Worlds Largest Freshwater Fish?

[iHammer]

So what is the worlds largest freshwater fish? I would have though its either the Giant Mekong Catfish or the Giant Sturgeon, honorable mentions would be Arapaima Giga, Paroon Shark, Goonch. So what do you think?

 

[Bottomfeeder]

i badly need some help,my paroon shark is having problem to breath..it has been swimming upside down n now its completely stiff,but is stil breathing..wat must i do...plz help me

Unfortunately once a fish is belly-up, it's usually too far gone. What kind of "Shark", and how big is the tank?




And the largest freshwater fish is the Mekong Stingray.

 

[TTTT]

It's debatable, but we can agree it's something south american.

 

[Ang]

dont forget about the Giant Freshwater Stingray.

 

[mdb_talon]

It's debatable, but we can agree it's something south american.

Agree its debateable, but other than Arapaima then Asia would be where most of the contendors come from. Mekong catfish, mekong(giant) stingray, paddlefish, white sturgeon.

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

Freshwater Stingray is bigger than anything I've seen. It weight between 550 and 990lbs, depending what site you are on. Thou Sturgeons are reportedly get to 2000lbs, but cant find a photo http://www.bcgamefisher.com/White Sturgeon.htm

 

[Citrinellus]

I thought sturgeons spend a part of their life in saltwater, so they arn't true freshwater fish. I agree with the mekong stingray being one of the largest.

 

[mrwinkle]

So what is the worlds largest freshwater fish? I would have though its either the Giant Mekong Catfish or the Giant Sturgeon, honorable mentions would be Arapaima Giga, Paroon Shark, Goonch. So what do you think?

check this out. i found the pics pretty cool! http://scienceray.com/biology/marine-biology/monster-leviathans-the-planet’s-largest-freshwater-fish-that-you-probably-didn’t-know-about/

 

[Satan's Goldfish]

If you have a quick search this topic has been brought up and debated a few times before. Everyone has differing opinions on it, i believe the current record holder for weight is the Giant Mekong Catfish at 6xxlbs. Most huge Piraiba caught in the amazon never get weighed because they're caught by remote local fishermen that are after them as food, not bragging rights down the pub.

Arapaima size is debatable these days as wild specimins caught rarely get close to 10' anymore due to overfishing and the 4.5M (15') 'record' was never confirmed. I believe Zoodiver used to look after a 14' one at one of the places he's worked but don't know any details on that.

European Wels Catfish are another extreme giant suspect, the 'record' sized russian catch from a long long time ago is again unconfirmed and could just be a big fish tale. The place to watch for these now is the catch and release river in Spain where they've been introduced and are being caught at larger and larger sizes each year and the fish are still young!

In my opinion, the most impressive looking when it comes to the candidates for the worlds largest freshwater fish has to be the giant freshwater stingray. Just look at the size of that damned thing! There is estimates of the huge ones caught reaching 1000lbs in weight but again these have never been properly weighed and taken the title from the giant Mekong Catfish.

Unfortunately most of the maximum written sizes and weights for monster fish are based on unproved data from quite a long time ago and nothing close to the stated sizes has been caught and recorded properly. Yet this is the information that is used to base the maximum sizes of these fish on and makes it's way into the scientific informative books and documents even though it's probably all rubbish. A good example is Alligator gar DO NOT reach 15 feet!

 

[[enjoyable_attempt]]

Yay another one of these threads. Once again search function neglected.