Perfect Asian Set-up

jscoggs27 · Post by **jscoggs27** » 18 Jan 2003, 19:46

what type of setup tank mates would anyone see working. I love asian cats and want a tank dedicated to them I have my clarius but he might have to stay alone. I prefer the larger fish but not something thats going to be uncomfortable in a tank. Like the other question on l numbers whats the perfect asian setup?

Post by **Silurus** » 18 Jan 2003, 20:10

If you want a blackwater Asian setup, here's what I think would be good (maybe not perfect):
A small school of 6-8 two-spot cats (Mystus bimaculatus) and maybe 10-12 striped glass cats (Pseudeutropius brachypopterus or P. moolenburghae), and 3-4 leaf cats (Silurichthys sp.).
I think this is a good catfishy base to start with, as it offers a good mix of bottom-dwelling and midwater cats (not all are readily available as imports, however).
For added variety, you can add small schools (6-8 individuals)of cyprinids (clown rasboras, R. kalochroma or six-banded barbs, P. hexazona). All of this will fit nicely in a four-foot tank.
This will give you a good representation of a Sumatran blackwater stream.
Of course, you will have to put some peat in as substrate.

Post by **Dinyar** » 18 Jan 2003, 21:03

jscoggs27 wrote:has anyone kept any of these for any length of time? I mean long enough to grow to some size.

You can see lots of big Pangasius hypophthalmus in restaurant tanks in China and SE Asia. (At least, I think they're P. hypophthalmus, not 100% sure). They easily push a meter. I believe they are grown out in ponds and have only a brief sojourn in the restaurant tanks

.

Heok Hee and others, I presume P. hypophthalmus is what we commonly see sold as "irridescent shark". Is that correct? Are there other species such as P. sanitwongsei (HH, you spell this with an "s" @ #6?) that are also comonly seen in the trade under the same name?

And what is the species that is sold as "basa (not catfish)"?

What other genera are included in the family Pangasidae?

Dinyar

Post by **Dinyar** » 18 Jan 2003, 21:19

Silurus wrote:If you want a blackwater Asian setup, here's what I think would be good (maybe not perfect): [snip] Mystus bimaculatus, Pseudeutropius brachypopterus or P. moolenburghae, and Silurichthys sp..

Sounds like a great tank! Only one problem: where do you get the fish?!

M. bimaculatus I have not seen for sale in maybe 5 years. The others I have never seen!

Silurus wrote:Of course, you will have to put some peat in as substrate.

Do you mean "peat in the gravel", Heok Hee, or "pure peat as substrate"? Wouldn't the latter create a huge mess? The stuff would float all over the place!

I have an "Asian tank" where the pH drops quickly to 5 even without peat! (NYC tap water is very soft and pH neutral out of the tap, doesn't take a lot to turn it into humic acid! Of course, not everyone's lucky enough to have "perfect" tap water like ours!)

Or you could just put a Chaca in your tank! They will drop almost any water to pH 5 in a couple of days!

(Hey, haven't seen Klaus Dreyman around here, come to think of it!)

Dinyar

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 22 Jan 2003, 19:36

When it comes to Asian cats there just isn't enough choice in Britain. If you want another pet like your Clarias (in another tank) get a Hemibagrus nemurus, the Asian Red-tail (formerly Mystus nemurus). They're really cool and not too expensive. Mine is now 9 inches long and hand-tame. They can have tankmates of the South American armoured battle-tank variety, but not Asian cats, especially Pangasius, which would be climbing the walls. (Of your house, not the tank).
For a small tank, you can easily get glass catfish and 'Tengara' Mystus. I would have a shoal of each, and bend the rules to allow a shoal of African Glass 'debauwi' cats, which are reasonably closely related. Decorate with lots of hiding places and floating plants. The Mystus are predators, but a two-inch predator isn't much of a threat.
Mid-sized, there's Mystus vittata, the Pearl cat, which isn't too hard to get. They make an entertaining shoal and can be hand-tamed.

Post by **Dinyar** » 22 Jan 2003, 22:24

And not just in Britain! In the US we can get catfish from just about anywhere (especially through the internet) BUT Asia! And what is available is the same old handful of farm-raised staples. It's not like there's any lack of interesting catfish from Asia. So what's the reason?

