seeking Synodontis aterrimus info

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 22 May 2003, 13:40

Hi,
I saw a couple of these cats in a lfs near me and I was wondering if they are an "easy" catfish to keep. I had a look in the cat-a-log but all that was in there was a couple of pictures. Would they mix well with south american catfish, primarily dorads?
I'd appreciate any advice/info on these guys, they look pretty cute.

thanks in advance.

Post by **Silurus** » 22 May 2003, 13:48

Are you sure those aren't S. eupterus? Young S. eupterus have a reticulate pattern that looks somewhat similar.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 22 May 2003, 13:53

Maybe they were S. eupterus, I don't have al that much experience with catfish yet and S. aterrimus was the name given at the lfs. All the owner of the store could tell me about them was that they might possibly grow to about 10 cm.

Post by **Silurus** » 22 May 2003, 14:02

If they look like the pics of S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog, I'd say they are most likely juvenile S. eupterus (which is what the pics labelled as S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog are), which grows to about 20cm.

DeLBoD · Post by **DeLBoD** » 22 May 2003, 14:11

I think the only real way to tell is when they get to about 2-3 inches in size they will have started losing the network patern and the dorsal fin will start to get a lot taller.

There are several other Synos that look like that at a young age.

SynoPetri · Post by **SynoPetri** » 22 May 2003, 19:22

Andy, maybe you can get some pics of them?

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 22 May 2003, 21:38

I might be able to borrow my brother's camera but i wouldn't get my hopes up on getting a decent picture of them.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 23 May 2003, 15:28

I had another look at the catfish in the lfs and my earlier thoughts were a bit of I think, the catfish labelled as S. aterrimus actually look exactly like the juvenile S. eupterus in the cat-a-log. The lfs employees are totally sure that they are S. aterrimus though. They've even claimed that the S. eupterus that they do have won't grow past 10 cm. I'm not quite sure what to believe. One of the employees there seem to be a catfish fanatic as he orders quite a lot of catfish as opposed to the other lfs in town but he's the one who told me how big (small) their S. eupterus grows to.

SynoPetri · Post by **SynoPetri** » 23 May 2003, 19:00

I would say that you should belive Silurus.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 23 May 2003, 19:23

shall do so

thanks

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 24 May 2003, 12:22

Silurus wrote:If they look like the pics of S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog, I'd say they are most likely juvenile S. eupterus (which is what the pics labelled as S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog are), which grows to about 20cm.

I've been meaning to weigh in on this one for a while but I have some seen some adult fish (around 10-12 cm) which have the same marking and shape as S. atterimus. They have not changed to spots as would happen in S. eupterus. The owner of these fish Andy is mostly offline and accesses the forum from a local library. A friend in a local lfs (also Andy) has taken some pictures of them bit I am waiting on them being emailed to me.

Jools

ggdhazel · Post by **ggdhazel** » 25 May 2003, 07:43

I'll have to borrow my mother's digital camera and get a pic of mine. Mine was sent to me by a distributor as an angelicus. He lacks any spots at all and has the same pattern as the ones shown in the cat-e-log. He is about 6-8 cm now and still maintains the pattern and his dorsal is much larger than any of my other angelicus. If he is an angelicus hes missing all his spots but his pattern is really cool. I'll see if I can get a picture up this weekend.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » 27 May 2003, 21:51

I couldn't get a picture of the fishies, by the time I got ahold of a camera someone bought the lot of them.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 08 Nov 2003, 12:27

Jools wrote:
Silurus wrote:If they look like the pics of S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog, I'd say they are most likely juvenile S. eupterus (which is what the pics labelled as S. aterrimus in the Cat-eLog are), which grows to about 20cm.
I've been meaning to weigh in on this one for a while but I have some seen some adult fish (around 10-12 cm) which have the same marking and shape as S. atterimus. They have not changed to spots as would happen in S. eupterus. The owner of these fish Andy is mostly offline and accesses the forum from a local library. A friend in a local <acronym title="Local Fish Store">LFS</acronym> (also Andy) has taken some pictures of them bit I am waiting on them being emailed to me.

Jools

These are now online here - http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/mo ... 1121_f.php .

Jools

Post by **Dinyar** » 09 Nov 2003, 14:04

Yup, I think Jools is right. We bought a fish that looked just like this fish because it was labeled as "S.ornatipinnis", and I was afraid that if we didn't "snap it up" it might be gone. Even then, I really had my doubts about the purported ID. A week later we received the Cat Chat issue where this fish is "exposed". Fortunately, we were able to return the fish.

Dinyar

in Japan

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 13 Nov 2003, 18:41

Mine also was sold as S. ornatipinnis. I didn't think it was, but I bought it anyway.