Glyptothorax sp. ???

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 09 Jan 2003, 15:19

I have these 7 of theseGlyptothorax sp. fishes but don`t know the exact species.Could they be G. laosensis.They were sold in one store under the name G. platypogon.

http://community.webshots.com/album/60169898yEDmkb

Post by **Silurus** » 09 Jan 2003, 16:02

Nope, definitely neither G. platypogon nor G. laosensis. It looks more like G. lampris in fact, but these things can be notoriously difficult to identify.

Heok Hee

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 09 Jan 2003, 17:30

In aquarien atlas vol 5 were same looking fish like mine.Text said G. cf. laosensis.You are expert on asian catfishes so what are the main differences between laosensis and lampris?Why do you think that this fish is G lampris?

Post by **Silurus** » 09 Jan 2003, 17:38

Glyptothorax laosensis is basically a dark brown fish with a thin pale stripe running along the lateral line (this pattern is seen in a number of Glyptothorax in the region, including G. trilineatus, G. siamensis etc.). The color pattern of the fish in the picture is clearly not that of G. laosensis (no stripe, and color way too light).
I am not 100% sure that it is G. lampris, but given that many more Glyptothorax from Thailand than from those from India appear in the aquarium trade, I think that G. lampris is the most likely bet.
Anyway, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the non-striped Glyptothorax because the color pattern is highly variable in this species.
The Baensch Atlas has very nice catfish pictures, but the Asian catfish identifications are hopelessly wrong in many cases.

Heok Hee

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 09 Jan 2003, 18:35

I am not 100% sure that it is g. lampris, but given that many more Glyptothorax from Thailand than from those from India appear in the aquarium trade, I think that G. lampris is the most likely bet.

In recent years we have in Finland received increasing number of imports from India.Many unfamiliar catfishes have been in market.Hara jerdoni,Conta sp.,Eresthides sp.,Laguwia shawi,Gagata cenia,Sperata aor and Chaca chaca are seen in past five years.Still today not very common imports .These Glyptothorax-fishes have arrived under the name Tatia sp. and i don`t know from where.Or who has put that trade name on them-Tatia spp. are from different continent!One possible origin could be India.Probably i have to ask it from the wholesaler.

Post by **Silurus** » 09 Jan 2003, 18:50

Hmm..if it came from India, it might be G. cavia, although I recall G. cavia being of a more mottled color than in your picture.
Will check up on my library at home and let you know...

Heok Hee

Post by **Silurus** » 10 Jan 2003, 01:08

OK, my best guess if it came from India is G. pectinopterus.

Heok Hee

gibbo · Post by **gibbo** » 10 Jan 2003, 01:22

Very interesting fish! I will have to look it up I think.... this planet is getting ever smaller!

Post by **Silurus** » 10 Jan 2003, 01:43

Hey Mika,

I forgot to tell you to be extra careful with these guys. All of the Glyptothorax I have kept eventually became very emaciated and died after a few months, even though they were eating well and appeared healthy.
There is apparently something essential that an aquarium diet cannot give them (and no, it's not algae or green food, as wild-caught fish have absolutely no trace of algae in their guts).

Heok Hee

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 10 Jan 2003, 10:21

I`m aware of that.They are eating well freeze dried foods and looks healthy.I have kept them only one month.We`ll see what happens.Very good jumpers though-i`ve lost two of them in that way.I try to contact today the importer and ask the origin of this species.I`ll post better pictures in a week or so to Jools hoping that they may help to indentify this fish finally.Until that i´ll live with information G. lampris or G.pectinopterus-thanks Heok Hee very much.

Post by **Silurus** » 10 Jan 2003, 10:30

Mika,

If you send the pic to Jools for identification, he'll forward it to me for suggestions. It would be a nice addition for the Cat-eLog, though.

Heok Hee

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 10 Jan 2003, 10:57

What i tried to say( in incorrect english) is i`ll send better pictures so it will be easier to identify and he can add it to cat elog.Only person who can in this forum identify this catfish is you.I can send some pictures straight to you if you want?

Post by **Silurus** » 10 Jan 2003, 12:24

Just send it to Jools and let him decide.

Heok Hee

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 16 Jan 2003, 16:08

Checked today origin of import.There are two countrys from where aquarium wholesaler got shipments.One was Thailand and the other Singapore.To my knowledge Thailand is the only possibility for homeland of these Glyptothorax lampris.I`ll send tomorrow evening more pictures to Jools.

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:20

Silurus you mentioned in earlier version of this forum about G. lampris shedding their skin.It seems that it has started in my aquarium today.What is the main purpose of this and how long it lasts?When i kept Pseudodoras niger it was with him very much the same thing.They seem like having some major disease or been beaten up badly.

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:31

Many sisoroids (aspredinids, sisorids, akysids and erethistids in particular) shed their skin because they have so much more keratin (they have a lot of epidermal structures made of keratin) than the average catfish skin (actually, sisoroid skin is more like mammalian skin than fish skin).
The way it works is also very much like our own skin...keratin is a protein that accumulates in dead skin cells, and through normal wear and tear, these skin cells slough off (a person sheds about 2 kilograms of dead skin every year). I'm not exactly sure why sisoroids would have skin like that (I suspect one reason is that the epidermal structures help keep the fish steady in fast-flowing streams by breaking up the laminar flow of water over them).
Anyway, the shedding only last one or two days in the Glyptothorax I have kept. During this time, they get harassed more than usual by tankmates, because they (the tankmates) seem to find the dead and peeling skin particularly tasty.
I wouldn't worry too much about the shedding...it seems to be a normal procedure (I have seen it in akysids I have kept as well) and the fish seems to suffer no ill effects from it.

