Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by turtle lover »

Wow, stunned that a fish said to grow 5 feet long can be shredded like that.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Thanks much, Naturalart. That link's awfully relevant.

Turtle lover, in the words of Cosmo Kramer "it's not the size but the ferocity".

Anyway, here is a short update. The IDS has been healing ok. Will snap some pics. Long story short, I had to temporarily house two very tough bullies namely 1.5' walking catfish with the Labeo in a (nominally) 240 gal 8'x2'x2'. One was killed by the Labeo in 1.5 days, the other in 3 days. It didn't look like much external damage was done so it must have been ~ all stress and most of it overnight as during the day I have not noted too vicious of bullying by the Labeo.

The Labeo has been housed with a 1.5' common pleco now for a few weeks with no consequences to the pleco.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by mostlyfairy »

Wow, the picture of your shark catfish- he is so husky, strong and magnificent looking. Not the stick bug creature I am dealing with. Its so hard to even believe the creature I have could be the same being in your picture-yours looks so healthy. I see you rescued yours-thank you for doing that. I guess these poor shark catfish often suffer a terrible fate because they are sold to unknowing hobbyists and then start growing. Its so wrong. Please take a look at my thread if you have any time and words of advice. I am trying to save the life of a very very badly abused shark catfish- 15 years old and only SIX INCHES LONG! His story is amazing-left in a 5 gallon bucket for four days to die. He is doing okay so far with me, I made a nice home for him for now. I know nothing about aquariums even but I am the one who found him. Racoll is helping me. My thread is here:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =9&t=42123

I was wondering when the best time is to feed them-if they are nocturnal feeders. Nacho is being finicky about eating so far and he is emaciated-trying to teach him to eat worms per racoll's advice.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

A short update. Had to house an adult flowerhorn with the Labeo for 3 weeks. Flowerhorn has not stopped abusing the Labeo all this time. Labeo did nothing but run away. Nowadays, back to normal. Flowerhorn's in a solitary 240 gal confinement. Will eventually go back to 4500 gal where it behaved before more or less.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

As before, a huge change in Flowerhorn in 4500 gal. No aggression noticed to any tank mates over ~3 weeks.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Update on the Labeo ID.

Thanks to Cichlas (of MFK) for pointing me to Labeo rubropunctatus, which is a junior synonym to the currently accepted Labeo congoro or purple labeo http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Species ... ng=English - the photo by Johnny Jensen looks much like my fish.

(MFK thread for reference http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... st-7432826 posts #8, 9, 10 etc.)
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Don't look at the photos, again, if you are faint of heart...

In all fairness to my Labeo congoro, yes, it is horrible but not as horrible as the foregoing might indicate. Recent developments imply rather that my big IDS was unusual and not resisting abuse as my others do or perhaps as would be the norm.

For over 8 months, the 4500 gal where the IDS lived was also inhabited by 4 synodontis, 6” and 8” eupterus and 6” and 10” common hybrids #1. Thinking backwards I guess every now and then 2 of the synos (big eupterus and small hybrid) would rasp / suck some slime off the big IDS, just a bit, not enough to make any difference. This went on for 7 months. All was fine in the big tank, except the big IDS, which fed with gusto before, stopped eating and was swimming a lot (the autopsy showed it was full of eggs and was probably "migrating").

As the fate has it, I had to work 3 days in a row and was not around the tank, neither fed the tank as much as usual, ~2x less. In these 3 days, the 2 synos managed to stress the IDS and damage the skin as badly as the Labeo did. Again, as in the Labeo case, the damage was latent and became evident only several days later when the skin started to peel off altogether. That was occurring in the other 4500 gal tank, to which I had rehomed the IDS. Then it passed in some days or I rather had to put it out of its misery.

The other 4 IDS (1.5’, 1.5’, 10”, 9”) in the first 4500 gal appear to be totally fine with the synos and when the synos try to approach the IDS, they promptly swim away. The big one never did. I've no clue why it wouldn't. Not when it fed super well. Not when it was "migrating". Not in its last 3 days in that first 4500 gal. The synos never pursue the IDS, only approach them when the IDS happen to swim by.

