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My banjo cat shed its skin last night (don't know which one as I had two species in the tank) and pieces of skin had not been eaten by tankmates yet this morning. Just thought I'd post a pic of the shed skin here for those of you who own banjos but have never seen them shed their skin.

The pic isn't very sharp (due to my using a low shutter speed when the skin was vigorously flapping in the current), but if you look carefully, you can still see the tubercles on 'em.

Cool, I never saw them do it, and I've kept Bunocephalus kneri/coracoides and Agmus sabriceps/lyriformis? a long time (I stick to the old names, until the profs stop messing with them, and make up their mind).
The only other Banjo cats I've ever seen alive, where two badly fungused Amarailia's (the ones without a dorsal). Due to the fungus, I didn't dare the risk.

Question for you: do the Asian Banjo's shed their skin? or the very banjo-like Chaca?

I've seen Sorubims shed. Weird as hell, because it looks out-of-place on such a graceful, smoothskinned fish.

Hi!

Nice one HH!
The funny things is the changing of colour shortly before they shed their skin, their body colour seems to become lighter, can almost make you think you have a new fish at home!
Cheers
Yann

SG_Eurystomus wrote:I've seen Sorubims shed. Weird as hell, because it looks out-of-place on such a graceful, smoothskinned fish.

Sorubims don't shed, Sid. They THROW UP! Usually in response to poor water quality. Most other fish seem to consider it quite a delicacy.

Dinyar

Question for you: do the Asian Banjo's shed their skin? or the very banjo-like Chaca?

Asian banjos and sisorids (especially <i>Glyptothorax</i> ) do shed their skin, pretty much the same way as banjo cats (indicative that they are closely related).
Not <i>Chaca</i> though. If you look carefully at the skin of <i>Chaca</i>, you'll see that its smooth and not heaviily keratinized like in sisoroid catfishes (banjos, sisorids and amblycipitids).

Hi all!
Have you seen the the pics of Bunocephalus verrucosus in the Cat-e-log? The last 5 pics are a fish in the process of shedding. At the time I didn't know what was happening until Jools enlightened me. Sorry, I don't know how to do a direct link
Dave