grayish with lots of tiny black spots, large white stripe across side, white markings on face, has whiskers

[caninesrock]

Hello. I recently saw a very interesting fish in a tank at the doctor's office waiting room. I don't know much about catfish in general to be honest, but I believe this fish is one of some sort since catfish are the only fish I'm aware of that have whiskers. Don't know if this is relevant or not since fish sometimes do this when they're sick, but he never swam right-side up and I read there's a genus of catfish where they swim upside so I'm wondering if he's one of those? He doesn't look like the main one that shows up when I google Upside Down Catfish since those look small (and he was fairly big) and they don't have stripes either in the images I saw. Someone else suggested to me that he was a Spotted Raphael, but when I looked those up, they have large white spots and no stripes. This guy has lots of tiny black spots (but no white ones except for on the face) and a very large distinctive white stripe across his side. Can anybody ID this guy for me with a scientific name and common name if he has one as well? Thanks.

Oh and here are the pics (It looks like he's swimming right-side up, but that's just because of the angles I took the photos from. He was only ever swimming upside down unless he was swimming vertically):














Whatever he is, I think we can all agree that he's a cutey.

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Have a look at this thread <"PlanetCatfish - Synodontis Lateral Line Erosion (https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... =8&t=41524)">.

cheers Darrel

[Fundulopanchax76]

Synodontis but i see white spots for first time on this species !

[caninesrock]

@Darrel: So he only has the white stripe cause he's sick? Poor guy.

@Fundu: Thanks. That narrows it down more. Do you happen to know what specific species though?

[caninesrock]

So I just looked through the entire list of Synodontis species and I found one that does have white markings.

Is it possible that he's an Synodontis orientalis?

https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/sp ... es_id=2218

[bekateen]

Synodontis eupterus

[Narwhal72]

Yep. Synodontis eupterus. The white marks are just the result of the HLLE. A healthy fish would not have them.

[Viktor Jarikov]

That's one of the worst lateral line disease on Synodontis eupterus I've ever seen. This fish needs plant matter in its diet desperately.