PlanetCatfish.com

From the Cat-E Log entry for this fish:
(*Breeding: A mouthbrooder, the few, amazingly large eggs are incubated by the male. This feat has yet to be replicated in the aquarium not least because the animal has a down river migratory pattern, difficult to emulate in the aquarium which would have to be spacious in the first place.)

This is actually incorrect, these fish have been spawned in the aquarium. A pair was spawned in about 1996-'97 timeframe in a 75 gallon tank. The Iowa Aquarist who accomplished this task gradually shifted the water chemistry from fully Marine to Fresh and back over a twelve month period of time.
She actually interrupted a conversation Ginny Eckstein and I were having at a Minnesota AS fish show to ask " How long is the incubation period for an Ariidae catfish. I have a male holding for the past 10 days". Needless to say, we dropped whatever it was that we were talking about at the time.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch her name (Ginny did) and do not know if it was documented in any other way. Sure made for an interesting conversation though!

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley

That name Ginny Eckstein rings a bell.....
She the one who bred Mochokiella paynee, perhaps? I know ONE person got away with that, and if my memory's still intact it was a woman....

You are correct, she also used to write a monthly column on Catfishes in Aquarium Fish magazine.

Other than Paul Loiselle's frequent contributions to this magazine, this was the primary reason for subscribing at the time.

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley
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I will update the pages to reflect this information. Although it's not a "how-to" it may inspire the few individuals out there who keep these fish in species tanks to give it a try.

Of course, any more data would be great. Is this person online?

Jools

Jools,
I'll see if I can get any more information together. I doubt the lady is online, but Ginny may be lurking around still.

From our conversation:
- There was one pair of fish (10" male and 11" female) in the tank, they were maintained in a marine tank (as this species should be when >5").
- Tank was a std. 75 gallon. Only one pair of fish in the tank. Coral skeletons were the decorations when marine, driftwood when freshwater.
- Foods varied from pellets to earthworms.
- With each water change, she adding less and less salts until water changes were strictly freshwater.
- As the salinity in the tank fell, the fish then spawned (I don't remember the specific gravity, or even if she tracked it all that closely, BTW; from this you can conclude they migrate upriver to spawn).
- The male fish incubated the eggs. (I thought some years after, Ginny had mentioned 21 days incubation, but I am not clear on this).

It's a very tempting project that I have often contemplated trying to repeat. Other fish just keep taking up the tank space though!

One primary concern would be the slow conversion of the biofilter cultures, too rapid of change in salinity and the bacterial populations would crash.
It shouldn't be to hard to graph out the salts recipe for each waterchange though.

Anyone up for the challenge?

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley

BTW: Jools, s there any way you change the title of this thread to refect the change in topic? (IE: Breeding Ariidae was:(Silver Shark Synodontis))

pturley wrote:BTW: Jools, s there any way you change the title of this thread to refect the change in topic? (IE: Breeding Ariidae was:(Silver Shark Synodontis))

Ask and it is done (as all good moderators would).

Jools