The Three Amigo's

[sidguppy]

As of today I have 3 guests

wich means 3 fish that are to stay temporary, because their hometank is going to be scrapped, the fishkeeper's moving house and once the new house is up and running, they will return to a brand new tank

the owner -Benjamin- had a hard time finding fishkeepers to take after his beloved catfish; but hey, are we catfish afficionados or what?

so I volunteered to adopt his 3 largest catfish. I couldn't adopt his other 3 big uns, cause 2 of those 3 would snack on some of my fish and the last one would definitely make war with one of my own cats. also, there's a limit to what one can cram in just one tank......

I short:
I got a Madagascar tank (Paretroplus, Ptychochromis and Paratilapia) with some Tanganyikan catfish (Synodontis, Phyllonemus etc; Madagascar catfish being unavailable). i also have a group of South American fish in there (1 Hypostomus and 9 Retroculus lapidifer). the tank is about 315 gallons/1200 liters.

until today there were even some characins in there, but those didn't really like the ADHD Madagascarians, so I found new owners for them.

and now added to the Synodontis, the Phyllonemus, the 1 Hypostomus and 1 rare Clarias are
1 Pterodoras granulosus 1'4"/40 cm TL at least
1 Megalodoras uranoscopus, about 10"/25 cm
1 Panaque nigrolineatus size XXL

all hiding at the moment (wich is good, natural behaviour), but I'm really going to enjoy these cats

and I don't have to upscale the tank to accomodate those tankbusters in the distant future, while at the same time I help out a fellow catfish enthousiast

I'll post pix once they're settled

[andywoolloo]

that's great that you could help him out like that. The first two listed are very interesting looking when I googled them! And I can't wait to see a pic of the XXL panaque!

[sidguppy]

can't wait to just see it, frankly!
although i'm not into pleco's at all, this is an imposing fish.

however; all three fat biggies really like my huge rockpile in the back right corner of the tank and so far refuse to budge. your typical catfish behaviour.
I find this a healthy sign; I'd be worried if they were cruising up and down in a visible corner during the day after such an ordeal, but they hide.
wich means they're very likely a bit grumpy due to the move, but not stressed or sick.

they have moved a lot of sand during the night, the tank is a bit cloudy and some of the -now- smaller catfishes have found different places to rest, my grannies for example.

I'm not worried much, Synodontis granulosus is incredably tough. I'm keeping an eye out for the smallest catfishes (Phyllonemus typus, S njassae and the unknown Clarias) but I haven't seen any strange actions so far.

I DO see differences in cichlid behaviour; most of them avoid the deep caves now.
tonight it's going to be frozen peas on the meny. back in the day when I kept 2 Pterodoras granulosus this was the treat wich always brought them out. see what happens ;)