Will an Electric Catfish be ok with 5 Red Bellys?
- Thread starter PredatoryFishRocks
- Start date
taksan;4779402; said:
Seriously? People get on here to get constructive comments, advice and to learn more about the hobby. Not to take your bull crap.
Give your expierenced advice and leave it at that.
If someone dosn't take good advice then thats on them. No skin off your back is it?
As for the mix, I don't think it would work. Hard to say who would win but I would venture to say that you would lose some P's and ultimately the EC. If you want a catfish in there, I would try and spotted or striped raphael catfish. They hide well, are armored like a boulder and will clean up the P's mess after the lights go out. I have one in with my gold P and it works great. Between him and the nerite snails the tank never has muck on the bottom or algae on the glass or decor.
Okay, this is what will likely happen. You drop the EC in, and the RBPs investigate and take little nips, at which point the EC zaps them. They either die or are discouraged. If they keep at it, the EC will lose it's ability to zap and the RBPs will pick it apart as it recharges. If they are discouraged, and a stalemate exists, the EC is likely to kill the RBPs as it grows and it's shocking power increases.
Of all possible fish combos, that is one of the worst I've ever heard of. A fish that produces crippling electric shocks when nipped in with fish that are naturally nippy.
Of all possible fish combos, that is one of the worst I've ever heard of. A fish that produces crippling electric shocks when nipped in with fish that are naturally nippy.
Ok here is the thing. If you are realy going to get a dwaf electric catfish then please let me know where you get it. I would love to have one as well. Most likely you are going to get a Malapterurus electricus. Wich is not a dwarf and is the most common to be found in the hobby. Although I have seen others over the years, but at a much greater price. The Dwarf ECat is also known as the small mouth electric catfish. These cute little buggers will max out at about 22". So if you are thinking that this guy is going to stay small then think again. Other types of ECats can reach the 5' mark. That is why this guy is called the Dwaf. If you have read any thing on electric producing fish then you already know the bigger they are the hard they they fall. No realy if you get one that is 1' and put it a tank with rbp then the rbp will never even feel the shock of this guy. It's shock will be nonexistent. I would say do not waste your money on high priced feeder. Also even if you did have an ECat in the tank with rbp they would still kill it and eat it. ECats lose their ability to shock after awhile. They need time to recharge thier batteries if you will. And if by some chsnce the rbp do not kill th ECat. There will be a serious stress issues with 5 rbp and an ECat in a 40 breeder. Its just not going to be enough room for all those aggressive fish.
I hope this helped
and as all ways here is homer the 14" ECat
and happy fish keeping
I hope this helped
and as all ways here is homer the 14" ECat
and happy fish keeping
cichlid_starter;4779966; said:
Yeah it is skin off my back as I hate seeing fish abused, mishandled, incorrectly housed and poorly looked after constantly by the same people who never take any advice.
Every time this person has asked advice he has done the opposite to what was advised.
To continuously purchase unsuitable fish and house them in unsuitable tanks with unsuitable tankmates and ignore advice against doing so is in my opinion simply cruelty. People like this give the hobby a bad name and need to be shunned.
My advice was to this person that they should not be keeping fish.
And I stand by that advice.
bigbadfish711;4780110; said:
You said 1' not 1" which would be quite the difference just clarifying. A 1" E-Cat will still be able to shock a 1" fish pretty bad it just wouldn't feel like much to a larger fish or a person.
Related to the OP's original question though this is a terrible idea for so many reasons I don't even know where to start.
A) RBP are not from the same area, the water parameters for those fish are the complete opposite of that for an E-Cat. RBP = low ph and soft water, E-Cat neutral-high ph and hard water.
B) It is almost certainly not a Dwarf E-Cat that you are buying, you are making the assumption it's a dwarf because it's a 1" fish it sounds like. There have been maybe 3 people I've seen between all the forums, including the asian fish forums like arofanatics that have actually been able to get a hold of a Dwarf E-Cat. 99.9% of them are malapterus electricus as it's been suggested.
C) E-Cats do not do well with tank mates at all, with the exception being with synodontis catfish which are immune to the shock. This I concluded from experience housing the two species sucessfully for a year in my personal tanks. I had a 10-12" E-Cat with two different species of syno's. You can search my old threads about Jimmy the E-Cat if you want more information about it.
D) The E-Cat would kill your RBP in a matter of minutes the first time they screwed with it simple as that.
I encourage you to please do a little more reading and research on the forums before even contemplating something like this because all this information is readily available on here and it should be common sense not to mix RBP with anything.
PredatoryFishRocks;4778711; said:
Unfortunately, I tried this combo once.
They grew up together. The catfish was slightly bigger.
The fish were well fed.
One day the red bellies got curious.
One of them managed to gouge a chunk out of the catfish... I didn't see it happen. The red bellies didn't seem hurt in any way but the catfish died.
I think it might be due to the fact that one species was diurnal and the other nocturnal. So the catfish might not have "zapped" fast enough.
Imho, please don't try it.
Hope this helps.
