FAT catfish!

[sparklycharley]

Hello everyone I have a striped talking catfish had him/her for about 4 months just recently i noticed he/she is really fat and the inside of her tummy is black I was feeding everyday with tetra wafers mix and for my otherfish feeding fishscience slow sinking granules or Aquarians flakes he was eating 1 wafer a night but know I feed every other day any idea what this could be he seems fine eating and swimming fine he's just got a real round black tummy! (I don't know the sex of it) Any ideas?

[Viktor Jarikov]

Debatably, being round appears the norm for them in captivity. As for the blackness / dark coloration, I think it is the normal color on the outside of its tummy.

[sparklycharley]

its not normally black and isn't fully black you can just see like darkness inside of the stomach.

[jodilynn]

Are you talking about

Platydoras armatulus

? A Striped Raphel/Humbug Catfish?

Both my Striped Raphael and my Spotted Raphael,

Agamyxis pectinifrons

are quite round, the Spotted one especially! They, like most larger catfish, have hefty appetites! But I am a bit perplexed about the black color of the stomach? My Striped Raphael's stomach is white, not black.

Is it still dark? Maybe it's something he ate (no small fish missing?) that was dark and you are seeing it through the white stomach? Or maybe it's a different morph?

Is it still swollen and dark?

[Viktor Jarikov]

We may be talking about the same thing but seeing it differently. A good photo would help greatly. If you cannot post photos, you could look through these Cat-eLog photos and describe what's different about your raph: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/spe ... ies_id=880

It's been a while since I've had a raph and don't remember if their stomach area skin and tissue can be semi-opaque.