PlanetCatfish.com

As many of you know I have been inactive on the site as of late as we made our move from Mexico to South Africa. We got out this weekend and got in some safari action. No fish pics yet, but I am still waiting for my collecting gear to arrive.
-Shane

Wow what a view. What catfish will you be hoping to collect?

Locally, Clariids and Chiloglanis. Synodontis if I travel a bit north.
-Shane
Jools and Whitepine, does the above lake not look very similar to Camatagua or Calabozo in the llanos?

Hi shane â?? nice pics.
Were they taken in Pilansburg by any chance?

Shane,
How far away were you from these critters? Some of them hardly seem to know your're there. (Now, that's an L-046! )
Amanda

Wow ... great pictures. Wish I was there ... sigh.

Shane wrote:Jools and Whitepine, does the above lake not look very similar to Camatagua or Calabozo in the llanos?

Yeah, except the llanos doesn't have hippos. A very similar thought occurred to me as we moved through the Adirondacks last week, the rivers look just like those in Scotland. I thought also that quite a lot of S. Africa looks like Scotland, not much of that however has much of such interest in it as the veldt!

Your obsolete Afrikaans word of the day: klipbaber.

Have you scored a copy of Skelton's Freshwater Fishes of Southern Africa yet?

Jools

Yes, the above photos were taken in Pilanesburg. Free beer for Ryan on that one. Have you been there? Amanda, some of the animals were within 20-30 feet from us. This was mostly, however, because we were between them and their watering hole when they were thirsty. They really just wanted to get past us to drink.
Yes, Hippos scare me more than crocs. I believe that, from a statistical standpoint, they actually hurt/kill more H. sapiens.

Klipbaber = Austroglanis

I have Skelton's book but it is somewhere on the slow boat coming from Mexico City (along with my collecting gear and tanks). I wish it would hurry up and get here so I could start mapping out my weekends.

-Shane

Yes I visited Pilansburg 2 years ago.
I went over to see a friend who was finishing his PhD fieldwork on a game farm nearby.
We went on a roadtrip to Kruger, St Lucia, Swaziland, Lesotho and the Drakensburg - It was absolutely great...especially as it was Nov/Dec in the UK!

He's just come back from Pilansburg last week - trapping Brown Hyenas this time!

Just a few more pics. I have always had a thing for wild dogs since watching too much "Wild Kingdom" as a kid. These photos were taken within an hour's drive of the house.



Collecting gear and tanks arrive Thursday!

-Shane

Great pictures Shane. I would love to see a photo of any of the Austroglanis, I know they are all at least threatened.

Mark

Mark,
There are three spp here. A. barnardi and A. gilli have very small distributions on the Western Cape. Both spp are fairly attractive and small (128mm and 164mm). The third sp, A. sclateri, is found close to me in the Orange-Vaal system and may have been transplanted to the Limpopo system which is even closer. As these things always work out, it is olive brown all over and grows to 300mm. I might try keeping some outdoors in a pond.
-Shane

Nice waterbuck pic.

Oh, Shane. I can hear Marlin Perkin's voice now! I think many of us got through childhood on that show.
Amanda

Finally got out and got wet today! The first thing that became obvious to me is that I am really out of shape. About 30 minutes with the 4 foot seine and my arms were so tired they were shaking.

I was only able to collect at one spot along the Sterkstroom just above where it enters Buffelspoort dam and spent the vast majority of the day driving all over Northwest and Guateng provinces looking for potential collecting spots. I forgot what a pain it is to find good spots where you can both get access and find good clean water. This is especially true in South Africa as nearly all property is private and fenced off.

My original plan was to check out the Crocodile river between Hartbeespoort and Brits. However, the road (a section of the N4 highway) was closed to traffic for a bicycling event. We ended up doing a big loop following the N4 west to Mooinooi and then south to Maahnhaarrand and east along the Magalies river (which was stagnant and filthy) back to Hartbeespoort.

Lesson number two (number one was I need to start doing push ups again) was that I need to buy some fishing waders. I have never used them in the past, but schistosomiasis (known locally as bilharzia) is present in many South African waters. Snails are the intermediary host for the disease and many of the fishes I caught had snail larvae present on them.

Ok, ok, so what did I catch. No catfishes I am sorry to report. The days take were dozens of the cichlid Pseudocrenilabrus philander and a half dozen of the cyprinid Mesobola brevianalis. Mesobola is a strange fish. When I first caught them I thought they must belong to some strange family of fishes. They look very similar to sardines and not very much like a barb at all. I thought they would be very sensitive, but all made the trip home and seem to be doing well.

This is the stream where the above two spp. were collected,





Catfishes wishes for the next trip.
-Shane

Oh, the lessons of life! Thank you, Shane!!!!
Amanda

Just returned from a weekend collecting trip to Mpumalanga. My goal was to work the Drakensburg escarpment that separates the highveld from the lowveld. The good news is that I had my first catfish success in Africa The bad newsâ?¦ every other portion of the trip. On Saturday (25 Nov) we were hit by a serious storm. We took refuge about 35 km west of Nelspruit at a place that rented â??chalets.â?

