Hey everyone,

I have had a good look round the internet and haven't found many articles about keeping them. I just want to know a bit more info about keeping them and growing them up to adult size as I understand they are very fragile when first imported.

Cheers in advance


Andy

I was wondering how many of you have kept a Zebra shovelnose before?

Are they difficult to look after? I understand many are imported when they are small (3 inches or less), has anyone raised them to 16"+?

Any comments would be appreciated!

I keep my barbatus at room temp with no heater in the tank. It's worked fine so far, they spawned last week after a water change so I'll think you'll be ok.

Does a female barbatus have a gold strip on its nose?

From what I have read some small Synodontis would be ok for a tank your size, an ideal one would be Synodontis Nigriventris.

They are commonly called upside down cats and are quite easily obtainable from a good LFS. I have got 4 in a 30x12x18 and they have been doing fine, just give they them ...

What kind of live food to people use to get their Corys into top condition for breeding?

I currently feed mine (paleatus, metae, schwartzi and barbatus) with King British Tropical fish mni pellets supplemented with live bloodworm 1/2 a week.

I was wondering whether you feed them earthworms? Would ...

Went down to my LFS today and was suprised to find some Garra congoensis on sale. Got four for my tank and I will see how they get on. They weren't too expensive (£3 each) so it was worth a try to see how they get on eating the algae.

Cheers for your help

I have had mine for the same amount of time and too appears to be a slow grower, just a little over 3 inches. I would not worry too much about its growth rate as long as it is in good health and eating well.

By the way, I would always try and increasing the aeration of the water when I add any medication, not just Amquel.

How is the aeration in the tank?

Whenever I have used Amquel in the past I noticed that the fish gills start to move alot more rapidly and the corys that I have go up for air alot more frequently than they normally do. I lost a couple of Red Line Torpedo barbs after dosing the tank.

I would add an ...

Hi there,

I have set up a West African biotype tank (30"x18"x12") with x4 S.Nigriventris, x2 congo tetras, 1 elephantnose fish and 1 Ctenopoma acutirostre. I have planted it with Anubias Nana and Bateri on bogwood.

I was wondering whether there was anything similar to Otocinclus from this region ...

Cheers for amending the link.

I already have the Hydor EKIP 350 which I used to use as well as an undergravel filter. I wanted to use sand for the barbatus and scrapped the undergravel filter. The tank will only have the barbatus in and hopefully a few youngsters given time.

As for the possibilty ...

i read in the article on the barbatus that the males were agressive towards one another if the tank wasn't big enough. My tank is only 30" long so I thought I could only keep one male and a couple of females. Would it accomodate 2 males?

p.s. is the filter ok??

I was wondering whether anyone had any links for where I could get hold of one in the UK? I'm not sure whether any of you have been to Wharf aquatics but I quite fancy one of the massive ones they have on your right as you walk into the tropical fish room!

Cheers

I have a 70 litre tank which I want to use to house a trio of Cory Barbatus, do you think this filter will be ok? I do not intend to have any other fish in the tank apart from the 3 corys.

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