Reintroduction & 20 gallon in need of Catfish!

[Reteos]

Hello all, I've been a member here since 2011 but for whatever reason have focused more on cichlids for quite some time now.
I would love to get in to keeping catfish again and there really isn't any other place online with the same wealth of knowledge that this place has.

I originally came here to get an ID on my Electric cat back in 2011 and I have lurked the forums for a while sporadically.

I currently have a 120g aquarium that houses a breeding pair of Steatocranus Casuarius (Block head cichlids), a group of 5 juvenile red koi angels (90% orange) a group of 6 glass fish and about 12 rosy barbs. The tank is an ecclectic mix of regions and when I move in about a year or so I think I will set it up with more of a concrete theme.

I also have an 80g african planted african cichlid aquarium (I chose only the species that don't eat plants)

and a little 20g planted that sadly has failed to please me.
The current stock in the 20g is 1M & 6F endlers livebearer. I have 6 females and over the course of about 8 months now I have only had 3 fry survive. I kept adding females in a hope that I can breed them and tbh I am dissapointed with the fact that so few fry make it. There are some young SAE doing algae duty right now that will get moved into a bigger tank when the algae is gone.

I didn't know which forum to post in, because I`m not sure which region the catfish I'd like would come from... That and its been so long I felt that a friendly reintroduction would be a nice place to start.

I am looking for catfish that can be grown out or remain in a 20g planted aquarium. The only species I can think of right now that I like would be S. Nigriventris. I am not really interested in Plecos or corys and the water here has a PH between 7-8 and a high degree of hardness.

Any suggestions? I am fine with adding more caves or wood and changing the aquascape to accomodate.
Here is a current picture of the set up (the plants are cabomba/Hornwort)



Thanks,

[Viktor Jarikov]

Welcome back to the Planet!

Beautiful intro. Beautiful 20 gal. What became of your e-cat? You can filter Cat-eLog by size and study the hits. There are lots of properly small growing catfish for a 20 gal from many families other than pleco or cory. The field is too wide.

The plastic plants you have in your 20 gal in the right and the left are sold for terrariums and have a steel wire core coated with PE for the stems. I'd be careful with them because the bottom end is often not coated plus any scratch or damage would expose the tank water to iron (heavy metal) and the water volume is so small. Perhaps it's nothing. I hope it can never be anything significant. But I'd be uncomfortable going by suppositions.

[Reteos]

Thanks Viktor! The tank cracked and I had to rehome the E-cat unfortunately. Luckily the leak was small but it was in the lower 3rd of the aquarium so pretty much made it unusable.

The plastics are plastic all the way through, I cut them into several pieces from one large mass. I've had those in my aquariums for many years now, probably around the same time I got the E-cat.
I threw them in there for fry cover but now they keep my floating plants from getting tossed around too much by the filter.

I realize the selection is pretty big, but whenever I google anything about catfish in a 20g I pretty much just get hits from entry level hobby forums advising people on Cories or plecos etc I'll search the cat-elog a little but I still wouldn't mind some suggestions, the tank is quite boring right now and under utilized.
Thanks

[TwoTankAmin]

@Reteos

You can use the site Cat-elogs to search for other fish by a number of factors by clicking on the appropriate description. Here are examples of the search features one can use from any one of the specific species pages:

Size 3.9" SL. Find near, nearer or same sized spp.

Distribution South America: Brazil: Rio Tocantins and Rio Araguaia
Amazon, Lower Amazon, Tocantins (click on these areas to find other species found there)
Amazon, Lower Amazon, Tocantins, Lower Tocantins, Araguaia (click on these areas to find other species found there)

Temperature 73.4-80.6°F (Show species within this range)

[Lycosid]

I'm running a heavily-planted 20-long with a bristlenose, a

Farlowella vittata

, a

Bunocephalus coracoideus

, an

Otocinclus vittatus

(last survivor of a larger group), and a school of

Corydoras pygmaeus

.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Will these keep you off the streets a while?

Trachydoras nattereri

Rhinodoras boehlkei

Batasio affinis

Mystus bimaculatus

Nanobagrus immaculatus

Olyra longicaudata

Pseudomystus funebris

Lophiobagrus brevispinis

Phyllonemus typus

Brachyrhamdia imitator

Imparfinis pseudonemacheir

Nannoglanis fasciatus

Noturus miurus

Chiloglanis pretoriae

Microsynodontis batesii

Bergiaria platana

Pimelodus pictus

Microglanis iheringi

Rhyacoglanis pulcher

Parailia congica

Pareutropius buffei

Kryptopterus macrocephalus

Silurichthys indragiriensis

Caelatoglanis zonatus

Erethistes horai

Gagata dolichonema

Nangra assamensis

Pseudecheneis eddsi

Pseudolaguvia tuberculata

[N0body Of The Goat]

Given you have Endlers in the tank and you want to try and have a better fry survival rate (be careful what you wish for!), an awful lot of catfish suitable for this tank are liable to eat the newborn fry, in my opinion.

Looking at my own tanks and what I've had in them over the past ~8.5 years, I'd suggest 10+ (even more if you can source them)

Microsynodontis sp(1)

. I only have two left after from a 10+ group, after mixing them while some Illyodon xantusi juveniles, which I now think effectively starved them to death. When I had ~12, they were incredibly diurnally active, loving to swim in the current of a Fluval U4 (sadly I somehow never made a short video clip of this, it was a wonderful spectacle).

Synodontis nigriventris

might work, but especially as more mature fish, I don't know if they would predate on Endler fry overnight. My group have varied their daytime activity levels massively over the years in different tanks with different tankmates, they are currently in my ~280l tank of little/peaceful fish including the Microsynontis sp.1, where my male

Panaqolus albivermis

and

Synodontis congicus

are the gentle giant "rulers" of the community. They've been in this tank for over five years and besides at food time, they are quite inactive, but in the past (in tanks with more mid to upper cover like your setup) they've been a hive of activity most of the day.

Pareutropius buffei

could be a good shout, depending upon how long the 20g is and providing you can source 10+ (this genus does not do well in small groups). I was very lucky to source a big group of

Pareutropius mandevillei

when I thought I was going to receive P. buffei. They do love a decent water flow though, which may not work for your setup, I'm using a Fluval U4 in the ~280l. I sadly lost a couple recently after having them 5+ years, so I think I'm down to ~23.
I happen to have an old clip of them (where I removed the dark tank backing just for the recording)...

[Reteos]

A Zaire biotope would be awesome.
I've always liked the idea of a biotope. I have actually seen the "Buffei" african glass cats for sale a few years back. they couldn't sell them because they were priced at $20 each and as you say, they need to be in a decent sized group.
I already have a breeding pair of Steatocranus so its a possible future transition for my 120g

I`m not too worried about the endler fry predation as I have pretty much lost interest in breeding them at this point.

The tank is only 2ft long so I'm worried it might be a little too small for S. nigriventris or Kryptopterus species.

I would be open to the idea of microsynodontis if I could find them, or even the dwarf corydoras species as they are quite active in the open.

Thanks for the suggestions guys I'll have to take a look and see whats available locally for a good price!