Very cool! Now I am very excited about our visit over New Year. I've got three CotM's lined up for the future, so you will have a little time to keep and learn about these fishes before I hold you to the agreement.

What sort of water params in these rivers?

Jools

Temperature swings between day and night are huge on the escarpment. Nothing like in South America. The night before, during the rain storm, it was chilly outside. Probably in the low 60s F (17-18C). I really expected the water the next day to be very cold. By 7:00 am the ambient temp had risen to 70F (22C). I still figured I was going to freeze when I hit the water. To my pleasant surprise the water was 70F (22C). We left the river just before 8:00 am and the ambient had risen to 76F (25C). It will get colder in the area in December, but these are the two coldest months (it is summer here, but the water gets colder due to the fresh rains). Realistically, the water could swing between 68F-76F over the year. They spawn at the beginning of the rainy season, so a few blasts with cool rain (or R.O.) water should help them along.

Close up of the collecting locale



As to the overall chemistry. I would suspect it was near neutral and very soft due to the storm the day before. I would guess that the fish are pretty accustomed to swings in pH and hardness. I actually brought home some water to test, but used it in their new tank to help the fish equalize without testing it (doh!).

Collecting


The most surprising thing was that all specimens were caught in the fastest flowing waters in the center of the river. Also, all the stones were covered with a "biofilm." The feces in the bags when I got home appeared to be digested biofilm. I collected a 5 gallon bucket of stones from the stream for their tank.

Biofilm


This is not a nasty biofilm caused by pollution. It seems to be a natural growth of various algae and other items. I'll let you know how it fares in the aquarium and if they eat it.

-Shane

Looks like a nice fish - and a new entry for the Cat-eLog.

--
Mats

Hey there. I also live in Pretoria and the fishkeeping community over here is very excited to have Shane around...

On collection I have started a thread Here regarding collecting fish from the wild.

As far as I know a permit is needed to collect, but at SAFF we have a few members who have dealt with this kind of thing and DNC (department nature conservation) before and I am sure they would be happy to help Shane in that regard.

Oh, and since you guys are talking about that "Obsolete" language Afrikaans, here are a few more words for you guys:

Waterbok.
Wildehond.

Figure them out and get back to me lol.

Kindest regards.

Q

CAtfishluvva wrote:Oh, and since you guys are talking about that "Obsolete" language Afrikaans

I meant the word rather than the language. My fathers family live in Pretoria and they taught me the word and its lack of currency.

As an aside, I'll be out in Pretoria for New Year and will be meeting up with Shane.

Jools

I misunderstood completely then.

Allow me to explain.

I have met MANY people from overseas who believe all Afrikaners to be racists and who wish for the days of segregation (apartheid), who were surprised that they found Afrikaans to be spoken by so many, and who thought that Afrikaners are backward.

I mistook the tone of your comment as a snide remark on the "small minority" who speak Afrikaans.

I apologise, and understand your remark better, please understand that as a member of the "small minority" it really grinds my gears when my demographic group gets categorised like that.

I also burns my biskuits that a dude from overseas does what I have dreamt of doing in the Amazon for years IN MY OWN BACK YARD!

So. I will now endeavour to not be so sensitive, and to obtain the correct papers and go catfishing myself.

Kindest.

Q

Jools wrote:
As an aside, I'll be out in Pretoria for New Year and will be meeting up with Shane.

Jools

Great news.

Allow me to extend to shane and yourself an invitation to dinner or something of the like where we may talk catfish et al.

Shane wrote:Temperature swings between day and night are huge on the escarpment. Nothing like in South America. The night before, during the rain storm, it was chilly outside. Probably in the low 60s F (17-18C). I really expected the water the next day to be very cold. By 7:00 am the ambient temp had risen to 70F (22C). I still figured I was going to freeze when I hit the water. To my pleasant surprise the water was 70F (22C). We left the river just before 8:00 am and the ambient had risen to 76F (25C). It will get colder in the area in December, but these are the two coldest months (it is summer here, but the water gets colder due to the fresh rains). Realistically, the water could swing between 68F-76F over the year. They spawn at the beginning of the rainy season, so a few blasts with cool rain (or R.O.) water should help them along.

Shane,
These temperature swings are quite interesting to me. I try so hard to keep my tanks at home at one consistant temperature, day and night. It seems, in nature, temperatures vary quite a bit. I wonder how this translates(if at all) into the home aquarium setting? I realize certain temperature fluctuations in a confined, home aquarium could lead to illness. But, this does raise interesting questions about temperature change, over time for breeding. It would seem no species lives in a "static" setting. Are we too obsessed with the temperature staying the same? I'm probably asking a rhetorical "why is the sky blue" question....
Amanda

bronzefry wrote:Are we too obsessed with the temperature staying the same?

