I got my ultimate fish !

[sojapat]

On a sad note these are going to be badly hit as for a lot of loricarids and other very special fishes from the Xingu river .
I have got my hands on a few to hopefully breed ..3 females and 2 males ..
Enjoy some other bottom feeders .


I know they aint catfish but ..

[MatsP]

Very nice.

Shame about the dam, eh?

And good luck with the breeding.

--
Mats

[duckyboy1975]

Wow, those are beautiful, slightly frightening... What do you feed them?

_____________
Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. - Arthur Miller
[Spam removed]

[sojapat]

I feed them small children
No they eat things like squid , prawn ,fish,
They are not scary they are very rewarding fish to keep
What is nice to see is the people who are breeding the Xingu fishes .
If there are a few guys out there each with their own special interest its good for the preservation of species .
Who knows what will happen when the dam is finnished ?
I see a few PC members breeding the Hypancistrus and a few others .
What I am saying is that hopefully there are enough fish enthusiasts to show our Grandchildren what these fishes are like . Not only pictures in old aqualogs

[apistomaster]

Those are the most beautiful of the S.A. Fresh Water Sting Rays.
I hope you succeed in breeding them. I know others have already bred them in captivity.

I'm keeping an open mind about the impact on the fish down stream from the dam.
Hydroelectric dams are usually designed in the United States, at least here in the Pacific Northwest, to let out both warm and cool water from intakes near the warm surface and cool bottom of the impoundments so temperatures down stream can be adjusted for optimal survival of the migratory Salmonids. I don't see any reason why the same couldn't be true of a tropical river like the Rio Xingu. Minimum and maximum flows are also regulated for the benefit of the fish. It is at least a mitigating factor so dire predictions of mass extinctions seem premature to me. Of course, if I were the king of Brazil, I wouldn't let the dam(s) be built anywhere in neotropical South America but dams on Orinoco tributaries are already a fact of life and they did not wipe out the fish down stream. To the residents, the large migratory Characins like Pacus and Prochilodus are more important and it isn't likely that the dam is designed without some provision for their passage. It is prudent policy to forbid harvesting species with slow reproductive rates like Hypancistrus spp until the full environmental impacts of the dam are known and it makes sense to perform this grand experiment with species populations as close to normal from the start. I think any design that preserves the commercially valuable food fish will benefit the ornamental species as well even if their populations stabilize at lower than original levels, I doubt they will go extinct.

The project on the Xingu and the Brazilian ban on exporting certain fish has had a desirable effect of providing foreign aquarists the incentives to breed the ornamental species so they will not disappear from the hobby. It also has had the effect of making them more valuable thus discouraging casual aquarists from buying single fish are which will never be bred just because the were cheap imports, cute, and colorful.

[sojapat]

Hope ur right Apistomaster. I am sure that dams do have their problems .
I am sure that there will be many species affected.
Lakes are not rivers.
Time will tell , its to late once its happened .
I like your positive aproach

[apistomaster]

Hi sojapat,

We don't have any say in the affairs of state in Brazil so all we can do is see how things play out. The resulting reservoir will do great ecological damage but some fish are going benefit and some will be losers. I think the best proactive approach we can take is to do our best to preserve in captivity the fish we have to come to regard so highly and hope for the best for the fish left in the Xingu system.
I expect Black Piranha to be one species that will benefit in the reservoir.

