Which Auchenipterids are being kept by PC members?

[Marc van Arc]

I wouldn't mind some C. concolor and sp. Guyana!

Sorry Steve, but they are not available. The only concolor I know (3 specimens) sit at Kruseman's and the only sp. Guyana sit over here. As stated before, I've only seen them once at Blecha (Witten, Germany) and I'm also quite sure very few people besides me bought them.
If I should ever consider giving them up, you'll be the first to know.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the oncoming holiday and I have good hope of taking some fishes back to the Netherlands with me. Specifically small ageneiosids have my interest atm. Tips are welcome and I'll certainly email Neil if he still has some specimens of the A. sp. blue. - despite the fact that they're all males.

[kruseman]

I found this picture on the net.
What species is it?



The blog self calls it: Trachycorystes sp.

[The.Dark.One]

Auchenipteridae sp. Guyana

[The.Dark.One]

Hi Marc

No probs, it was worth a try.

I don't think Neil has any of the slopeheads left but I might be wrong.

He did have some Tatia gyrina.

If you are over here in July there will be some nice T. strigata and dunni for sale ;o)

I could do with some of those damn concolor!

[kruseman]

Ah, the very same as Marc's.

The concolors are very nice and it would be really nice to share them with other enthousiasts like you. But I only have 2 males and 1 female.
Maybe they will spawn one day. Do you think that is a possibility?

[The.Dark.One]

Maybe they will spawn one day. Do you think that is a possibility?

I do yes. Other centromochlines have been spawned by aquarists so can't see why these shouldn't.

Fingers crossed!

[Marc van Arc]

I don't think Neil has any of the slopeheads left but I might be wrong.

He did have some Tatia gyrina. If you are over here in July there will be some nice T. strigata and dunni for sale

As I got rid of one tank - and have only 2 left - I have to refrain from smaller auchenipterids/centromochlins due to a simple lack of room. I must admit however, that strigata is quite tempting.....

I emailed Neil and he was rather optimistic wrt auchenipterids/ageneiosids for the end of July/beginning of August. Which surprised me really, as it is not really the season for S-A imports. He has so far not responded to my Q if he could add a name to the species he expected. Perhaps he'll do so shortly, if not he'll have some surprises in store for me -).
The A. sp. blue were indeed sold out, yet he said he was able to obtain them, so should work out nicely.

[kruseman]

Since I hadn't seen the female C. concolor for some time I decided to check the entire aquarium including all the crevaces of the bogwood, the floor and cupboard and the internal filter painstakingly.
Result: 2 males ones but no female
Not even a skeleton or what so ever.

This is a sad day.

[The.Dark.One]

This is a sad day.

Sure is my friend. Let's hope some more turn up one day

[Marc van Arc]

Since I hadn't seen the female C. concolor for some time I decided to check the entire aquarium including all the crevaces of the bogwood, the floor and cupboard and the internal filter painstakingly.
Result: 2 males ones but no female
Not even a skeleton or what so ever.

I don't want to give you any false hope, but did you check the wood twice or even three times?
For half a year I thought I'd lost one T. taeniatus (at least 4 times as large as a concolor), got literally everything out of the tank, checked the floor, you name it. Nowhere to be found.
But not too long ago it showed up, just like that.
So who knows?

[Marc van Arc]

The 2 Ageneiosus cf. atronasus are definitely very fond of feeder fishes. What an incredible appetite....

[Jools]

The 2 Ageneiosus cf. atronasus are definitely very fond of feeder fishes. What an incredible appetite....

Agreed! The ones I had were trained onto frozen bloodworm and I fed once or twice weekly. They loved sitting in Java fern.

Jools

[Marc van Arc]

Agreed! The ones I had were trained onto frozen bloodworm and I fed once or twice weekly. They loved sitting in Java fern

And thanks for that! I'm always looking for them in the wood piles or in open water, but never thought of these as plant inhabitants -).

