any mini miney catfish

Stebo · Post by **Stebo** » 13 Feb 2006, 06:58

I was wondering what sort of catfish/s i could put in my 55gal african tank to clean up after my messy Mbunas, when i say clean up i mean, eat up all the left over cichlid pellets that the fish are to blind to see

i know synos are a good choice but i need something a bit cheaper. in Austrlalian dollars.

thanks
stebo

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 13 Feb 2006, 09:24

You could try eel-tail cats, or small (the latter will eventually get too big for a 4' tank). I've seen them survive in a tank full of africans so if your Mbunas aren't too nasty they could be worth a try. They will certainly help with any uneaten food, that's for sure!

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 13 Feb 2006, 14:32

You might be able to get cheaper than the Tanganyikan species, but still suitable for hard alkaline water.

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 13 Feb 2006, 15:37

@chrisych not sure how this is in your country but here there are no true S.njassae available. Only S.cf. nigrita sold under that name. True imports from Lake Malawi are about double/triple the price of multipuncs (S.m.: 25-30 euro in shops and around 15-20 euro from private breeders).
Also I have never seen real njassae in lfs.

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 13 Feb 2006, 17:19

I have, and I know my cats (boast boast

).

and surprisingly the only two times in the last few years I encountered true njassae were in specialized shops; good ones.
once at Verduijns' but twice (actually the same fish; probably still there) in Aachen, at Zoo Bunten.

Germany

So Caol Ila, if you want to get some true njassae's, better head off to Aachen and save those cats.
I haven't been there for months.
Marc van Arc has, however; you might ask him if those 3 njassae's are still there.

Stebo · Post by **Stebo** » 14 Feb 2006, 04:59

thanks everybody for your imput. i'll be at my LFS on saturday so i'll see what they have, i know they have syno multies but they're too expensive, i don't knwo if they have any others.

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 15 Feb 2006, 14:02

Caol_ila wrote:@chrisych not sure how this is in your country but here there are no true S.njassae available

I got what was supposed to be S. njassae from a shop in Wales which imports from Africa directly. They looked like the Cat-eLog pics, and were being kept with mbuna; and were inexpensive. They certainly weren't nigrita.

I may have just been lucky without realising it, because thinking back now, I've never seen them anywhere else.

Anyway, synos eupterus or ocellifer would most likely do fine.