I think some species of Hypancistrus will be able to find niches in the reservoir. The flooded area will be changed beyond all recognition from the free flowing river. Damming rivers is a very controversial subject in the Pacific Northwest USA and West British Columbia.
As a fly fishing sports fisherman I have strong opinions about the subject and have tried to learn as much as i can about the subject. Two of the great tributaries of the Columbia River have been dammed and now are no longer free flowing wild rivers and I live at the zone where the two rivers confluence and where the upper end of the impoundment reservoir meets the remaining free flowing sections. So I have had all my life to see the living river sections destroyed within my home town. The rivers are the Clearwater River and Snake River.
They were famous for their huge runs of King salmon (Chinook) and several unique strains of Searun Rainbow Trout commonly known as Steelhead. We have both one of the largest growing strains and smallest growing strains. Some reach 47 inches and 28 pounds and some mature to be only 20 to 32 inches or 4 to 12 pounds. They are also strains that travel the greatest river miles distances to reach their spawning grounds. Most coastal Steelhead only travel 50 to 100 river miles to reach their spawning beds. Ours travel as far as 1000 or more miles to spawn. The young have to run the gauntlets to reach the sea where they live 3 to 4 years. The Dams devastated the wild and purebred strains as fisheries biologist at first thought the lost fish could simply be replaced by hatchery fish. They were ignorant of the genetically diverse strains and homogenized them in their hatcheries. Now all hatchery fish have their adipose fin clipped off before they are released and a small number of the wild strains have managed to persist but only at 5 to 10% of their historical levels. The wild fish are identified by the presence of their adipose fins and regulations require them to be released. The hydroelectricity produced by the numerous dams provide us with some of the lowest cost electricity in North America but destroyed fish runs and endanger the White Sturgeon which records show once reach 11 feet and studies show that the larger fish of 8 feet or are at least 75 years old. Biologists now suspect that these sturgeon may be able to live to be 150 years old. I have personally seen living specimens that were 8-1/2 feet long. The factions have squared off over the battle to demolish the dams on the Columbia River and it's major tributaries or retain them. The matter is in Congress and Federal courts. I would gladly pay more for my electricity to have my wild rivers and fish back the way they were when i was a kid.
I have had the opportunity to see how the fish respond to damming major rivers and how they persevere despite the odds and obstacles man has given them. It has provided me with glimmers of both hope and despair over what the outcome will be on the Rio Xingu.

[Janne]

The stingrays like P. leopoldi may not suffer so much from damming Rio Xingu, one of the species in Rio Tocantins that have increased in number since they build the Tucurui dam is P. henlei. The problem in Xingu is that the big bend between Altamira and Belo Monte will be cut off completely and 2 channels will be built leading the water from the dam north of Altamira to the hydroelectric plant at Belo Monte, under the dry season the big bend risk to dry out more or less completely due to the few tributaries in that area... and there is where H. zebra and several other Hypancistrus species lives and are endemic. Next species to be put up as endagered will probably be L174, they are even more rare then H. zebra today.

For the moment is the plans for Rio Tapajos very hot, they have only for a few weeks ago proposed 7 new dams in Rio Tapajos and Rio Jamanxim... huge protest just like it has been from the people living around Rio Xingu. The work at Rio Xingu will probably start within 1-2 years maybe earlier now when the focus is moved to the Tapajos drainage.

Janne

[apistomaster]

Glad I have kept a lot of L134 as future breeders from a diverse group of wilds. I'm too new to pleco breeding to have participated in the H.zebra changes but am ahead of the curve with at least one species.

Only have 17 F1 L260 so far about 1-1/2 inches. Not as prolific as some, I guess. Just began conditioning the females in a separate tank hoping also absence makes the males' odontodes grow fonder so fireworks follow after recombining the group.

Had to stop a minute to look up range of L333. Guess it's a Xingu species.
Have about 100 fry since May.

They all look better now that they stopped being commodities.

Breeding sting rays would be quite a project. I hear there are a lot of empty swimming pools across the SE and SW USA.
I would have to try breeding wild Discus in the same pool as the rays. Probably the only way anyone is ever going to produce quantities of captive bred Altum Angels and Heckel Discus. Seems like rays and discus could be compatible in a swimming pool.

[Janne]

Seems like rays and discus could be compatible in a swimming pool.

The ray's would be happy anyway, lots of "pancake's"

Janne

[MatsP]

Neal, I hope you paid less than the asking price in the Maidenhead Aquatics branch I went to today. They had a wildcaught pair, and they wanted £4500 for them ... That is A LOT of money...

