PlanetCatfish.com

Three years ago I found 5 t. fulvidraco at a LFS and bought them all as they rarely show up here. I ended up with 2 large males @ 13" and 3 of the smaller females @ 7". Some were kept in a heated tank, the others in an unheated one. Great community fish by the way, getting along well with other catfish species and a carp or two. Last October I offered 1 male and 2 females for sale and sold them to a gentleman who wanted them for his unheated pond here in So. Calif. I just got word that they all survived the colder than usual winter here. I didn't get specifics but the nightime air temps got down to 32 degrees and typically water temps will get down to the high 40's F if not lower in backyard ponds. Nice to know that there are alternatives to just channel cats and bullheads for pond species...

Nice bit of info.

Did he need a permit to put it in the outside pond where it can get away (with or without help from some other creatures, like birds)?

Can anybody else share their 1st-hand experience on these fish?

In California there are no permits required to keep any fish in a pond that I know of. In this case it could only escape to the wilds of suburbia. As with keeping any pond fish, there's always the danger of predation by egrets and herons....

I've kept these in unheated tanks indoors in the UK without problem.

Easy to keep and no real concerns. The larger specimens don't tend to be as well marked as some of the little ones but pattern fading with age is nothing new with cats...