decided to try for a M&F pair, requesting that they could hopefully, be properly sexed by the vendor, if possible?
Haven't been able to verify the sexes but one is 4", the other 4 1/2". I found out that getting a pair wasn't such a great idea, (in a perfect world yeah) but the larger one started bullying the smaller one in the acclimation bucket, 2 minutes out of the bag! After introduction into the tank it didn't take long for the same behavior to continue. I was hoping that the chasing of each other was just playfulness and cavorting of an active species, uh, nope. Maybe just a territorial thing, both competing for the large piece of driftwood? I then added another piece of driftwood for the smaller fish, which helped very little, really. The dominant fish continued to harass the other somewhat frequently but each would take a break to feed at times. The small one just wasn't comfortable enough for me to think anything was going to change, so I decided it was in (his?) best interest to remove him and put him in the 75G tank with the new giraffe cats. We'll so how that works out in the coming days...
As of last year his colors changed to almost white, perhaps a sign of illness?
He finally quit eating and rapid breathing ensued as he left the driftwood for open space and became very lethargic. I treated the tank with everything I knew that could help but alas couldn't save him, sorry to say..
Update on the new giraffe cats, a. biscutatus. The 3 are doing well, feeding well and with the exception of one that comes out from the driftwood during the day at times, stay hidden. Observing them in the dark with the infrared monocular during feeding they seem to get along nicely, no observable aggression, nice! here's a pic of the less shy one:
Random Observations, got a Synodontis Batensoda a few months ago, hoping it would be less shy than my other fish in the tank but have never see it during the day since. Here's a pic from a random night shot. Apparently these grow fast as this one has grown by 3/4" in a few months.
In the same tank is a pair of dwarf giraffe cats, parauchenoglanis monkei, (very rare), got them in late 2017 @ 2" & 2 1/2", now the smaller one is maybe 2 1/2" but the big one is over 5"+! Here's a crappy pic when I surprised 'em the other night:
After losing Big Boy there was an empty 60G tank so it was time to consider something new so I decided to try something different from my usual fascination with pseudopimelodids, auchenoglanis and parauchenoglanis critters. Maybe time for some 'purty" fish instead of 'camo' varieties, hence some new and rare Synodontis species, in this case Synodontis Pardalis:
Stunners they are, since 4 were available I decided to try for a M&F pair, requesting that they could hopefully, be properly sexed by the vendor, if possible?
Haven't been able to verify the sexes but one is 4", the other 4 1/2". I found out that getting a pair wasn't such a great idea, (in a perfect world yeah) but the larger one started bullying the smaller one in the acclimation bucket, 2 minutes out of the bag! After introduction into the tank it didn't take long for the same behavior to continue. I was hoping that the chasing of each other was just playfulness and cavorting of an active species, uh, nope. Maybe just a territorial thing, both competing for the large piece of driftwood? I then added another piece of driftwood for the smaller fish, which helped very little, really. The dominant fish continued to harass the other somewhat frequently but each would take a break to feed at times. The small one just wasn't comfortable enough for me to think anything was going to change, so I decided it was in (his?) best interest to remove him and put him in the 75G tank with the new giraffe cats. We'll so how that works out in the coming days...
