Featherfins in a community tank

[Kayla99]

Hello,

I am new to this forum, but not new to fish keeping. Have had been in the hobby for about 3 years now. I currently have two tanks. One is a 3ft (a little bigger and a lot wider than most 3ft tanks) and has 7 baby angelfish, 2 clown loaches, 1 featherfin catfish, 1 female betta and 1 albino female bristlenose. (I plan on upgrading my tank in a year and when my angels get a bit bigger, will put some in my other tank. All fish except for betta and bristlnose are all babies.)

My question is; I have a friend who is shutting down his tank and offered me his featherfin cat. I have read that they are electric fish and that they use electric signals to navigate food ect but if I have two when they interact using these signals will it stress out my other fish too much and is it better to just keep one?

P.s My featherfin that I have now is currently a smidge bigger than my fully grown female BN.


Kind Regards,
Kayla

[naturalart]

So when you say "featherfin" I'm assuming you are referring to the Genus Synodontis, correct? If this is the case, then it is true that featherfins do have an electrical field around them, but that is just due to the fact that they are alive (as with all living things). But, to my knowledge I have never heard of a syno using electrical signals to procure food (would love to hear of any info to the contrary). Better to think about their whiskers, which do a vast majority of their food detecting and navigation for that matter. I don't think you have much to worry about on the 'electrical' issue.
What I would worry about is what species of 'Syno' do you own, and will be getting from your friend? This is more important. The genus Synodontis is a big group and behavior is wide in range. Some peaceful, others not at all. I strongly recommend you do more research: check out the Cat-elog. And maybe post some pics of your fish, that will get more reactions. Welcome! and Good luck!

[pleconut]

If the fish you have now is actually a featherfin, link below to info page,

Synodontis eupterus

, and the one you are possibly getting is also. The two featherfins are together very potentially very active fish, my two although they did rest together in the same hidout, the majority of the time chased each other around and were very active, fish with these behaviour traits are ok around other active fish and with fish that can handle the boisterous nature, the angelfish may get stressed by this, one featherfin is likely to be more chilled out than 2 kept together in my experiences of these. Also they get to a large size. But as mentioned already above there is many species of synodontis, some are not so active in nature. Maybe some pics for an ID, then you can make a better informed decision.

[Kayla99]

Okay. Thank you all for the replies, this helps me a lot. I will put some picks up within next few days for verification on ID.