Too obessed? I do not know about you, but I do know many people are. they even have digital thermostates, controlling the temperature for 2 digits behind the dot!

Sworttails (Xiphophorus and related) prefer a temparature fluctuation during the day. In my eyes, the problem would be to provide them with it.

Last summer (In europe we have what is supposed to be winter now) I had a few anks (480 liters each) in my south facing garden. During the day, the temp rose above 30 degrees celcius, during night it dropped to near 20 degrees.

All fishes tolerated this perfectly, or rather, they seemed to enjoy it. In october I took al fishes in, and apart from cichlids, and Xiphophorus fry, I will not bother you about, I even fount 9 Corydoras paleatus (Arroya tropa Vieja Uruguay)where I placed 7 in the tank. 2 were smaller - only 4 cm

Now all these fishes are in a room with open window - again, I look what happened, but can not do anything, apart from closing the window.

However, I saw on http://www.wundergrond.com that in Uruguay quite large differences between day and night are normal, so I know I do not need to worry about temperature fluctuations for these fishes. But my Central American cichlids are on a thermostat, I am not certain they like these fluctuations

So, Too worried depends on the type of fishes you have

Well, since the topic is SA fish, let me pitch in here.

When I just started out fishkeeping and did not have heated tanks I kept some fish I caught locally.

In some areas in south africa, especially the highveld, day and night temps could vary as much as 10 - 12 celsius.

seasonally there are even larger variations.

In Middelburg I caught some C****lids in the Olifants river.

There were also some Clarias and Schilbids that lived in the river itself and some dams in the area.

In winter the temperature would often drop to below freezing (about -3 celsius, nothing major) and in summer it would get + 30 celsius. In the river I am not sure if the fish would migrate up or downstream, but that would be moot as the temps would be in the same range throughout the region.

Fish in the dams would not be able to migrate.

Then there is another interesting thing:

Every few years come the rainy season the river would come down, and would often flood its banks for kilometers to either side.

For a month or so after a flooding very few fish would be found.

One day I witnessed something really amazing:

I stood on the bank at one of my favourite fishing spots about two or so months after a big flooding, it was summer (December). I had regularly collected S Mossambicus in that spot a few years before, and pickings had been slim ever since. Then I saw dark shapes slowly gliding upstream.
Large groups (between six and eight) of S Mossambicus seemed to be returning to the river. (btw. When it was not in flood the river barely flowed, and bilharzia was a risk.)

They were huge, 30cm + and a dark blue-black.

A while after I also found large Clarias in that area, maybe they do migrate some?

CAtfishluvva wrote:Oh, and since you guys are talking about that "Obsolete" language Afrikaans, here are a few more words for you guys:

Waterbok.
Wildehond.

Figure them out and get back to me lol.

a gazelle type thing and wild dog.

bizarly i can understand afrikaans better than i can dutch (im 1/2 dutch) language isnt really a strong point for me (not that good at english either)

These temperature swings are quite interesting to me. I try so hard to keep my tanks at home at one consistant temperature, day and night. It seems, in nature, temperatures vary quite a bit. I wonder how this translates(if at all) into the home aquarium setting? I realize certain temperature fluctuations in a confined, home aquarium could lead to illness. But, this does raise interesting questions about temperature change, over time for breeding. It would seem no species lives in a "static" setting. Are we too obsessed with the temperature staying the same? I'm probably asking a rhetorical "why is the sky blue" question...

Amanda,
The bottom line is that this is a"it depends" question. Amazonian fishes may never see a difference of more than a few degrees F over the course of an entire year. Llanos fishes may see swings of 10F over the course of the year as can piedmont spp like Chaetostoma. Temp changes are very often related to spawning behavior, which is one reason why we have such great luck spawning fishes after a big, cool water change.
Now that said, an aquarium is a "snapshot" of nature. Real rivers, creeks and lakes are dynamic. Temps, chemistry, amount of light, amount of food, etc all fluctuate by the day, week, and month.
An aquarium is a glass box full of water. It has the same temp, amount of light, duration of light, food available, etc. The other big difference is that we rarely keep all fishes from the exact same river. We need stability in the aquarium because we are often after a happy medium for all involved rather than replicating a very specific habitat over the course of a year.
-Shane

Maybe we could start a new topic if we digress too much, but....


I think many factors are involved with regard to toleration to temp variation. Here are a few generalisations off the top of my head:



* Distance from equator. Further = more daily variation

* Lake or river. Lakes will vary much less.

* Depth of water. Deeper water = less variation.

* Size of water body. Larger = less variation.

* Amount of average cloud cover. Less = more variation.

* Distance from source water e.g. mountain snow melt. Greater = less variation.

* Local weather conditions and patterns.


My tank varies about 1C over a 24 hour period, and I'm generally not concerned about this.

I think as long as any changes are small, gentle and predictable, most fish will be OK.

Obviously it will all depend on their adaption to their natural environment.




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