Post by **Dinyar** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:45

Heok Hee,

How basal are Sisorids within Silurifomes and which genus/genera among them are the most primitive? (I recall reading in the Chinese paper by Chu Xinluo of fossil Bagarius.) Is this keratinous skin structure a primitive or advanced characteristic? (Have yet to get this pleisomorphy, apomorphy, etc. vocabulary straight!)

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:53

Dinyar,

Sisoroids fall in somewhere in the middle of siluriform phylogeny. According to de Pinna (1998), they are the sister group of loricarioids (however, this may change pending the reinterpretation of Diogo in an upcoming book, which is essentially his Ph.D. dissertation).
The sister group of all other sisoroids are the amblycipitids, followed by the akysids, sisorids, erethistids and finally aspredinids.
The sister group of all sisorids (sorry for the clumsy wording, but I have been taught that the word "basal" should not be used) is in fact Bagarius and it would seem that the keratinous skin is plesiomorphic ("primitive") for all sisoroids (amblycipitids show this character to a limited degree).

Post by **Dinyar** » 24 Jan 2003, 15:12

Sorry, Heok Hee, you lost me there!

If "sister group" means (as you seem to be saying) "most primitive within the set", how can Sisoroids be the "sister group of loricarioids", since Sisoroids and Loricaroids are presumably disjoint sets? Should I interpret your statement to mean that WITHIN SILURIFORMES, Sisoroids are the immediate older "sister" of Loricaroids?

I am as surprised to learn (not that I question) that Aspredinids are Sisoroids as I was to learn recently from you that Mochokids are Doradoids! But given that Aspredinids are Sisoroids, don't they also have keratinous skin that sheds?

And why ban "basal"? "Mother group" or "parent group" I could understand, but why "sister"?

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 15:20

Dinyar,

Hopefully, this doesn't digress too much into a discussion of technical terms. The term "sister groups" is just a fancy way of saying "most closely related to". So loricarioids and sisoroids are sister groups means that they are most closely related to each other (compared to other catfishes).
And yes, aspredinids do shed their skin. Not perceptibly, but they do. You might sometimes see other fish pecking away at an aspredinid and this is presumably when its shedding.
The term "basal" implies that one group is more primitive than another, which is not what we are actually trying to convey (it does not make sense to say that one living group is more primitive than another, since they have had their own evolutionary histories and do not have an ancestor-descendant relationship).

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 07 Feb 2003, 12:45

What i thought could be shedding their skin was actually some kind bacterial infection. Lost all but one. I stopped messing around with the temperature. It is now 25 celsius and it isa doing fine with eremophilus mutisii. Probably the cause to death had happened already during the shipment of the fishes to Europe. Poor conditions, low oxygen levels and high temperature. We´ll see how long the only one lasts- hopefully few years.
Silurus!- in Mergus atlas no 6 were just the same looking fish like mine with name G. dorsalis.Did Jools send you pictures of my fishes to identify them?

Post by **Silurus** » 07 Feb 2003, 13:18

Sorry to hear about the loss. How did the skin come off from the fish? Was there mucus associated with it (during normal skin shedding, there shouldn't be any mucus)?
What temperatures were you keeping the fish at before? Glyptothorax do best at cooler temperatures, and 25˚C may even be a little on the high side (try lowering the temp to about 22˚C).
It is definitely not G. dorsalis as G. dorsalis has a white nuchal plate (this is the butterfly-shaped bone directlly in fornt of the dorsal fin) and is a more slender fish. There are also a series of bumps between the dorsal and adipose fins in G. dorsalis that I don't see in your fish.

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 07 Feb 2003, 13:31

Sorry to hear about the loss. How did the skin come off from the fish? Was there mucus associated with it (during normal skin shedding, there shouldn't be any mucus)?
What temperatures were you keeping the fish at before? Glyptothorax do best at cooler temperatures, and 25?C may even be a little on the high side (try lowering the temp to about 22?C).
It is definitely not G. dorsalis as G. dorsalis has a white nuchal plate (this is the butterfly-shaped bone directlly in fornt of the dorsal fin) and is a more slender fish. There are also a series of bumps between the dorsal and adipose fins in G. dorsalis that I don't see in your fish.

I think that there were some mucus coming off too. I kept them in 20-21 C.Idd change water 50% twice a week.

Post by **Silurus** » 07 Feb 2003, 13:37

Hmm, my experience with catfishes indicates that when mucus starts coming off the fish, that is usually a reaction to water conditions. Maybe you were changing the water too much and too frequently?
The Glyptothorax I have kept did not seem to require much in the way of water changes, just cool temps, well oxygenated water and a strong current (they would always hang out around the filter/powerhead outlet).

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 15 Sep 2003, 18:50

The one is still going strong and no signs of emanciation. It only accepts frozen foods(self made or commercially available)

Post by **Dinyar** » 15 Sep 2003, 19:23

Nice to know. Have been thinking of trying to import some but was concerned about Silurus' reports of problems keeping them alive longer term.

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 15 Sep 2003, 19:25

I think it works better if you can keep the water cool. Their metabolism seems to go through the roof if the water's too warm, which may be why I had no luck keeping them for long.