I'm much saddened by the loss. The big IDS was my first rescue in Naples, FL when we moved. It was ~8" in Mar 2011. Reached 2' in under 2 years and grew very slowly afterwards. Mar 2016 it measured 28" TL post mortem.

Here it is 2 weeks before the attack, healthy, upper right corner:
IDS Musya 2 weeks earlier 28 inches.JPG
You can see it let the synos to "skin" the whole front end and top. Still alive in the other 4500 gal. Necrotizing tissue got "mossy" and is falling off:
IDS Musya 2 weeks later 28 inches.JPG
Post mortem with tape measure:
IDS Musya post mortum 28 inches.JPG
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by bekateen »

Sorry Victor. It's really difficult to know what's going through a fish's mind and also what's bothering a fish. You've got a tough job with these big fish.

Regards, Eric
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Thanks, Eric.

Yea, with this IDS it appears I was thrown quite a curve ball. I had no idea it would let the synos just skin itself and so suddenly but, again in retrospect, it could have also been that it got quite weary and tired from swimming around on an empty stomach with a load of high-maintenance eggs. It was not too thin though.

Neither do I understand why sucking off slime would cause the skin to die off completely, throughout the entire skin depth all the way to the tissue. Catfish skin is very durable, tough. With Labeo at least I thought it was the powerful vacuum it creates with its mouth that detached the skin from muscle but looks like I was wrong. Just remove the slime and the skin is gone. Why it's not gone when the slime is removed when catching in a net and handling, I don't get.

When the big IDS disappeared, one of the other larger IDS, 1.5'+, the one near center in the first photo above, has been sulking for weeks. I wonder if it was affected by the hormones that the gravid IDS was releasing in the water that suddenly stopped. Maybe it's a male. IDK. But it stopped eating and was pacing nervously by the window back and forth. It slowly started eating and swimming around now.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Another case of synodontis vampire behavior this time our 15 yo hybrid synodontis on two 14" snail bullheads:

post #6 https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... us.696696/
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

A video on the topic of parasitic rasp by Synodontis eupterus aka featherfin and by the most common syno hybrid (aka valentiana, zebra, jaguar synodontis, etc.), whose one parent is believed to be the eupterus:
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Fishmandavew »

That is what I would expect a uk “harlequin shark” grow up looking like too. Start off as a lovely variegated pattern but as they get larger this hoes and you end with a black barb with purple spots on most scales. 14” seems to be full grown size from experience. Mine and the 26” black shark were buggers for rasping the irredescent or any grow on koi. Even now my new grow on black shark has started on the scales of smaller grow on koi so it looks something built into their dna. That and chasing fish just for the hell of it. Hence me trying to grow on more bs to occupy the others more )and hope o don’t just get a school of bullies that leave each other alone).
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Fishmandavew »

I find it strange that bs seem to have this rasping built into their dna and yet not all synos do. Seems to be just some and I wonder if for synos it’s a boredom thing, as the cases I hear of it are either in singular fish, in tanks with little or no hiding spots or both. I have 8 eupterus in the pond who have to date never bothered irredescent sharks, koi, giraffe cats or any of the other big cats yet they have “lots” of hideouts in the form of branches rock work and pipes along with each other to keep them occupied.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Thank you, Dave, your input is as interesting as ever.

Our purple labeo is around 9 years old and 20 inches now. If yours topped out at 14" that's quite a bit smaller. Without any grounds I wonder if this might be a sexual dimorphism.

Our two 17" black sharks had been alright with 200 koi in a 25,000 gal for a long time, about a year (had to take them out when the ever-oblivious sturgeon went in). But I never even thought of trying the purple labeo in the 25K for the fear of this maniac. Black shark has nothing on purple labeo / harlequin shark / variegated shark IME.

The syno "boredom" is an explanation that can be met bounced among our peers. However, some peers that commented on our syno rasp video (the last one above) reported that they had the rasping in heavily planted or decorated tanks. But probably not in such high numbers as the 8 of yours and in far, far smaller tanks than your 1500 gal.
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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

The syno eupterus and the hybrids were caught rasping a sun catfish:

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Re: Don't house iridescent shark catfish or channel catfish with a Harlequin shark

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