--
Mats

[apistomaster]

Hi Janne,
Keeping Adult wild Heckels with adult Rays was purely hypothetical but do you really feel the Rays would eat the Discus?
I once bought a Ray about 7 inches diameter and dump it and a box lot of Cardinal Tetras from the same shipment into a 125 gal tank at the same time. The Cardinals were still in shock from their trip from Florida to the diagonally opposite side of the USA and they all went to the bottom. I added the Ray and it wasn't as perturbed by it's journey as were the Cardinals. The Sting Ray managed to eat quite a few Cardinals before I could remove them. I had a fish shop while I was still in high school. Chalked up that experience to youthful inexperience.
There wasn't much info about Sting Rays in aquariums in 1969. At least I gave the Sting Ray a good start.

I figure if one has to ask how much a P. leopoldi costs one can't afford them. My Motoro Ray only cost me $20 wholesale back then. Can you imagine that?

[Janne]

Neal, I hope you paid less than the asking price in the Maidenhead Aquatics branch I went to today. They had a wildcaught pair, and they wanted £4500 for them ... That is A LOT of money...

Neal's nice leopoldi is what they call "eclipse" (first pic) and a "diamond"... they are a little more expensive then other less marked leopoldi, the price vary depending on the pattern in almost all stingrays.

Keeping Adult wild Heckels with adult Rays was purely hypothetical but do you really feel the Rays would eat the Discus?

I understood that you ment hypothetical but I could not resist, yes adult stingrays like P. leopoldi 50-60 cm (20-24 inches) has no problem to catch and eat adult Discus... if you not fill the pool with lots of driftwood.

Janne

[Lloydy]

Neal, I hope you paid less than the asking price in the Maidenhead Aquatics branch I went to today. They had a wildcaught pair, and they wanted £4500 for them ... That is A LOT of money...

--
Mats

Wow that's a huge amount of money. Which MA did you go to?

[MatsP]

Wow that's a huge amount of money. Which MA did you go to?

The one in Bracknell. And yes, it's enough to buy a pretty good car - not that you could keep a car in your living room...

They did have some nice/unusual fish, but nothing really spectacular.

--
Mats

[Richard B]

Super fish Neil (as always) - best of luck with the breeding - it needs a lot of dedication from a LOT of people to continue the survival of a lot of species.

What is the max disc size for these?

[Phyllonemus]

Very beatiful freshwater stingrays indeed !
What's the scientific name of this specie ?

[MatsP]

Scientific name is Potamotrygon leopoldi

--
Mats

[apistomaster]

Very beatiful freshwater stingrays indeed !
What's the scientific name of this specie ?

Re: your Signature.
Remember this one?

Moving to Montana Soon
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon
Raise 'em up
And wax them down

F. Zappa

[sojapat]

Ok , A few questions answered .
They are Potamotrygon leopaldi var Black Diamond.
These fishes are from upper Xingu river around Sao Felix do Xingu ,
I visited last July to do a recon patrol
They are also on Rio Fresco.
Normal Leopaldi get around 22-26" disc but these seem to be smaller from peoples experiences .
The fish has been available on a quota . There are 5000 pcs to be exported.
The price is a high one , These fishes are mainly going to Asia for breeding farms .
I have installed a 3000 gallon system for the breeding of them .
Although I accept people think the Dams may benefit some species I dont think they will .
So I already have 2 of the species from Tapajos Pearl and P14 .
I have been breeding the pearls for about 3-4 years now .
I accept what people are saying about the dams , but mother nature did not put them there.
They will destroy some species .Unfortunatley not the Human Politician type that rule Brazil from the City.

[apistomaster]

Hi Neil,
I think many predators will thrive in the reservoir. Can't remember if Black piranha inhabit the Xingu system but they seem to be a wide spread species. The top predators often experience large increases in both numbers and average sized behind dams initially but their populations crash once they have eaten their most abundant prey species.
I don't doubt that many species will be driven to the brink of extinction both up and down from the dam. I do think many down stream plecos will hang on but at much reduced numbers.
I don't know the design of the dam but if the major commercial migratory spawning food fish species aren't given sufficient and timely flows and fish ladders that work, then Colossoma and Prochilodus populations will nose dive.
I think the Sting Rays will suffer greatly. It is interesting that 5000 P.leopoldi are permitted to be exported but the Hypancistrus spp. aren't.