Thank you, gentlemen! I will look into that. Now, DJ-don, you are changing/developing the subject, right? Mats and I were discussing water changes and absorption of chlorine and harmful metals by carbon, which we believe has nothing to do with my intermittent RTC die-offs. So you posit that it ALSO ...

Wiscash, it is so refreshing to see someone actually interested in brown bullheads - for all I know, you may be one of the kind because these fish are not showy-flashy and to somebody who lives in Carolina they are definitely not exotic, maybe to somebody in Thailand or Paraguay :) . I commend you o...

DJ-don, thank you! If it was in the water, then my RTC problems would be invariable and not depend on which tank/pond the fish are in, and would probably be almost invariable with respect to fishes meaning all RTCs would be affected one way or another, sooner or later, I naively think... Mats, thank...

Yes I was. Thank you again, Milton! Mats, thanks as always! MT: If you were looking in Pimelodidae, than you wouldn't have found it; Pimelodella and Rhamdia are in the closely-related family... VJ: Do you mean Pimelodidae and Pimelodella are two different things? Did I erroneously always equate the ...

Wow!! You are good, Milton!!! I think you are right - mine looks exactly like those photos. I was wrecking my brain looking at all the Pims and not finding anything close. You think this fish has a lot of common names (Americas: Bagre, Andean: Barbilla, Andean: Barbudo, Bagre de arroyo (Canyon Catfi...

No, DJ-Don, you are the first. Well, I use tap water for all my tanks and ponds - it seems to be just fine for everybody, including small RTCs in my tanks - I only lost 4 RTCs in my main 2500 gal pond, but again, the three that are still there seem all right and are eating. The pH is around neutral....

Thank you, Naturalart! Yeah, I know who you are :) - not too many people are as helpful as I find you. Well, we do not have public aquaria in our neck of the woods. But I know pretty much all good LFSs and their owners. I volunteer/serve as an apprentice at a couple of LFSs trying to absorb as much ...

Hi Bimmerboy! Welcome! I have had a small RTCxTSN for about 1/2 year now. He is about 5" now. He NEVER ate any pellets out of ~10 different kinds offered - he is in a community tank so others feast on pellets like there is no tomorrow but he turns his head the other way. He always holds out for...

2 more shots

I am about 10" TL. My tummy is white. I am very fast and skittish (when I do come out) esp. in relatively bright light so they could not take a nice pic of all of me.

Hey Mats! Not so much reaction so far, heh? Maybe only few people would be able to say anything of substance. I tried my best to describe the issues and post good number of pics. What else could I do? To get more (of the potentially helpful) people to see it, would it be a good idea to repost as a n...

I truly hope this would not be the case with RTCs in my pond. I love these cats, the whole package. The other three (4", 8", and 1.3') are doing ok in the pond, which, as I said, leads me to believe for now that it is the fall that killed my big RTC and not some still unknown bacterial inf...

**** the gills, no black thick slime but I do not know if these look normal to the experts: I usually expect to see nice tender red or bright red gills but some (all?) of my (healthy) RTCs had this blackish gill appearance... 100_2466.JPG ***** 100_2472.JPG ***** 100_2477.JPG this concludes my sad p...

**** the mouth and the gill covers inside looked riddled with small bloody patches, blotches **** ****

**** RHS: **** bottom view, note the swollen area around the anal fin, some reddish (bloody?) liquid came out of it... **** a close-up of it:

Ok, here is a continuation sprinkled with successes and one huge failure... For the description and pics of the ponds and aquaria in discussion go here http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=29488 As stated above, I had lost all 3 of my RTCs in the 2500 gal indoor pond a while a...

two pics - two 1.5-2' alligator gars "Croca French" and "Croca Baggett" and the larger 2' TSN (really appears to be Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum, not tigrinum) named "Terroristo" (agressive, tries to eat smallish cats, so placed behind the divider); the TSN "Gendos&q...

NICE!!!!!!!!! Please post pics and updates as you go along. I am very excited for you!

Viktor

Naturalart, thank you for the help and kind praizes! I have an ulterior motive to "save" the big fish - I love them, which makes it a far cry from a 100% self-sacrificial effort because the fish give me a lot in return :D :D :D N: In the canister filter concept, the media (and the bacteria...

Let me put some words in your mouth. M: Well, I think the fish are going to be happier to have a constant flow, rather than "a lot of flow, no flow, a lot of flow, no flow" pattern. V: If I may, I think you say this because the constant stable flow resembles their river habitat rather than...

Thank you, Mats! Before we jump to solutions, I need to understand that I need a solution. First thing first: why should I alter it? What is or may be wrong/inefficient/less efficient with this cycling in concrete terms? Also, are you implying a DIRECT effect on fish (as opposed to an indirect effec...

(In the hopes of greater exposure, this is repeated from http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=29488&start=20) A question for the very (most?) experienced and/or numbers-driven community. If you look carefully at the photo of my garbage-toter-made-sump (see here, again, htt...

A question for the very (most?) experienced and/or numbers-driven community. If you look carefully at the photo of my garbage-toter-made-sump (~100 gal, 4.5'-high, and chuck full of ~1500 nylon mesh pot scrubbers with three woven pads on the top), you will notice that the 3" discharge pipe goes...

All right, another real nice store (I found out on my recent fish trip to the Hartford/Waterbury, Connecticut; ~6 h from me) is Westside Puppy Center and Aquarium (Hartford). Despite the name not-so-promising for a fish person, they have a superb selection, a great # of tanks, quality, and the perso...

easy there, Jools... easy... some drink rum or Bordeaux by barrels...

yeah, actual ppms for NH3, NO2, and NO3 would help... yeah, my big doradids tolerate being petted but I cannot say they ask for it; sounds like you got a heart winner!!! I guess you guys just really hit it off :) Short of a behavioral ichthyologist or fish psychologist weighing in (maybe Milton Tan?...

Many of my doradids, e.g., megalodoras uranoscopus, pterodoras granulosa, and megalodoras irwini, have proven to me that they can go on for long periods of time without food, and I mean long. Some of them are/were small, like 4", and at some points in time refused to eat (at least when the food...

Hi Kat! Welcome! Greetings from across the lake! Easy on the feeding ESPECIALLY when your tank is cycling - you have no-to-little bacterial cultures in your filter/gravel bed to process fish waste - sounds like you've eradicated them all. With feeding, the rule is that less is better , within reason...

Interesting video indeed, thanks. This means the emperors need to be alone and I'd need to divide my pond further (it is already split in two sections) or build a whole separate pond for them - can do neither now. It also looks like they are salties... which I do not do... I do freshies. They look m...

Hi Trebor! Thank you for a thorough update and info. I did not mean half-way, just any part of the way, which was unlikely anyway because I am sure (and as you mentioned) there exist places worth a visit in and around Cleveland - so I would drive to Cleveland anyway. But who knew? Maybe you had a re...