Phyllonemus typus (breeding of)

[Taratron]

Looking into picking up an unsexed trio of these guys on Aquabid---a lfs has a few more in stock, and I figure with at least 6, I should be able to get one pair. The tank I'm looking at housing them in is 90 gallons, largely with driftwood (but some caves, and I will add rocks as well), holding bristlenose plecos, bronze cories, a few banjo cats, and 4 angelfish.

Would these cats be a little too aggressive with the angels? The Cat-elog didn't have much info on setting them up to spawn...

[Birger]

They are fairly peaceful with other fish as long as long as they do not fit into their mouths and compete for their hiding places. P.typus being from Lake Tanganyika would prefer different water parameters than the other fish listed.

Have you done a search and/or seen this http://www.planetcatfish.com/cotm/cotm. ... cle_id=365

[sidguppy]

personally I wouldn't do it

Phyllonemus is more fussy when it comes to waterparameters than the Synodontis from the same lake

in this set up you will not enjoy them. it won't kill them, but they tend to get invisible if the water and the tank is not to their liking

this is not an aghressive species. it IS a piscivore.

to spawn you definitely need a group. sexing them is not easy and also: 1 male and 1 female is not a pair!
they need to match. to pull that off you need a group of at least 4. partners that don't co-exist perfectly will not spawn.

also: virtually ALL Phyllonemus are wildcaughts. this means that you need to stick to the following waterparameters:
T 24-27'C
GH 10-12 or more, the harder the better
pH 7.8 and up, preferably 8+

food should contain small live fishes if you want to breed them.
they accept all kinds of food readily (it's not a fussy feeder), but to have success at breeding you should toss in guppies.

btw you DO know that there are showtanks and there are breeding tanks but there's no such thing as a communal show/breeder tank right?

baby Phyllonemus are fragile, need loads of live food (freshly hatched artemia larvae) and good filtration.

[Richard B]

I can only echo what Sid has said - these are a great species & deserve to have a tank that fully meets their requirements - (not shoe-horned into an unsuitable set-up ) - this will get the best out of them.

[sidguppy]

mine are breeding AGAIN

must be all the smelt I fed lately. I missed them for weeks, only saw the lone female (I have 1 male, 2 females)
today I spotted 4 long whiskers sticking out of a dugout under one of the biggest rocks in the tank; they took feeding turns.
bringin in mouthfulls of food in the cave. to judge at the sandpile they have dug out a whole underground tunnel under that rock.

looks like even with wood in the tank (I have crushed marble in the bio to cope with the wood) they still keep it up.

so, yes I also have wood. but there's about 30 pounds of chalciferous rock and crushed shells mixed in with the bucketloads of limestone lava and pumicstone in a huge 65G biofilter.
this keeps the pH nice and high at a steady 8 and the hardiness at 12 and up. KH is something around 7-8 at the moment.