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I purchased a group of these fish from Ted Judy at the recent Catfish Cataclysm in Wisconsin last month. Unfortunately I lost 3 the first couple days, but the remaining have settled in nicely (seven total). According to Ted, these were Hypoptopoma gulare, originating from Peru. First, I wanted to ask if everyone agrees with this ID.

After a quarantine, I've moved them to my 32-gal cube planted tank, which they share with some aeneus-type Cories and a few random tetras. Much to my liking, in the first week in this tank, they meticulously cleaned every single speck of algae from the tank, including the blackish fluffy algae growing on the Anubias leaves. I was a little concerned that after this, they might not be getting enough to eat. However, I've been adding a good portion of Spirulina flakes, and Repashy gel-food, and I'm continuing to see their long ropey bowel movements, so they must be doing alright. At Ted's suggestion, I'm mixing Repashy Morning Wood with Soylent Green 50/50. They seem to spend a lot of time on the side of the sponge filter, so I'm guessing they're feeding on the film of food particles that's sticking to the filter. Does anyone else have any dietary suggestions?

The only person I've found who has bred these is Rachel O'Leary, who just had them in a planted tank & wasn't actively trying to breed them. She said they spawned on an Anubias leaf. Does anyone else have any useful insight? Is there any known way to distinguish males from females? Thanks much.

On another thread, someone was trying to feed some fussy herbivore (sturisoma?); they had success with nori, or dried seaweed used for sushi. You may be able to find it at the supermarket.

Red bell peppers (preferably organic) are a favourite with mine.

P.S. Do you think yours could be the same species as mine too?

http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... e_id=19818

Hi,

Cheep-Cheep wrote:According to Ted, these were Hypoptopoma gulare, originating from Peru. First, I wanted to ask if everyone agrees with this ID.

unfortunately the origin Peru doesn't limit the options very much, more than half of the Hypoptopoma species can also be found there. The pattern of the caudal fin doesn't really look like H. gulare afaik. Your species also looks quite (too?) slender, possibly only due to the angle of the pic.

What is the size of the species ?
Do you have or can you make pictures exactly from the side, top and bottom ?
Like this one:


Cheers,

Mol_PMB wrote:P.S. Do you think yours could be the same species as mine too?

Hypoptopoma cf_guianense

Yes, with a cursory glance, it does look very similar to mine! Did you get yours this year as well? Perhaps they all originated from the same importation. Thanks for the input.

I've had mine for about a year - I'm in the UK. They did come from Peru though, as I asked the shop when we were trying to work out which species they were.
Thread here:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 13&t=41414

It's possible they are actually an Oxyropsis rather than a Hypoptopoma, but for the moment we're going with the ID. The pics of the fish on the red pepper on the species profile are my fish, which appear the same species as the other photos on that page.

Hi both,

this is certainly also an option.

However, I tend to believe that this slender hypoptomatine catfish is is an Oxyropsis rather than Hypoptopoma.
Do you have a sharp picture of the dorsal fin insertion (nuchal plate), this is one of the decisive characters to distinguish the two genera.
The second one is the shape of the caudal peduncle, in Hypoptopoma it's ovoid in cross section and laterally depressed.
In Oxyropsis it's kind of flattened on top and bottom having a bigger width than height. This should be compared just after the anal fin.

Cheers,

kamas88 wrote:What is the size of the species ?
Do you have or can you make pictures exactly from the side, top and bottom ?

After a few days of watching them closely, and trying to sneak up on them with the camera without spooking them, I managed to capture the following photos of the three views you requested. Note that these are not photos of the same individual fish, but the ones from the group that best presented themselves. They range in size from 2.5" to 3"

Hi,

Cheep-Cheep wrote:...these were Hypoptopoma gulare, originating from Peru.

I think we can exclude now this species.
This is a much stockier species with a shorter caudal peduncle and slightly concave snout profile.

I think also that it's different than the species called here , which looks to me more like an Oxyropsis species.
Your species is IMHO a Hypoptopoma species but I'm unable to tell which one. It seems that all described species don't match (for Oxyropsis species even less).
With a size of 2,5-3" I would expect that the body proportions will not change any more significantly.

Hypoptopoma psilogaster is kind of similar, but it has one has a longer caudal peduncle and caudal fin pattern is different.
Perhaps it's an undescribed species.

Cheers,
Karsten