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 23 Jan 2003, 01:15

Dinyar,

Here's my take on the situation. With the advent of cheap locally-bred "bread and butter" cafish, the demand for Asian wild-caughts has fallen. Asian cats generally get short schriift from aquarists because most of the species are dull shades of brown or gray (yes, they may be interesting to you and me, but certainly not to joe aquarist). Compare this with color patterns you see in South American (large pims, loricariids & callichthyids) or African (Synodontis and even some claroteids) cats and you can see why the general aquarist would shun them (we are the exception to the rule). Even when there are Asian cats that would make attractive aquarium fish (as probably the only person in the forum who has kept Nanobagrus nebulosus, I can tell you that they are fantastic little jewels), they will never be known to the trade because they have such restricted distributions and the locals where they are found never think of the fish as anything more than a source of protein.
The unfortunate thing with Asian cats is also the fact that so many species look alike. Why pay 50% more for a wild-caught fish that for all intents and purposes, looks almost identical to a cheaper farm-bred fish. They are not the same species, but the average aquarist probably doesn't care for that.
Lastly, there is the problem of habitat degradation, which is taking a higher toll on the native freshwater fish fauna in Asia simply because population densities there are so much higher than in the Amazon or Congo basin. The ever-expanding need for space and resources will always take precedence over what little economic benefit the native fishes may confer to the local economy.
So, I don't think the situation will ever improve as we wage a losing battle against the simple rules ofeconomics and numbers.

Post by **Dinyar** » 23 Jan 2003, 05:18

Heok Hee,

All your points make sense. I think there's another factor. True, the fish keeping hobby began in China centuries ago, but the modern hobby is an import from the West. There are lots of middle class people in Asia who keep tropical fish these days, but have you noticed?, they all keep "imported" fish, because imported is cool and native is, well, backward. Walk through a pet store in Singapore or China or India and you'll see lots of angels and mollies, even discus and L-numbers, but you'll hardly ever see any local fish. Walk out of the pet fish store into the food fish market and you'll see baskets full of fascinating live local fish that sell for maybe 20 for $1.

Not very long ago I was chatting with a Chinese exporter who was moving lots of expensive arowana, congenitally deformed goldfish, Wealth God Fish (parrots) and Flowerhorns. I asked him why he didn't try to export Chinese loaches and catfish. He didn't understand the question. When I explained again, he gave me that look of "this foreigner just doesn't get it". I guess I *don't get* why people in East Asia would pay such exorbitiant prices for say a flowerhorn. (Odd that in East Asia so many of the sought after fish are man-made monstrosities.)

I've been corresponding with a young Chinese guy in Guangzhou who has caught the catfish bug. Actually, he was referred to me by Jools, because he wanted to translate something I wrote for Planet Catfish on Synodontis multipunctatus. More recently, he wrote an article for Coryman about Corydoras in China, or rather the lack of Corydoras in China. I wrote back that if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't waste my time hankering after Corys I couldn't get, I'd catch my own catfish in the local Pearl River. Cheap, and he could be keeping catfish that many of us in the West would give their eye teeth for. He didn't know there were Chinese catfish that you could do anything with except eat.

What is especially sad about all of this is that, as you say, aquatic habitats in Asia are disappearing faster than they are anywhere else in the world. In another generation or two, many, perhaps most of these fish will be gone.They are disappearing by the day. And of course, it's not just fish. People talk about the Asian economic miracle. I think of it as the Asian ecological holocaust. THIS is development?

Markets do not place an economic value on a pristine natural resource, only on an exploited one. So, to complete the circle and return to the subject of Asian fish in the aquarium hobby, increasing demand for more species of wild Asian aquarium fish may be one of the only ways of helping local people realize these fish have value. And even if we don't succeed in that quest, we may at least be able to see some of these fish one last time before they disappear forever.

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 23 Jan 2003, 13:49

With that said, I'd be interested to know what Asian cats are regularly available in the UK. I've seen the the situation in Singapore (where Asian cats are relatively plentiful and at one stage you could get a black lancer for less than 3 USD) and in the US (where there's hardly anything).

Post by **Shane** » 23 Jan 2003, 23:27

Not to take this topic too far off post, but what Dinyar says about Asia is one hundred percent applicable to South America. Many Venezuelan pet store owners were shocked that I collected my own aquarium fishes. There are pet stores in Caracas importing diamond tetras from Florida when less than two hours away you can collect hundreds of diamond tetras in less than an hour in the Rio Guapo. I remember taking a bunch of extra mollies and swordtails to a pet store in Florida once and the store owner refused to believe me when I said I had caught them all in a ditch a mile down the road. My favorite example is here in Bogota. I can buy huge Altum angels all day long for a couple of bucks each, but even small scalare cost ten dollars apiece. Wild Discus can be purchased at huge sizes here for almost nothing, but every pet store's special tank is set aside for 3-4 small Discus bred in Singapore which can fetch $40 each! That is as much as 480 cardinal tetras or about 15 adult L-52.
It is the same reason that most of the posts on ictalurids come from Europe. Where are the US aquarists who travel the states collecting and studying madtoms? If I ever go back to the US I am collecting every madtom I can get my hands on.
-Shane

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 00:09

Shane,

I hope this is the last off-topic post in this thread, but at least the LFSs in Bogota are selling South American fish.
Asian fish are generally considered "inferior" in some way by most aquarists in Singapore, so despite dirt cheap prices for Asian cats, there isn't really much demand for them.
The low point was when I noticed small Mystus gulio being sold as feeder fish.
Anyway, if you guys can tell me what Asian fishes are available in the UK, I can bring this back on topic with a suggestion for the ideal Asian setup.

