PlanetCatfish.com

Hi!

As my interest for the Mochokidae familly grow more and more each day... (hey I can see how much challenges this familly procure...)

A friend of mine managed to get his hand on 5 for 25 euros a piece which is fairly good price. they are between 6-8cm in lenghth

I read the CotM about the species, one remark caught my eyes, the given size in the description said up to 20cm but the specimens seen in the trade are rarely over 8cm...

Do they grow more to these 8 little cm, I guess they are slow grower but at wat point??

Cheers
Yann

The very largest I have seen them was around 12cm. They were new imports and were unfortunately a bit out of my price range at the time.

And yes, they are either extremely slow growers OR we as hobbiests haven't provided the proper conditions to stimulate growth in them.

I had one that was known to be over 20 years old (I kept it for seven of these), it was only 8-9cm long!

20 cm sounds wrong to me too. I haven't seen any over about 10 cm, maybe max 12 cm as Paul reports.

the given size in the description said up to 20cm

Where did you read that? I couldn't find it.

The difference comes using SL or TL. The largest recorded for this species is 15.3 cm SL (19.5 cm TL), but that's probably an extremely rare size.

FWIW, the holotype is 13.8 cm TL, 10.8 cm SL.

The one's I saw (in Buffalo, NY BTW) were up to about 12cm S.L. Close to 15cm Total.

I'll second that.

i had a pair years ago; it's one of the shyest Syno's around; extremely nocturnal.

they were about 10-11 cm or so, and in all the time I had them they grew about 1 cm each....
in old books they're supposed to reach 20 cm, but I never saw anything like that either.
i've seen shipments of adults arriving fresh on import and the biggest looked an impressive 13-14 cm, but then every fish looks quite big when in a white bucket or a styrofoam flightbox!

I have not seen large flavs in a number of years. In the past I have seen them at 15cm or a little larger.

Mark

Silurus wrote:

the given size in the description said up to 20cm

Where did you read that? I couldn't find it.

The difference comes using SL or TL. The largest recorded for this species is 15.3 cm SL (19.5 cm TL), but that's probably an extremely rare size.

FWIW, the holotype is 13.8 cm TL, 10.8 cm SL.

Thanks for clearing that, the descrption I was talking about was the CotM article, not the scientific one, I should have use another word sorry for the confusion...

I saw them on a french shop's site along with some other cool Syno: here to have a look!!

Cheers
Yann

Actually, I got you the first time.

My point is that I went through the CoTM article, and nowhere is there mentioned that it will reach 20 cm.

Or have I missed something?

Hi HH!

Yeap the 155mm SL mention in the article, made it close to 20cm TL as you said it...
Also I have check it in several books, 20cm is also a given size...

Cheers
Yann