Pangasius sanitwongsei question

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how big are they, and it is in freshwater right?
 
are you talking about stories of wels that were 16 ft long and like 600+ lbs??? I dunno if I believe those stories. It could of happen but in this day and age, there needs to be actual proof to be accepted.

The largest Wels that has been documented is a 9+ ft that weighed close to 300 lbs. If you search online for wels, there probably is a little blurb about it. No pics of it though so that sucks!
 
There was another giant Catfish knocking around in Russian waters, it's the largest one you'll find if you keep going up in the 'find near sizes' bit in the cat-e-log on planet catfish, but i don't know much about it. It has it's size down as 3500mm and that's about it. That could be the one the trawlers are on about.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=742
 
damn those are some big fish
 
Given enough room and space, Cats can probably grow to massive sizes. In the reservoirs here, Hemibargus Wyckiodes gets up to 6 ft. And there are a bunch of MGCs in those reservoirs that have yet to be caught. Those waters are very deep and very wide, and im sure that possibly sometime, a massive MGC might be reported from there.

Well even if they were caught, the locals care more about food than world records....
 
There's always quite a lot of stories about 'giant' catfish and how big they've been seen/caught. But as you say, the places they are, the people catching are often more interested in the food rather than the record. Who knows, a 5 meter wels may appear again one day and set a new record. I don't think anyone on here's quite crazy enough to build a 100,000gal pond/tank just to raise and try and fed one that size! Shame really.
 
In South America were you have filamentosums and jau, the locals will catch large ones and eat them instead of releasing them.

In Asia were there is the giant mekong and paroon shark the people there also catch and eat them such as the 9 ft 600+ lb mekong that was featured on National Geographic.

The only hope to find giant catfish that are not killed would be in Europe were wels are primarily catch and release and in areas of India and places near it were bagarius yarellis are and aren't really eaten and left alone
 
i think we should start a fund, make like a gian 500,00 gallon tank and get a couple of each of the giant cat species and raise them there. then release them into the wild, just to try and get the giant cat population back up, plus the money made from people coming to see these fish could be put towards river conservation and stuff like that
 
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