Hexanematichthys seemanni/Arius jordani info

[skeletor121]

I am looking for info on this type of catfish. I see that they are fresh-brackish-marine as they grow up and that they like to be in groups. I am hoping to get some other info on them as well. My wife loves looking at these fish when we go to a fish store. We have not had a large enough tank to house these fish before, but I now have a big tank sitting in my garage. This tank is wating to be cleaned, plumbed, and filled. I will hopefully be able to do this in a couple weeks (I am on crutches right now and can't do it). I did read this page: http://www.planetcatfish.com/cotm/cotm. ... icle_id=63 which states that the tank needs to be 2' wide. Is this tank close enough?

Here is the info on the tank:
150 gallons
72" l x 27" h x 18" d
came with a 40 gallon sump and tank is already drilled for overflow and return

Is this tank big enough for these fully grown shark catfish?
If so, how many should I look at getting?
What type of substrate do they prefer? Sand? Gravel?
I was thinking of getting some tankmates for this fish. I have found that Mono argentus and Scatophagus argus do well with these catfish. I loke the looks of the Scats and thought about getting a couple of them to add into this tank once it is up to brackish water (depending on how these fish are being held at the LFS). If the cats fit in this tank, would there be any room for Scats and/or Monos?

I am planning on using fake plants since Scats would eat live plants and most of them would die in brackish water anyways. I may also put in a little bit of driftwood as well as a couple of rocks for their setup. This would be minimal since I see that they like/need their room to swim.

As you can see I am very un-informed about these, as well as most other, catfish. I don't want to jump into this and kill the fish. I tried looking through this forum, but didn't see anything that answered these questions. I was going to post this in the Tank Talk forum, but felt it might be better off here. If it is better in the Tank Talk section please move it over there or tell me to re-post it in that forum.

Thanks in advance.

[Richard B]

H.seemani gets to over a foot long so ideally a tank to house these as adults would be at least twice as wide as the maximum length the fish gets to so yours perhaps is a bit small - that said it could accommodate a group for a good time before they ultimately outgrew it. A shoal of about half a dozen would do well growing up together. They could share the tank with a group of scats. The cats need increasing salinity as they grow, so if you start off brackish all would be ok.

as for substrate i would go for a coarse grade sand/coral sand mix which could be supplemented with coral gravel, with crushed shell as the fish grow & you start to alter the water chemistry. Whatever decor you decide on, make sure you leave an expanse of open water for the cts to swim in.