Btw: I also give them bloodworm, which they seem to like. But flakes.....not yet, contrary to the spec 3 in the large tank.

[Marc van Arc]

To my regret I have to show you some (poor) pictures of what happens to an Auchenipterus without barbels. They get very skinny and become liable to all kinds of diseases.
Ime they lose their barbels because of their behaviour. They constantly try to "drill" themselves through the glass and thus not only their mouths stay wounded, but also the barbels get no chance to grow back, which in its turn makes them poor feeders, leading to starvation.
The one pictured has been holding on to life for quite some months, but lost it due to an extra burden: a bite wound, probably inflicted by an Ageneiosus yesterday evening. Another of my five specimens is heading in the same direction, yet much quicker. I'm afraid this one won't last very long (maybe another couple of weeks?).
Which brings the group down to 3 specimens, which - if still in good shape - are going to move to Belgium where Bijn is going to keep them under better circumstances, namely in a subtropical setting.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

[Jools]

I thought I would show you a picture of some new South Americans in my fishroom - it was all going very African of late. It is a pair, the larger fish in front is a male. I am hoping the smaller one is a female - it appears to be.

Cheers,

Jools

[The.Dark.One]

dunni are gorgeous. I had two up for sale at the CAS show and auction today but didnt go, reserve was £40 for the pair.

[Marc van Arc]

Another of my four specimens is heading in the same direction, yet much quicker. I'm afraid this one won't last very long (maybe another couple of weeks?).

It's not a good thing that I can predict things like this even without a crystal ball....
Sorry Bijn, only three left.

Hope to cheer up this thread after our holiday in the UK.

[Marc van Arc]

Here are some notes wrt our holiday in the UK (luckily we missed the "anarchy" part). Let me just start off with saying we've had a great time with lovely(!) weather.

I was able to add 2 new auchenipterid species, namely the last 2 Ageneiosus sp "amazonus" and Centromochlus heckelii (which are hopefully a pair). After a long journey that brought them from Wigan via Bathgate to Eindhoven they are now in Tank 1. I'm very pleased with them and hope they'll do fine. Many thanks to Neil from Pier Aquatics for reserving the Ageneiosus!

Also a very big thanks to Jools, Clare and kids for their great company and hospitality. We absolutely enjoyed our stay!

I have to name Mark (CoryWally) here, for he saved our day yesterday. After a (much too) short visit, my wife found out she forgot to take her handbag from Mark's home, which would mean we had to go back for quite a stretch to fetch it. That would imply it was doubtful whether or not we would be able to make it to the ferry in time. After a phone call my daughter made to my wife's cellphone, Mark answered it and told us to our utter relief that he was already in the car to find us. As a matter of fact, he was chasing so hard that he'd already passed us and was thus ahead of us!
So about 15 miles before Hull we were given the handbag by Mark. Again, many, many thanks!!

On arriving home today, I discovered 4 deep frozen fishes. All 3 A. nigripinnis have died (apparently in the first week of our holiday - very sorry Bijn) as well as a male T. exilis (probably of old age).
As if that wasn't enough to scare our neighbours (who look after the fishes when we are away), all Eheims have been causing havoc at some point, most likely because the hoses were jammed. Yesterday evening both Eheims of the large tank stopped working. Luckily they got them working again and I consider myself lucky I didn't get to see the text message about the the problem. That would have been too much for one day....

Today I also found out through 2 different sources that a Dutch wholesaler has A. marmoratus in stock. It's a good thing I'm very tired atm, otherwise I would have done anything to obtain some. If they are still available next week I'll definitely give it a try, but not now.
I must say, however, that it's a bit bitter that they turn up after 30 odd years just when we're away.
On the other hand, you cant have it all plus we've had a fantastic holiday.

[CoryWally]

Hey Marc,
Pleased you got back safely. No problem with the handbag chase along the M62, it was a bit crazy (in an exciting kind of way) but we got it sorted!

