New group of 6 Microglanis iheringi... or are they?

[bekateen]

It looks great!

[fishguy1978]

Thanks, I enjoyed watching your videos of all those cats en masse. Look forward to the updates.

[bekateen]

Just for fun...

Watch after edibles: Microglanis bumblebee catfish under red night light

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

That video is really interesting!

I have custom red lights (660nm LEDs) on my tank for nocturnal viewing, but still the single Microglanis I have is absolutely photophobic. I can sometimes catch a brief glimpse of it diving for cover only if I sneak up on the tank and use a flashlight after ALL the lights in the tank and room are out. I might see the fish once every 6 months if I'm lucky.

But here in your video, with them in a large group, they seem to be acting a lot more like perugiae. Still nocturnal, but that's infinitely more outgoing than I'd ever expect given my experience so far. It seems that large groups definitely help!

[bekateen]

Did a check on the fish today. Biggest fish was pushing 70mm SL. Still a bit shocked they haven't spawned yet.

[Jools]

They look in top condition. How do you know they've not spawned?

Jools

[bekateen]

I suppose they could have, but if they did, they've eaten every last fry and egg. Perhaps to that end, a few weeks ago I looked in the tank of the smaller fish and I saw what I believed to be an egg on a spawning mop. I looked again and still saw it. I looked a third time with a flashlight, err, torch, and still saw it. I ran to get my phone and when I returned it was gone. This occurred in daytime, so I doubt any fish swam out to eat it in less than a minute. But I tore that tank apart and never found any egg. Perhaps I mistook a fragment of decaying leaf (with its transparency) for the egg. There are always leaf fragments stuck in the mop and in the past I have mistaken them momentarily for eggs, but upon inspection could see they were not. The bigger mystery is how could I have looked at this with a torch and still mistaken it for an egg?

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Did a check on the fish today. Biggest fish was pushing 70mm SL. Still a bit shocked they haven't spawned yet.

Love those happy little faces

[bekateen]

Today I found what I thought was an egg on a spawning mop. The object looked like an egg, was about the size of an egg (although bigger than what I'd expect from such small fish) and it was attached to the spawning mop like an egg might be. But I discovered the object was essentially a hollow bubble of some hard outer material, and when I released it from the mop, it floated. Perhaps it is some odd contaminant from a recent meal of frozen blood worms? (I had just fed a frozen meal to the fish 30 minutes before). Anyway, it's not a Microglanis egg

Also, I wanted to give better (although not more in focus, since these fish don't stop moving) views of my fish to a few people, so I'll upload them here for easy access.

Cheers, Eric

[Woodh]

Did you ever solve the egg mystery?

[bekateen]

No, other than no fry were fine yet. I suspect it was a plant seed coat.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Found a seller in Iquitos offering "Microglanis poecilus."These are collected somewhere in Peru. They look a lot like M. poecilus, but not exactly the same in my opinion. So I'm referring to them as Microglanis aff_poecilus.

I bought 25, but I think I got a few more. The seller said they gave me extra. My problem is that I need to get them home to the USA. Hopefully all ship well.

More than anything else (other than they DON'T look like some kind of inheringi type, LOL), what I'm digging is the dramatic upper lobe extension on the caudal fin! Every specimen I got has it, to some extent. Beautiful! I wonder if the extent of the trait is sexually dimorphic?

Cheers, Eric

P.S., I hesitated before adding this post to my ongoing thread about Microglanis iheringi and what is/isn't the real thing. I considered starting a new thread entitled, "New group of 30 Microglanis poecilus... or are they?", but I thought better of that.

P.P.S., now I'm up to nearly 90 Microglanis, probably constituting 4 species.

Cheers

[fishguy1978]

Wow, if you don't get some spawning action with those numbers you might need to add some more.

[fishguy1978]

Dan's Fish out of Cheyenne has Pseudomystus heokhuii
If you are interested. I have ordered from him and am pleased with everything he has shipped.
https://www.dansfish.com/product.detail/4104

[bekateen]

Thanks for the info. Someday, yes, but not now. I'm still taking fish from Peru.

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Thanks for the info. Someday, yes, but not now. I'm still taking fish from Peru.

Cheers, Eric

I didn't look these up when I posted so I didn't realize they were the Asian variant of bumblebee catfish.

