Spawning Synodontis polli+movie of this event :)

worton[pl] · Post by **worton[pl]** » 27 Jul 2007, 09:24

Hiya,

aquarist in Poland has spawned fish identified by him as
Synodntis polli. Original thread you may find here.
Before he's given me the size of fish I also believed it's S. polli. What concerns me is size - only 12cm TL. Not too big for true polli I guess.

Okay enough muttering. Here is the movie of spawning.
And his description of event translated from polish (really interesting one!):
It's not first spawning of this catfish in my aquarium but it's first time I get it on camera. I run out of space on memory card however you may see a breeding occurs above Calvus' spawning shell. Synodontis spawn always 2-3 days after Calvus did. Calvus do what they can to stop anything from getting inside their shell. All process last for about 2-3 hours till female runs out of eggs (she is really plump!).

A pair of synodontis is trying to aim into shell with eggs all the time :).

In eighth post in original thread I linked above you may find few photos of catfish he has spawned. Do you think it's true polli?

Tank and water parameters:
Tank dimension: 150/50/50 (cm)
Temp.: 27 C
Ph: 8,5
Water changes: 40% weekly.
He got 3 speciments of this catfish 2 males and 1 female. As I mentioned they are around 12 cm long. He feeds fish with: Hikari gold (granules), krill and white mosquito larvas (it's not exactly this but i'm not sure how you call these in english and they look like white mosquito larvas).
Other tank inhabitants are young Frontosas (7) and a pair of Calvus.
All synodontis all WC from Tanganyika (I can get a catching place if you want :)).

Regards.

Richard B · Post by **Richard B** » 27 Jul 2007, 13:20

Wow that's really fantastic - the event & the video!

I am not sure if it is a true polli as i personally believe there are a multitude of undescribed species/variants of which this is one, a genuine species nontheless.

worton[pl] · Post by **worton[pl]** » 28 Jul 2007, 08:45

Hey,

I look through cat-elog and found some interesting phothos! :)

First this is a female of mentioned above pair:

with circled humeral process. It's identical with this in "Taxonomic revision of lake tanganyikan synodontis" I got. Short and triangular.

Now here is a male:

Humeral process is more elongated.

Now take a look on cat-elog phothos:

1. young fish with elongated humeral.

2. Dinyar fish (mature one I guess) again elongated humeral.

3. another Dinyar fish (also looks like mature) with short and triangular humeral proces.

And cat-elog says only 10 cm for S. polli. It would fit fish spawned by my friend since cat-elog uses TL.

Biggest fish which was included in description of S. polli in mentioned paper was 160 mm TL (Holotype was 148 mm TL).

Blah I'm strongly confused ;/.

Regards.

Richard B · Post by **Richard B** » 14 Dec 2007, 14:29

Any update on this? Were any fry raised? repeat performances?

worton[pl] · Post by **worton[pl]** » 14 Dec 2007, 15:00

Hey,

nope, this aquarist is not a catfish geek so he was not so enthusiastic about the event :/.

Personally I think it is worth checkig out with other tang species. Parasiting with shell-dwellers could be a way with few non breeding syno species.

Regards.