jscoggs27 · Post by **jscoggs27** » 25 Jan 2003, 16:29

Asian cats are short supply! I visited my locals today to see if I could see anything.,.
Electric catfish 1" (asian or african ?)
Rita Rita 1.5"
pangasius...hypathalmus and sanitswongsei
some species of mystus 2" (not sure what)
Hemibagrus wycki
glass catfish
others cant remember. sorry

However I did see some nice Giraffe catfish. about 2-3" long very nice! not asian though

My current setup has a single marble clarius with silica sand as substrate no plants and two pieces of bogwood making a cave. My clarius seems a bit clumsy. I saw him today fly straight into a piece of bogwood hitting his pectoral fin. Doesnt seem to be any damage but a lot of blood came out of that general area. His previous illness cleared up in a couple of days, so he does seem very resilient. Unfortunately this one does not tolerate tankmates at all he kills anything I put in the tank with him. I havnt tried other fish, just river shrimp which he refuses to eat. but happily kills. My previous clarius was quite happy to share his tank but this one is aggressive.
At first he used to taste my hand or try to niblle my fingers, now as hes getting larger he tries to attack any intrusion into his tank. He cant harm me but that doesnt stop him from trying. So my luvly clarius will stay alone. And I will have to move him to a bigger tank.

Im hoping to setup the new tank in a couple of months then I will try the setup as suggested by silurus in the old one and put some smaller species in there. Im not sure about the peat though sounds like a nightmare to look after a tank with peat in it!
Anyway thanks for your suggestions, If anyone has anymore info I will gladly receive it I luv anything to do with catfish my first luv being the asian african varieties, But ask me about synos, I think they are too pretty for me!! Pets start to look like there owners or is it the other way around!?.

thanks

jason

Post by **Silurus** » 25 Jan 2003, 17:21

Jason,

It would be great if you could tell me what the color pattern of Mystus was (I can probably tell you what species it is and its suitability for the community tank). The availability of other Asian fish (e.g. barbs, rasboras) would help as well. Much as an all-catfish tank sounds appealing, this is not the real situation in the wild (besides, it would be good to have some fish one can see during the day in the tank).
Rita rita! Man, I'd kill to be able to get my hands on one of these bad boys.

PS. Electric cats are African.

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 27 Jan 2003, 18:21

In the U.K. I've seen: glass, 'ompok' glass, Horabagrus brachysoma, Hemibagrus nemurus, Mystus vittata, Mystus 'Tengara,' Clarias, Pangasius (the common one). I know you can also get Hemibagrus wykii and Paroon 'sharks.' That's about it. And everything seems to be misidentified.
I think part of the problem is that retailers are unwilling to order bagrids because they're all predators and the big aggressive ones tarnish the reputation of the small, peaceful ones which can actually be kept in a community tank with a bit of caution.

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 28 Jan 2003, 12:13

Also Mystus armatus

Post by **Silurus** » 28 Jan 2003, 12:36

What is commonly called Mystus armatus(an Indian species) in the aquarium trade is actually M. castaneus (a Southeast Asian species).

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 19 Feb 2003, 15:32

Thanks, I'll look that up. Mystus armatus was my attempt at an ID. They were sold by the common name Pearl catfish. I have a female and two males which I hope to breed.

Post by **Silurus** » 19 Feb 2003, 15:47

Are you aware of the old article in A&P about breeding M. castaneus?

jazz · Post by **jazz** » 19 Feb 2003, 19:12

speaking of breeding is it true its v.hard 2 sex Clarias??

Post by **Silurus** » 19 Feb 2003, 19:15

Depends on species, I think. I was able to sex certain species of Asian Clarias by looking at their gential papillae (males have a conical one and females have a rounded stub that had a squarish outline at the base).
Haven't tried for C. batrachus though.

PeacockBass · Post by **PeacockBass** » 20 Feb 2003, 12:34

A Petco near me had Mystus vitattus.. I about crapped myself.. never seen them b4 and yet they were in a Petco!!!!! lol

Really cool fish

jscoggs27 · Post by **jscoggs27** » 16 Mar 2003, 14:38

I saw this site yesterday maybe its not perfect but it does give some interesting ideas on asian setups... I hope the link works.
jason
http://www.biotopeaquariums.co.uk/setups/index.html

any thoughts?

Post by **Silurus** » 16 Mar 2003, 14:48

The setups are about correct as far as physical setting and plants go (although it is my experience that Blyxa is notoriously difficult to keep alive, let alone grow, in the aquarium). A bit short on fish, though.
Seems that they have forgotten a whole bunch of fishes as well. If people with no knowledge of Asian fish were to visit the site, they'd think there were only labyrinth fish and cyprinids in Asia.
Also left out the fast-flowing stream biotope.

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