Did you know fantastic help is an anagram of Planet Catfish? This forum is for those of you with pictures of your catfish who are looking for help identifying them. There are many here to help and a firm ID is the first step towards keeping your catfish in the best conditions.
he's (I'm guessing its a 'he' because i don't know how to sex it) about 1-2 inches long and he looks like a leaf if you just glance at him it the bottom of the tank. I'm going to get some aquarium sand for him to burrow in but all i have right now in the tank is some pebbles and little colored gravel bits. also, do you know how big he will get? sorry that the pics aren't very good. the lighting when i took the pics wasn't that great. and please include the
scientific name and common name(s) if you can.
@The.Dark.One
I looked at your pictures on your site under 'Aspredinidae' and he kind of looks like image 5 or 23 but I'm not really sure because it's a side view.
KitWitty wrote:@The.Dark.One
I looked at your pictures on your site under 'Aspredinidae' and he kind of looks like image 5 or 23 but I'm not really sure because it's a side view.
Hi
Image 5 is Bunocephalus aleuropsis, a rarely seen fish (I've only ever seen the one specimen - the one in the picture). Image 23 is B. coracoideus, a very commonly seen banjo. I would go with B. coracoideus.
well most of the pictures of Bunocephalus coracoideus have a lighter greyish coloration on the head. my banjo has a very dark brown, almost black colored head like many pictures i've seen of Bunocephalus colombianus.
They are quite variable in colour, so I wouldn't hold too much faith in that as your identification method. Bear in mind that many pictures on the Internet may be misidentified, also.
Try and get better quality pictures. Hopefully Steve (The.Dark.One) can help out here. I can honesty say I can't see any clear differences between the two species from the photos in the cat-elog. They are most likely differences that are hard to observe on live fishes.
Colour is completely unreliable in differentiating these species. Within the same species you get some that are really pale, and some that are completely brown.
colombianus tends to have the head plate more rounded and less flattened and craggy, and the posterior half of the fish tends to be shorter and not as thin when compared to coracoideus. Your fish has the characteristics of a coracoideus. Bunocephalus are quite easily misidentified because they are only usually slightly different to the immediate cursory glance (for example, I think all the photos in the clog of 'B. amaurus ' are coracoideus). From memory colombianus has fewer anal fin rays (I will check tonight to make sure).
I've double checked and colombianus has 8-9 anal fin rays, 6-8 in coracoideus, also in coracoideus the posterior processes of the coracoids are longer (the bones that can be seen underneath the body, running from the pectoral fin area back towards the ventral fins - see image in link:
