Anyone for unusual west African cats?

Post by **Silurus** » 22 Jan 2003, 04:48

Dinyar and I are trying to persuade an exporter we know to bring in more unusual west African cats. He has not been bringing that many in because of a lack of demand. Dinyar and I are trying to get an idea of how many of you out there (sorry, US only) would be interested. If the demand is large enough, then this strngthens our case, and we will try to persuade him with some statistics.
You can email or pm either Dinyar or me if interested.
Here's a sampling of what may be potentially available:

Microsynodontis spp.
west African Synodontis spp.
Phractura spp.
west African claroteids
Chiloglanis spp.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 22 Jan 2003, 13:07

Tell him to ditch the Phractura (almost impossible to keep alive on anything else than pure rainwater; no tankmates!) and ship Amphilius; these are SO common in W Africa, people ignore them wholesale....
And they are GREAT!
Though, peaceful, active, good looking, non-fussy, long lived, you name it.
Only downfall is they're a bit shy.
Too bad it's only US
again!

Heok Hee, keep me posted on W African rarities; it's sort of a fetisj, and if the importer here hadn't quit his job, I would still have my W African biotope, but without him, it was impossible to get anything remotely interesting, and I switched to Tanganyika afterwards....

Mind you, he's got a great job now, catching live fish for a living, somewhere deep in the Amazonian forest in Brazil.

Post by **Silurus** » 22 Jan 2003, 13:54

Hey SG,

I ordered Microsynodontis, Anaspidoglanis and Chiloglanis aff. disneyi (apparently an undescribed species) from this exporter before....great prices and fish were of superb quality.
I especially liked the Chiloglanis as I had a pair (this species exhibited sexual dimorphism, with the males having a very elongate upper lobe of the caudal fin). They were doing very well for a few months, grazing on algae and getting fat on brine shrimp and bloodworms.
Unfortunately, I had to leave for a three-week vacation back home and couldn't find anybody to take good care of them (I had somebody feed the fish, but he didn't know anything about the special needs of the Chiloglanis). When I came home, they were no longer in the tank

Been looking for replacements since.
Will keep you updated. Wish you were in the US as well...I'd know you'd sign up in a jiffy.

Post by **Dinyar** » 22 Jan 2003, 14:56

SG_Eurystomus wrote:Tell him to ditch the Phractura (almost impossible to keep alive on anything else than pure rainwater; no tankmates!) and ship Amphilius; these are SO common in W Africa, people ignore them wholesale....
And they are GREAT!
Though, peaceful, active, good looking, non-fussy, long lived, you name it.
Only downfall is they're a bit shy.

SG (BTW, is there a more friendly name we can use for you?

)

I would be curious to hear more about your experience with Practura and Amphilius. Lots of Practura come from Cameroon, where this exporter sources most of his fish from. Baensch implies that Phractura is not especially difficult to keep (but that's Baensch, often wrong or misleading). The one other person I know who tried to keep Phractura also failed to keep them alive for long. What kind of tank conditions did you keep them under?

Likewise for the Amphilius.

Have you ever seen Belonoglanis, Leptoglanis or Zaireichthys for sale or kept them yourself? (I have not so much as seen them.)

BTW, I was wrong in my reply to a previous post of yours. A Leptoglanis species, L. cf. rotundiceps, apparently is found in Lake Malawi itself. My apologies for the unresearched response!:oops:

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 22 Jan 2003, 16:39

Dinyar,
I saw another exporter offer Leptoglanis for sale once. Unfortunately, they were all sold out by the time I was made aware of it.
I tried getting him to order the cats again, but never got a reply from him.

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 23 Jan 2003, 11:31

Dinyar wrote:Have you ever seen Belonoglanis, Leptoglanis or Zaireichthys for sale or kept them yourself? (I have not so much as seen them.)

We see Belonoglanis in the UK every so often, but they usually arrive like a pile of 'jackstraws' and about as much use. Shame.
Pete

Post by **Dinyar** » 23 Jan 2003, 16:12

Sorry, Pete, I'm not sure I understand your post. "Jackstraws" are pick-up sticks (like long tooth picks), right? Are you saying they are shipped poorly and arrive dead?

Dinyar

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 23 Jan 2003, 16:42

Dinyar wrote:Are you saying they are shipped poorly and arrive dead?Dinyar

That was the general impression I was trying to put forwards

They come in mixed in with Phractura which usually outlive them by a whole 24 hours.

Post by **Dinyar** » 23 Jan 2003, 16:58

Pete,

So d'you think this is is avoidable given better packing and shipping or inevitable given these fishes' biology (presumaby requires high DO, etc.)?

Dinyar

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 24 Jan 2003, 12:36

I've kept a few Phractura's (or Belonoglanis?? back then they sort of looked the same to me, uh; they still do...). They just lay on the sand until they died. I never saw them take any food, although a variety was offered. They shared their tank with the Amphilius, Mochokiella, Betta bellica, Poecilia sp and a few small loaches. Not too bad company I think.
Waterparameters (sort of; I change water 1/3 a week, but I rarely test!):
T 22-25'C
pH 7-7,5
DH 8-10
KH 5-7
There were probably nitrates in there too, but I don't know how much.
Bottom was fine sand, bogwood, live plants (Vallisneria, Cryptocoryne wendti de wit, C ponterifolia, C affinis, Anubias nana and Hornworth mixed with duckweed on the surface.
Pump: 300 Liters/hour
Tanksize: 128 Liters (80x40x40 cm)
My 3 Amphilus live in that same tank, the 5 Mochokiella's and 5 Poecilia's too. Other inhabitants at the moment:
3 Horsehead loaches (Acanthopsis choirorynchus)
3 small Clownloaches (Botia macracantha)
1 African riverine dwarf spiny eel (Caecomastacembelus cryptacanthus)
4 "Giant orangebanded Tiger Pleco's" Panaquolus LDA01's (or they were until recently?)
Most plants are eaten by the LDA's, but Crypto's survive.
Waterparameters are about the same, but recently I'm having trouble with the filter (often cloggs because of "bogwoodfaeces"