Holidays are always a scary time for fishkeepers, I spent most of my 2 week holiday in Spain (got back last week)worrying about my fish, even though my brother-in-law was watching them. I lost my big pair of Callichthys, two big Megalechis picta and all my C113s in one tank - everything else was fine though!

Great to meet you and thanks for bringing the fish down from Jools - all settled in fine.

Cheers,
Mark.

[kruseman]

That is quite a story.

Congrats with you new assets btw. I am looking forward to some pictures of both species.
But first a goodnight's sleep after such a trip.

[Jools]

And to complete the story, Marc comes home to find he is already keeping the newest genus of catfish,

Spinipterus

. But is is S. acsi? Or an undescribed Guyanan member of the genus?

Jools

[Marc van Arc]

Good question, but I'll settle for S. acsi for the time being.

Afaics the new ones are doing fine, but to annoy them even more (after 2 long trips) I've kept one light on in that tank during the night as I didn't trust the

Ageneiosus cf_atronasus

with them. Compared to the newbies this small ageneiosid looks huge all of a sudden and I was too tired to get them out last night.

Btw: how about the length of

Ageneiosus marmoratus

in the Clog. It's at least 10 cms longer than the length FB has. Anyone got any information on that?
Thing is that I will definitely have a go at these if they (just) get to around 20 cms, but when they become 30+ I'll give it a miss.

[sidguppy]

Marc, I just had news, but the guy who went into Ruijnemans hasn't loked at the catfishes

he couldn't say anything about their size, unfortunately.

[The.Dark.One]

And to complete the story, Marc comes home to find he is already keeping the newest genus of catfish,

Spinipterus

. But is is S. acsi? Or an undescribed Guyanan member of the genus?

Jools

Although they obviously can't be 100% sure both Carl Ferraris and Luisa Sarmento-Soares consider S. acsi to represent the (few) specimens in the trade and that they are present in Brazilian Amazon as well as Peruvian. As mentioned in the S. acsi thread I personally think the Guyana locality is doubtful for these fish. I know that a Peruvian exporter was exporting these fish around the time they showed up in Europe (I got 4).

[Jools]

I'd tend to agree. No disrespect to this catfish or its keepers, but if I was going to be exporting fishes from Guyana, I wouldn't start with this one! And/or it's a misspelling of a word like Guarana.

Jools

[kruseman]

Marc, I just had news, but the guy who went into Ruijnemans hasn't loked at the catfishes

he couldn't say anything about their size, unfortunately.

I just read he remembered seeing them: Lenght max. 20 cm he writes.

[Marc van Arc]

Marc, I just had news, but the guy who went into Ruijnemans hasn't loked at the catfishes

he couldn't say anything about their size, unfortunately.

I just read he remembered seeing them: Lenght max. 20 cm he writes.

I actually ordered a pair through my very Local FS, but to my regret they turned out to be ill and thus not for sale currently.
It was said that they would instantly be removed from the stock list and would only return once well again, in which case I could re-order them. That puzzles me to a certain extent, because they are still on the list.....

[Marc van Arc]

That puzzles me to a certain extent, because they are still on the list.....

They are off the list now. I hope they will get well soon and if so, I'll give them a go.

[Marc van Arc]

Here's a picture of the unknown Ageneiosus, taken by Jools. Don't be fooled by it; this fish is very small (3-4 cms).

The A. cf. atronasus have been moved to tank 1 to assure they would not accidentally consume the 2 newcomers.
Biggest problem atm is that all 4 fishes (Centromochlus included) don't eat very well. Baby guppies have been added to the tank and all kinds of frozen foods were offered. Hopefully their appetite will improve once settled, for I haven't given them the chance to do so sofar.

[Marc van Arc]

One Centromochlus is in very bad shape. I'm afraid it's not going to make it through the day.
Can't say anything about the others as I can't see them atm.