PlanetCatfish.com

wasnt sure where topst this so ijust posted it hear. it there any small catfish that can live with upside down cats bns corys liveberas tetras and female bettas and go in a 30g that look like catfish like a pictus sort of things with the big mouth and long feallers that look like a propper catfish like the once you catch in lakes but alot smaller. insted of just the normale things like corys and synos.

well this should have been posted in the (South american other) section, but I would suggest . or the south american bumblebee catfish. They aren't as active as the pictus you referred to, but the pictus needs a group and your tank does not seem large enough to sustain a group of them. What about .. they should fit in well with your tank, and are relatively inactive all day.

If you want to keep an actual fish taht you can find in local lakes, look at the madtom sp. . This is a great little fish, and fits the activity and shape. If you are able to find these, I would highly recommend them! Mine are amongst my favorite fish.

my lfs has some bumbleebee catfish might have to look at them and its not so much a catfish from a river i want i was just meaning i wanted somethink that really looked like a catfish not like a plec or cory i want like a redtail or wels catfish sort of shaped fish but oviously alot smaller.

So something from would be the choice for you.

The most common small species from this group is .

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Mats

dont pictus get to big though?

There might still be some in shops around the UK if you can find them, plus some of the brachyrhamdia species

nah im not that keen on them.

is there any type of whiptail catfish that could go in there? or banjo catfish?

kizno1 wrote:dont pictus get to big though?

Not very, about 6" max size. They are best to keep in a group of 5 or more.

Of course, they are not great with small tetras such as neons. They will get eaten, as will any live-bearer fry. Banjo cats will probably also eat tiny fry - I'm pretty sure neon's would be safe enough tho'.

Whiptails cover a lot of different fish, such as , and another half a dozen genera in the Loricarinae subfamily. Some of those would be great, others need a bigger tank.

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Mats

i dont think i have the room or money for 5 there £10 each so thats £50 and my tanks almost fully stocked.
im not bothereed about the molly and platy fry they get eaten anyway and i have glowlight tetras. what banjo and whiptail catfish do you think would work best and easy to get?

Banjo: Most of them aren't that big, so should be fine with just about any in the family of would be fine - of course, the choices you find in your local shop is probably fairly small.

Whiptails: Any , and smaller . Unfortunately, the latter are almost always incorrectly identified (or not identified) in the shops, so it's a little bit of a gamble to "see what it turns into" unless they are really big and mature.

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Mats

I think the perfect fish for your tank would be the Pitbull Pleco/Parotocinclus Jumbo. They stay small, are active at all times of day (after they acclimate to the tank). They are also the best algea eaters I've ever seen. They'll even clean the algea off the live plants without damaging the plants. I have not seen any indication that they are territorial with each other, or with the albino cories I have in the tank with them (in fact they school together as if they were conspecific).

Kinzo, can you make that very annoying banner smaller or (better!) absent?

didn't even know it was allowed to put those on the forum, but it's quite a bit larger than the modest sized avatars and it's highly distracting.

its gone

i got 2 more upside down catfish and a banjo catfish today the banjo when stright under the sand but the upside down cats are buzzing around the tank.

Yes, it's highly likely that you only rarely see the banjo cats. If I wasn't going out to the fishroom after lights out every now and again, I probably wouldn't see mine more than once a month.

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Mats

im not to bothered if i dont see him that often aslong as i see him every now and again i can see where hes burried though his head and tail are just sticking out.
would synodontis petricola be ok with my fish? because i saw some today they where 3" and only £3.99.

kizno1 wrote:im not to bothered if i dont see him that often aslong as i see him every now and again i can see where hes burried though his head and tail are just sticking out.
would synodontis petricola be ok with my fish? because i saw some today they where 3" and only £3.99.

Despite what the label said, they won't be petricola for only 3.99 - even if they were lucipinnis (which are still called petricola in many retailers) they are great value at that price - they are potential hybrids i feel & a picture would help us say for certain. Without knowing exactly what it is, it's hard to say how big it'll get & how it'll behave

my camra broke so i would only be able to get a pic on my phone which i dout you will be able to identify it with.
looking at the pics of them they looked more like Synodontis lucipinnis because it only had a few big dots rather than smaller dots like the petricola.

That's still a great price for Lucipinnis though

Ideally these need alkaline water although they will adapt to a neutral pH. With this in mind, water conditions need close monitoring to ensure there is no nitrate build up & the pH doesn't start to slip into acidic conditions. These are a incerdibly rewarding species but i'd suggest that you'd be better off sticking with South American species which share the requirements of species you have already

ok
there was quite a few diffrent synos and this new place i went to so ill have a look at some diffrent once and see if thers a better on to go with them. the banjo catfish has actually been really active ive only seen him burried once and that was for the first 10mins apart from that hes been swimming along them bottom.

I'm just chiming in to say that this is an interesting discussion. I was just in the process of selecting a small cat to keep in a group in a 40-gallon tank. I settled with Synodontis petricola.

I need to try to remember this thread. Looking around this site has really got me interested in keeping catfish. I don't have much room for the big ones though.