), so I'm thinking about relocating the LDA's.
I bought those Amphilius back in 1996 or so, at the same time as the Belonoglanis/Phractura's. In the first two years I lost two, but the other three do fine until now. They're 1 male (the big one) and two females (they're much smaller). I found that out, because when gravid the eggs are fairly visible through the transparant skin of the belly. No difference on coloration or finnage; the male is just 1/3 bigger.
They spawned about 9 months ago! but I didn't found any eggs; there was a LOT of chasing going on for days at the time, and one day, the females were very thin and obviously lost their eggs. What triggered it, I don't know.
But when I got them, they were small, about the size of a large zebrabarb. They doubled their size since then. Slow growers! At least one of the deceised fish was a male too, the other lost one was tiny.
some more info:
They were all imported by Tropifish, wich had contacts in Africa (unfortunately the guy running that place quit), the fish were imported from Nigeria/Ghana etc. He -the guy- almost never imported fish like that because -although he liked rare fish, especially catfish- those fish arrived always in a very bad condition/dead/dying etc. Those Amphilius were part of a shipment he took with him, when he returned from a trip himself! it was next to impossible to order them shipped....They're simply not on the lists or so.
The only two other Amphiliusspecies I ever saw alive were a big 6"spotted species, that looked like weather loaches with Amphilius-heads, and a 3-4" species with long chocolate colored stripes, that were part of the shipment containing mine (A rheophilus).
ALL these were imported by the same person (Ton Kooymans).

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 12:53

Interesting. Sounds like the fish might actually make it with improved packaging. I've noticed that this makes a great deal of difference as to whether or not the fish arrive healthy.
But then, it is difficult to carry out, plus it might not make economical sense to ship in fewer healthy catfish that have a limited market.

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 24 Jan 2003, 13:42

Silurus wrote:Interesting. Sounds like the fish might actually make it with improved packaging

I'm pretty sure that it should be possible to ship them far more successfully given better care along the line. I think they do not tolerate low oxygen or other poor water conditions well, they are unable to last long periods without suitable food, and due to their low unit cost they may not always receive optimal care on arrival.
The final straw is probbaly finding themselves in a brightly-lit, bare stock tank with boisterous fish and only getting a visit from a bucket of flake food once a day.
Pete

Post by **Dinyar** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:03

FWIW, I always heard that Chiloglanis were extremely difficult fish to ship and keep. The first two times I found and bought them, I managed to kill them off within a couple of days, but on the third occasion, they not only did fine shipped in a bag for 36 hours but have been going like gangbusters in my tank now that I have finally found an approach that works.

Nothing complicated about the approach, really. Clean water, fast current and FD blooodworms. Having enough other fish in the tank to keep excess food from accummulating seems to help also. The mistakes I made in the past were to thnk that they are (1) primarily algae eaters (this is what all the limited number of sources I've seen on Chiloglanis claim, but in my experience, they seem to be primarily insectivores) and (2) so delicate that they would do better in a small species tank. In fact, they seem pretty robust and extremely active, given the appropriate environment.

To return to the topic of the immediately preceding posts by Pete and heok Hee, supposedly "hard" fish can be "easy" given the right (not necessarily complicated) care.

Dinyar

Post by **Silurus** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:09

Well, FWIW I kept my Chiloglanis in a very crowded 10-gallon tank, that had among other tank mates, relatively boisterous fish such as Brachyrhamdia, Microglanis and Chaetostoma, and they were doing splendidly well.
I had to pamper them a bit to prevent greedy tankamtes from eating all the food (such as frequently hand feeding them by placing a dropper of frozen bloodworms/brineshrimp right in front of their snouts and letting them eat the bloodworms/brineshrimp as they gradually ooze out of the dropper, while fending off greedy tankmates with my other hand), but they seemed to be doing equally well on days that I was lazy and just spread food all around the tank.

Post by **Dinyar** » 24 Jan 2003, 14:29

I broke biotope and put my Chiloglanis in with S. American fish: Leporoacanthicus joselimai, L 241 (Venezuelan L. cf. galaxias), H. zebra, Scobiancistrus aureatus, a snowball type X-ancistrus that I haven't bothered to identify further, Cory duplicareus and sterbai, Bunocepahlus verrucosus and a Pimelodus ornatus.

The Chiloglanis are small fish, so they don't need a whole lot of food to thrive. It helps that three of my four (the smaller ones) all hang out where the current hits the front pane of the tank, so if I release the FD bloodworms into the current, the current blows the worms directly into the gullets of the Chilos. Interestingly, the fourth Chilo (same species for sure, but 30% bigger, seemingly a mature adult) is more reclussive, hangs out on the gravel in the back of the tank during the day but dominates the front pane after dark. His belly seems to be the fullest of all four, so his strategy must work too.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 24 Jan 2003, 18:17

This is one neat trick; I've encountered Chiloglanis twice, but they died on me after two days.
Now I know at least ONE trick, the next time.
And, yes, I believed they were algae-eaters too. I thought they died on too llittle algae, too little oxygen and too much nitrates....