[bekateen]

I didn't look these up when I posted so I didn't realize they were the Asian variant of bumblebee catfish.

Not a problem. Catfish are kinda like Pokemon... Gotta catch 'em all!

Cheers, Eric

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

I assume you've seen this breeding log which was posted the other day, https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/my ... d=303#1653 ?

[bekateen]

I assume you've seen this breeding log which was posted the other day, https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/my ... d=303#1653 ?

Thanks. I didn't see the blog post, no. But I know this individual and we've been talking since August after her first spawn. She's got it down!

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Not to push overdoing it, but an inspection today of a nearby wholesaler found more of the odd Colombian/Venezuelan Microglanis (still being sold as poecilus) with the pale holes in the subdorsal saddle. 11 in all. They're covered in ich, but I've had good luck treating past Microglanis with NoxIch, so I took the chance and got them.

One fish in particular has a nice pattern (if you ignore the ich).

Sorry for the cruddy photos. These are frame grabs from a video.

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Nice, gl.

[bekateen]

Here's one of the new arrivals sitting still in the relative open... @Shane?

This individual looks a lot like Microglanis sp_Venezuanus.

[bekateen]

All new Microglanis are healing from ich, although some still have a way to go. This individual is one of my favorites in the group. I'm not sure if it's the same fish pictured on the previous page, since I can typically see only one or two fish at the same time, and rarely do they sit still for long in the open.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

Finally getting serious and taking time to catch eggs from these Microglanis. They're egg scatters. Great experiential advice I got from Becca Goldring, who bred them last year (or maybe the year before). She recommended I build a false floor. But instead of a false floor, I'm trying the egg-catching tray. I'm using a kitchen food tray for good transparency and spare parts I have around the house: some knitting canvas and pieces left over from some breeder nets I use.

The blue plugs are surplused from the Imagitarium fry/net baskets I like to use (a fry basket is also shown in the photo for reference). The plugs are intended to anchor the transparent plastic tubes holding the suction cup braces on the fry basket, but I've found in the past these plugs often fail and fall out, allowing the fry basket to dislodge from the wall and fry escape. So I used a hot metal rod to heat-expand the plastic tubes on this fry basket (you can see their melted ends in the photos). This way, I didn't need to use the blue plugs and it allowed me to repurpose the blue plugs on the new egg catcher. I thought the plugs were better than zip ties for this purpose because I want to be able to remove the black knitting canvas to recover the eggs after a spawn. This is the first time I've made anything like this, so it's definitely experimental. Let's find out if (a) it works, and (b) it holds up over time (without the plugs failing here).

Also, related to taxonomy, today I finally got around to separating true Microglanis iheringi from the various similar fish which are in the hobby; for now I left those lumped together as Microglanis aff_iheringi. I added information on collecting data and slight coloration differences, and I did my best effort to divide the images into three "variants" (plus albino as another variant). The three colored variants are:

1. Variant 1: The large (up to 7 cm SL) fish with a relatively clean yellow-pink base color. This fish typically has a solid-colored posteroventral-slanting V-shaped subdorsal saddle.
2. Variant 2: The medium (about 5-6 cm SL) fish with a solid saddle and wood grain or mottled base color. This fish tends to have an almost symmetrical U-shaped subdorsal saddle, pointing down (no posterior slant).
3. Variant 3: The smaller fish (about 4 cm SL) with a conspicuous pale spot in the middle of the subdorsal saddle and the posterior margin of the saddle has a triangular shape, pointing backwards towards the tail. The saddle and its pale spot (in my specimens and in at least one published photo) are interrupted by a dark-pigmented broken line (the lateral line?) cutting horizontally through the saddle and spot. As discussed previously in this thread (HERE and HERE, where I was trying to associate all these forms with known species), the subdorsal saddle of this fish somewhat resembles that of Microglanis zonatus (a species of which I've never seen a live or good preserved image; I'm basing this statement on the original drawing of M. zonatus).

For almost two years, I haven't heard from the biologist who's describing these iheringi-like fish, but I hope he's making progress on his manuscript.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

I'm also building an identical setup to put in the tank with our Microglanis aff_poecilus from the Rio Nanay.

[fishguy1978]

Looks good. Love diy projects.